BiteSize - How to Build Resilience and Overcome Imposter Syndrome: Practical Tips for Navigating Life's Challenges.

Ever wondered how to navigate life's challenges with a positive mindset and build resilience? If you're curious about overcoming imposter syndrome and prioritizing self-care, this episode is for you.

Welcome to this episode of "It's an Inside Job Bite Size Fridays," where we delve into resilience, optimism, and well-being. In this episode, I share a remarkable story of perseverance and growth from a past conversation with Anne Gro Gulla, focusing on self-leadership and personal growth. Anna's journey of overcoming imposter syndrome and her battle with breast cancer offers profound insights into prioritizing self-care and holistic well-being.

Imagine gaining insights from someone who has faced significant adversity and emerged stronger, with a deeper appreciation for life. 

By listening to this episode, you can:

• Overcome Challenges: Learn how to navigate life's challenges with resilience and optimism.
• Prioritize Self-Care: Discover the importance of holistic self-care practices like meditation, proper nutrition, and adequate rest.
• Embrace Personal Growth: Understand how facing adversity can lead to profound personal growth and a shift in priorities.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Resilience Building: Practical advice on building resilience and overcoming imposter syndrome.
2. Holistic Self-Care: Insights into the interconnectedness of mind and body and the importance of self-care.
3. Personal Growth: Inspiration from Anna's journey of healing and self-discovery, emphasizing the transformative power of facing adversity.

Are you ready to build resilience and navigate life's challenges with a positive mindset? Scroll up and click play to join our inspiring conversation with Anna Gro Gulla. Gain the insights and strategies you need to prioritize self-care, embrace personal growth, and foster resilience.

Full Episode S3 E14:  

Turning Adversity into Strength: Learn How Curiosity & Gratitude Can Unlock Your Potential.

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to Bite Size Fridays
• 0:34 Embracing Challenges and Growth
• 1:20 Self-Leadership and Personal Growth
• 2:46 Lessons Learned from Cancer Experience
• 5:06 Understanding Core Effect and Self-Care
• 9:14 Embracing the Gift of Mortality

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] Well, welcome to It's an Inside Job Bite Size Fridays, your weekly dose of resilience, optimism, and well-being to get you ready for the weekend. Now, each week, I'll bring you insightful tips and uplifting stories to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace a more positive mindset. And so with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:35] Ever wondered how someone can navigate a life filled with unexpected challenges and still emerge resilient and curious what if embracing uncertainty and new opportunities could unlock your true potential if you're ready to be inspired by a remarkable story of perseverance and growth well i think this bite-sized episode is for you so i've pulled from the archives from season four episode 14. And this is a great conversation I had with Anna Grugula. Well, folks, I hope this episode inspires you for the weekend. And it becomes also a little bit of a wake up call to the things in your life, the things that you're grateful for, for the small moments. So sit back and enjoy as we slip into the stream with this week's Bite Size episode.

[1:20] But when it comes to self-leadership, you know, obviously, this is sometimes easier when we sit at an objective distance to help employees or help teams or whatever to move forward how have you adopted these own leadership principles to lead yourself especially when you were you know as you said for some number of years you had imposter syndrome to prove yourself has someone made a mistake by placing me here well I'm very very driven so I don't have need anyone to push me to do things and i'm very curious and all of that is easy so my so my thing uh that i've learned over the years was really to take care of myself to realize that sleep relax uh you know do just play is actually equally important so that has been my learning and and certainly when i had cancer i had to kind of you know step back and think about that that that my value is not only about being good at work and having a career and all of these things. So that was being, you know, that is about... You know, because I know more when it comes to work. I can actually work faster, you know. When I was early in my career, I would, you know, I would do something that would take me weeks that will now take me a day. So that is also something that comes with awareness.

[2:46] But to me, it's really, it's about to allow time for other things. And so if we just segue over to the cancer, what did you learn about yourself through the cancer? to the extent you wish to share?

[3:02] Breast cancer after I moved to Stockholm and I lived there for eight months and I just moved into my apartment and, you know, everything. And I had this new job and I was headhunted too. And, you know, so it was a shock, but I kind of applied this being driven and all of this equally.

[3:21] I was totally off work for three months and I did absolutely everything I could to be well. Well just this case is that meant to meditate which i had learned earlier to i went to uh to a chinese occupant to increase my you know to feel better i asked i called on absolutely everybody so key learning was that even though i am single and live alone we're not alone you need other people and I reached out to everybody to the extent that in the end when I was well again I had so many pills and so many advice that I got all sick of it and then I wrote about this in the Huffington Post actually a blog there about having cancer and I put this together in a little book that is called Jolted Back on Track and one of the learnings that I had from that was that planning is overrated so that that was you know obviously when you get cancer and everything wow is different right so planning is overrated and I also learned really how body and mind are one so when I can would come home after radiation and radiation is like you get that doesn't hurt at all but you get increasingly tired so you know at the end of this I was so tired and my mind was dark.

[4:49] I would only think negative thoughts. And I was, you know, why do I do that? You know, it was just bad, bad, bad, bad. And it was because I'm tired. So I really learned how body and mind is one.

[5:06] So taking care of your body sleeping enough you know get out of the couch see the sun you know if you feel really down for some reason you can do something about that, i'd like to just do a little deeper dive there because what you said is quite profound is understanding that the brain and the body are one that psychology and physiology cannot be be separated. And, you know, what we understand about the science is something called core effect. Effect being A-F-F-E-C-T. It's like our core emotions. I mean, anger, fear, and such, these are emotions. But what you said, to get enough sleep, nutrition, taking care of ourselves, you know, when you're feeling drained or when you're feeling energized, this is core effect. I just want the listeners to kind of, maybe this is a little bit of a hook. Core effect has two two things, something called valence. Valence is whether something feels pleasant or unpleasant. So when we feel tired or drained, that's unpleasant. When we feel hungry or thirsty, that's unpleasant. So that's valence. Then there's arousal. That's the intensity of the core effect. Depending on upon how we feel sort of physiologically will definitely affect our psychology. So for example, if I come home, my wife has put a gift on the table and I'm drained, and after a long day, I will still appreciate it and...

[6:30] Since I'm physiologically drained, that will affect my appreciation. But if I came home energized, even after a tough day, then my appreciation will be at a whole different level. And so I just want to say, because what you said is, it's very simple, but it's quite profound. It's, as you said, you were in touch with your core effect or yourself, your physiology. But may I ask, was the cancer sort of a wake-up call to be more in touch? Is that what I I understand you're communicating. I think so. I mean, I really learned this very basic thing because I've always had a lot of energy. I'm born in a car six weeks early. I learned to run before I could walk. So to me, I've always had energy as a superpower. So throughout the career, everything that I did, when others were tired and stopped, I knew that's when I start. So this was, I always had that as my kind of secret ingredients I knew I had more energy and now you know even when after I started working it took almost a year before I had energy again so for instance you know in Stockholm we had a lot of social things so it was typical to work and then go out afterwards for a whole year I could go out but I would have to go home first and relax I I've never done that in my life.

[7:52] And I went maybe half a year after I started working just for a business trip to London, which is very normal. But I went a day early. I did not go out just to, you know, make sure. I got into my second meeting and left. I had to go home and I ended up on the fast track in Heathrow, shitting and puking on the floor. I was picked up by an ambulance and I was in the hospital. And the only thing I did wrong was to overextend myself. So the superpower that I almost had relied upon of energy, I didn't have. Have and even though I'm really well today I've kind of stopped to use that superpower because I or I don't rely on it I realized that I need to feed my body mind and soul.

[8:48] In order to just have a good life you know so like I meditated for years and then for a while now i haven't and um and i've been a bit sick for the past months so i realized i have to change this so now i'm doing it again and it's only 20 minutes but you know in the morning there's thousands of things i could but i put priority on it which i did not do before and so back to.

[9:15] Because this is connected to as you said i was in a negative thoughts and this is not where you were during the cancer treatment so you found that by taking care of yourself physiologically through sleep through nutrition through what exercise you could get for example through meditation that allowed you to dissipate some of the negative thoughts and more of your normal self was coming back is that what i understand absolutely and you know you know i love meditation it's like you when you are able to step out a little bit of of the noise this you it's such a wonderful world inside us you know it's like it's heaven it's heavenly and another thing that cancer does is that you realize that you can die which is such a good thing and my parents died when they were only 67 both of cancer so it's not that I hadn't been very close to that but still and and I was told the day I got cancer that I will not die from it but still you kind of you know in your bad thoughts it's in there you meet a lot of people during treatment, that do die so it all of a sudden is like a topic but being aware that you can die that is such a gift it's also a bit profound so that the fact that your days are numbered.

[10:44] Is a fantastic thing to know.

[10:48] I think logically everybody knows their days or number at some point, you know, the lights go out, but emotionally, a lot of us don't get that. And sometimes that I've heard this time and time again, I used to work with trauma as many of my listeners knew like years and years, decades ago, literally.

[11:05] And it's just that a lot of people who come through the trauma say it's sometimes 90% of them, I'd say if I had to put a number on it would say that was the best thing that ever happened to me because it did give me a wake up call. Again, it depends on what type of trauma. So I don't mean to generalize across the board here, but such as disease, such as cancer, when you can come back from it, it's like the greatest thing that's happened to them in a twisted kind of sense, because it really clarifies and they become cognizant of, as you said, what the values are. And it's not about finding balance, about finding integration between investing in my job, investing in my kids, my relationships, in myself, whatever, my health. And is this what i understand that cancer was your wake-up call in a sense absolutely and again this was in the summer i was diagnosed on 25th of june and operated on twice in july so it was summer and i can sometimes think about those months and long back almost because all i did 24 7 was working on getting well and having a good time and taking care of myself and And so I don't want to do it again, but I can still think about it with really joy in my mind when I think about it.

[12:22] Music.

[12:28] If you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? You'll find the link in the episode in the show notes. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational episodes on Monday and the latest Bite Sites episode on Friday. And have yourself a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend.

[12:48] Music.