Guy Reams (00:02.904)
Today's day 29 under your control. So today I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. So I've been traveling this week. So my videos aren't as good. Sorry. That is if anybody ever watches these things, but who cares? So I was thinking, so I was in the Detroit airport and then I was at the Atlanta airport.
As I've been traveling through the airports, I've noticed a lot of conversation about the political election that happened this week. both Atlanta and Detroit were big cities and swing states. So as I get into Ubers and go to my appointments and stuff, I've heard lots of commentary from people regarding the political elections.
And in some cases, some people are really in anguish, like crying and in tears and upset. They have a lot emotionally invested in the outcome of the election. And I don't blame people, because there is a lot of hype about it. So I mean, I don't blame them for feeling the way they do. But I thought as I was watching this couple talking about the election that was sitting across from me at the airport,
And they were just really distraught. thought, that's what prompted me to think about dealing with things that are under my control. You know, there's so much going on in my life, so much good and bad and stress. You know, I think how much better it is to live life where you're just focused on what is under your control. Like stress what you can deal with.
What I have an impact on or what I could have an impact on, that is what I should be the most worried about. So if I'm spending my time and energy and stress and all the anxiety worried about things outside of my control, I feel like that's just completely unnecessary worrying. You have no control over things like political elections or at least on the national scale. You might actually have an influence on a local election.
Guy Reams (02:26.284)
Like if you wanted to help somebody get elected to school board, you could probably have a pretty significant impact because you you can go literally knock doors and probably get somebody to help you or to vote a certain way. And in small community elections, you know, oftentimes there's only a couple hundred people that actually vote. So, I mean, you could have an impact, but in a national election, you don't have any impact. There's nothing you can really do unless of course you're mega wealthy.
which I'm not, so I don't have to worry about that. you know, if you, if I was thinking about this, if I spend all my time constantly ruminating and thinking about other people's thoughts and feelings about other people, future events, distant worries, then I lose the chance to spend the energy on what actually matters in my life right now or.
I don't focus on where I can actually have an impact in other people's lives. Like I might be able to help somebody if I were to stop spending my time worrying about some other distant thing that I have no control over. I think there's power in dealing with what is in your own circle. So, you know, this idea aligns with a lot of philosophy out there. I've read many writers that talk about this circle of control concept.
If your mindset is focused on what is in your immediate control and what you can directly influence, then you just end up being more effective as a person. Just think about it. When you get worried about things that are outside of your control, you spend all this time in anguish and angst worried about that. Rather, if you spend time working on fixing the thing that's in front of you that you actually have control over, that's time well spent.
There's scientific studies about stress reduction. I've read a lot of them because they're actually kind of fascinating. Scientists, researchers have spent a lot of time thinking about what causes stress, what causes anxiety, how to possibly reduce it. And what's interesting about that is they've discovered that stress and anxiety are direct causal factors to poor health.
Guy Reams (04:50.554)
I think we knew that instinctively. mean, you could tell when you're anxious and stressed out, you can tell it's having an impact on you. I think we all know this. But one of the things that does come out in those studies is that people that are more mindful, like people that know and can deal with what's right there in front of them, it gives them a sense of agency. It gives them a sense of power over their lives, which is
one of the major stress reductors reduct reduct reducers sorry so there are practical ways that you can learn to control this first off daily intention like i talk about this a lot every morning i wake up and i write down my intent for the day now i may not actually achieve it but i try and i write that down i commit to that you can do this in a variety of ways i mean there's no one way to do it but
I've noticed that the most successful people tend to be very focused every day by really narrowing down to what they can actually critically do in one day. so being having that daily intent is important. I think also as part of that exercise, taking a pause to realize what you have, like,
Like this morning I was really worried about some things. So I sat and pondered, what could I do today and what do I have around me? And I realized I've got a great opportunity in front of me. There's some great opportunity that is in my control and I should be grateful for that. And that really reduced the anxiety feeling. I think it's also important secondly to notice triggers in your life. There are certain things that I have that trigger me. Like if one or two things
don't go right, then I'm like a basket full of stress. So I've started, you know, it's taken five decades, but I've gotten to the point now where I know that's gonna hurt, right? That I'm gonna be stressing about that. So I think you should notice the triggers and deal with them head on, right? If you know that something's gonna cause you to go off rails, then you should probably deal with that, right? So.
Guy Reams (07:12.47)
Maybe don't turn on and watch the news all the time, right? Maybe that's just a bad idea. I think you can also take action. So if you've got accumulated amount of stress in your life and it's causing you pain, oftentimes a little bit of action to resolve just one of those things can dramatically reduce the stress. I've talked about this before. I have this thing called the theory of three.
Once I get to four things in my mind, I'm overwhelmed. I can seem to handle three critical things at any one time. I can't handle four. So the second I get to four, I'm feeling stressed out. I can focus on just reducing that one. And by doing it, I get back down to three and I feel better. So those are some of the practical things I think you can actually do to focus on what's more in your control.
Creating a life that's focused and intentional, I think is the key here. So as you approach making commitments that change your life, be very intentional about it. Like, wake up every day and make sure that you focus on that commitment and hone in your mind on it. And you may not succeed every day, but if every morning you focus that intention, that creates a pathway.
that becomes meaningful and it allows you as a person to focus your mind on what's actually under your control. And I think that is probably one of the secrets to stress reduction.