Starting a new job can be very stressful, but stress is a feature of every job everywhere and it’s not always a bad thing.  A healthy level of stress can help us be at our best. But in our high pressured, fast-paced world how can we keep our stress levels at a ‘healthy’ level? In this final episode of Season 1, I talk to Kirsten Goodwin, a career coach who specialises in helping professional women find positive ways of handling stress at work.  Pick up a wealth of practical tips as Kirsten talks about her experiences in tackling stress herself and with her clients.  Visit www.kirstengoodwin.co.uk to find the Success without Stress short course.

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Transcript

Elise
Kirsten thank you so much for joining me on her career her life I'm really delighted to have you because I think that you can add some great value to our listeners in terms of the experience that you've had the coaching that you do the coaching training that you did I'm really interested in that but most importantly your approach to managing stress at work so thank you for joining me .
Kirsten 
Thank you very much for inviting me 
Elise
You're very welcome so let's just give our listeners a taste of who you are now and we both had really senior positions but in slightly different backgrounds so I kind of grew up in my career in corporate life and whilst I was doing that you were doing it in in civil service so we both had senior positions we've managed teams we've worked in tough environments many of them male-dominated we've both traveled quite a lot for our career but I've been really fascinated by your career backgrounds especially at the National Crime Agency so tell us a bit more about that.
Kirsten
I started my career in the civil service as I sort of it almost felt like an obvious next step from this kind of high achieving traditional pattern I went through their academic girls school Oxford's civil service and I started off actually specializing in European Union work which was really fascinating I including spending two years working in Brussels negotiating legislation for the UK which was an amazing experience sitting around the table with all the European partners and you know seeing all the different cultural stereotypes coming to life which they really did and the Swedes really did want an environmental clause and every single bit of legislation which was you know brilliant to see and but then I took a sideways turn after a few years former boss of mine ended up working in Customs and Excise he was asked to join them because they realized that they were they didn't have sufficient kind of strategy and policy skill to really kind of play the Whitehall game in the way that some of the other two government departments did so he was specifically asked to come up the skill level of in their strategy and policy work and he asked me to apply for a job there so I ended up I actually applied for a job as the head of tax policy which given I'd been specializing in kind of single market stuff wasn't that far away from what I had been doing and then on my first day in the new job he said to me oh by the way we've given you two teams because somebody's just left so you're not only the head of tax policy you're now at the head of drugs policy as well which was something I knew literally nothing about it was an interesting suddenly not one team but two not one area specially isn't but two and one of them but I had well neither of which I had any knowledge of but it actually ended up being the start of five years working in the world of law enforcement and I really grew to love and the style of work I was working with proper hard core investigators you know the kinds of people that sort of kick in doors and you know sitting cars tracking people dealing with the real real drug dealers you know the real kind of high-level criminals and and my challenge was to build my credibility because obviously I had none I hadn't grown up in this world in law enforcement and because I had been brought across from the world of policy I actually came across at a much more senior level than people normally do at this age so my peers were men 20 years older than me who had been kicking in doors for 20 years and I had to help them understand the value of what I as here to do and how I could help them do their jobs better by giving them the tools that they needed working with Whitehall to get the right kind of firm bits of legislation um and it ended up being an amazing partnership my boss in the Nationals now the National Crime Agency was a former commander in the Metropolitan Police and he really understood the value of what I had to offer and he made the most of it and he was an incredibly inspiring leader he ended up as the deputy director general of the National Crime Agency and I really did love it but it was probably the hardest context to chew used to do strategy and policy work in the whole Whitehall so sometimes I question whether that was a good idea 
Elise
There is so much in there I want to unpack and immediately I'm kind of drawn to wanting to ask you about what you think about brexit and the European Union and Boris and everything else that's going on right now in the UK but maybe we should exit that conversation rather quickly politics them put the politics aside quite some time that conversation I'm sure I'm sure and maybe we could do that offline I'd be I'd be fascinated by your point of view but just going back to some of the things that you faced during that period then some of those I really recognized from my corporate career.  Going into a job that suddenly immediately changes you know expands and is in an area that you don't necessarily think that you have the right experience or expertise that can be that can be really challenging yeah and it's usually in that environment where you find yourself in what I call a greenfield job a job where there is no incumbent where you're not taking over from somebody else yes and usually what it means is there's no job description there's no clear performance measures you know this there's no clear Network or ways of getting that job done so that's incredibly challenging as well.
Kirsten
It's also an amazing opportunity it is I mean I ended up when I look back across my civil service career I think I had about six or seven different roles and only one of them was a job which was previously defined I ended up music I think it must have something to do my personality you know I was really interested in those types of jobs because when when there is no existing framework it's up to you to shape it the way that you want it to be and that is I mean yes that's a challenge but the opportunity to really make a difference is even greater and I really enjoyed that

Elise
There's something else that we have in common because when I looked back over my career history I found two out of my 16 jobs that actually were established before I joined in that role so you know only two of those had somebody that I had you know to have a cut even a conversation with about what the job was about yeah so so I agree with you it can be incredibly invigorating and and a huge positive challenge but is definitely the challenge.  Then the other two things that I noticed you said we're all so familiar to me being young in the role that you were thrust into however positive that is in terms of you grabbing the opportunity you know that can really bring on on on board all sorts of self doubts about am i up to this you know am I going to be found out a lot of impostor syndrome type thoughts and that can be made worse as well by the male-dominated environment don't you think?
 Kirsten
Very much so, but actually what I found in the Law enforcement was that I was so different I was a different kind of animal  
Elise
Like a unicorn?
Kirsten
yeah exactly I mean I I was I was 20 years younger I was female and I wasn't law enforcement I mean they were my grade I think it was one in five or women you know there are about three directors  that were women they was they were so rare and even they were all women who had had law enforcement backgrounds so I mean I am what actually that became was a real point difference for me I didn't wear suits I had this kind of white blond hair and I used to wear black dresses and you know I stood out instantly but physically from my kind of youth and fact that I was a woman and the fact that I didn't try and kind of conform sort of outwardly um but also I just I I had this I think this comes with youth as well I had this kind of insane self belief I really knew that I knew what I was doing they didn't know that I knew what I was doing because they didn't understand the world of strategy and policy but I fundamentally believe that I had something to ask so I I had this I kept that even in the times of you know real real challenge I mean and they were I mean my last job I was asked by my boss to kind of completely reorganize and reconstruct his department he just taken over the the international department which has a there was a network of overseas officers and there was a UK end and there were relationships in foreign office I mean it was very very complex massive relationships with EU bodies as well and they were cynical they were negative they were again all men 20 years older than me and you know the challenge of dealing with that was enormous but I just knew that I had the right skills because I believed in myself and I had a track record of of achieving where I had come from and so I really had to rely on that that kind of sense of self belief plus my boss believed in me and that that also made a huge difference is having having that confidence from him he given me the job he knew he gave me the job he knew I could do it and so that those two things and choosing to make her a sort of virtue of my difference was was what really really helped but that was that was the hardest job I've ever done
Elise
okay so that all sounds incredibly positive and I'm delighted that you had this innate sense of self belief and also that you had a very supportive boss sometimes though you know we our self belief can fail us you know when we're when we're faced with challenges that that seem to wash over us and can overcome that self belief and you know when we're in that situation how were you able to cling on or reconnect to that sense of yes I'm the right person in the right job and I can add the right value here?
Kirsten
That's a good question I think kind of youthful enthusiasm was a part of it definitely but I also think I trusted my judgment I mean I let let's not overstate this while all this was going on not not the final year project because I'd sorted out my issues by then and I was suffering from stress-related panic attacks I was suffering from chronic fatigue which meant that every six weeks or so I would crash so you know I was I was kind of functioning and very much succeeding in my job but at the same time dealing with a huge amount of mental health issues I've never told anybody about of course cuz you know that wouldn't do that you know that's one thing I really hope now is I didn't tell anybody for years I wouldn't go on two more not going left or you know all those sorts of things so I think there was a slightly for me personally it was a slightly strange combination of absolute confidence in my ability to do the job while at the same time really really struggling with things like panic attacks and fatigue

Elise
okay so the pressures of the job were you know coming through you weren't able to you know  manage them quite as effectively with your your sense of self belief and your support from your boss?
Kirsten
as you as you mentioned I can do the job and I was able to do the job and I believed I could do the job but at the same time the thing that the my challenge wasn't doing the job my challenge was dealing with my my panic attacks and then chronic fatigue and to me this is this was a something they were very separate they one of them was a completely personal struggle that I didn't really see the link with stress at all for many years and then the other one was my kind of public persona where I was succeeding and you know it's being seen to succeed  
Elise
I'm getting
this kind of vision of the you know the archetypal swan on the lake where you're kind of looking very serene and beautiful and you know in composed in your environment but underneath the surface you're struggling away to you know combat the currents and and keep moving in the right direction, does that resonate? 
 Kirsten
very much so and I don't I mean I don't think anybody realized the level of struggle apart from perhaps my boss because he saw how much I mean I ended up taking some quite serious periods of sick leave but because I was so effective while I was in the job while I was there he would always kind of you know welcomed me back with open arms and so I don't think many people realize just how much of a struggle it was and looking back now and you know I mean I recently took a plane and then a series of tubes and then a plane again and I almost didn't notice it whereas 10 years ago and I'd have had to take drugs to get on the plane and I would literally have never been on the tube because every time I got on the tube I had a panic attack and this was just kind of something I began to accept as a normal part of my life you know and and that is almost the worst bit of it I just sort of ended up living with it and not trying to ever deal with it until it all got to the point where it all got so bad.
Elise
How did you manage your life around that? because you know I know that you were traveling for your work you're working in Brussels you know you were engaged with high-profile meetings which must have meant that you had to travel how did you how did you manage the logistics of that?
 Kirsten
well Brussels was amazing because I just got there on the train trains were fine you know it's really lucky that that was some you know I was working any you stuff at the time so trains were absolutely fine and then apart from that and he travel I needed to do around London for example and I took a taxi or I walked if because I'm working why mall you know yeah it's very close together it was quite funny actually once I ended up I was speaking at a is to do a lot of work with banking sector working with the kind of regulations around financial reporting and I was asked a speaker to Barclays conference and it was the timing of it was just shortly after very important meeting at my head office and I would have been able to get there on the tube just about in time but I don't take the tube and taxis across London at that time they would be a nightmare so I ended up taking a taxi bike and all of my team thought this was like the coolest thing ever you know I'm going on oh you know I was on the back of a bike and I had all the jacket and I was hooked up with the speaker to the driver and but the real reason was I couldn't take the tube anybody know  
Elise
ok well that's really interesting but you said that at the time you didn't make this connection between all of these challenges that were overwhelming you on a daily basis and actually affecting your you know the logistics of how you ran your life yeah and also this this crash and burn that you had every six weeks tell us a little bit more about that 
Kirsten
well this this was the the chronic fatigue manifests in very different ways to different people so kind of what people think of as chronic fatigue if somebody is very tired and can't really move huge but for me I had a boom and bust cycle and it started from when I was 17 and I had vanjor fever and then I  ended up with something called post viral syndrome which if you if you get it after not having a virus is basically chronic fatigue you end up right I'm not able to move very much and that lasted about six weeks and then I eventually got better and you know at the time I was editing the school newspaper directing the school play you know I was at the secretary young enterprise group I was doing three a-levels and I was in the choir I was in the woodwind ensemble I mean you know the amount of things I was doing was just ridiculous and that is you know looking back now it's so bloody obvious sorry but it is just so obvious the link between trying to do too much and then my my health and and then after that the pattern was set I would just go full Peltz and till I crashed and for a long time it was a kind of a roughly six week cycle and I'd be in bed for a weekend and then I just go again and then every few years it would get to the point where the crash would be longer so I would be you know off work for say three months it's time and that happened maybe three times and it was after the third time that I got to the point where I was just like I can't this you know this something that had become normal I used to call it my illness you know it was something that was I just assumed was something that had become part of who I was and I just thought this is no longer I don't want to live like this I have to make too many choices about how to spend my energy you know like you say I mean try living in London without ever taking the tube it's not easy and it just was too limiting life was becoming too limited by what this thing that I called my illness and that's when I really started a year's worth of investigating 

Elise
When did you make the connection between your illness and stress that you know the cause of it?

Kirsten
When I found the thing that worked so it was all about the power of the mind-body connection so what I learned was that I had been thinking myself you know stress stress as a part of life stresses to normal part of life the physician who first said defined stress in the 1930s a man called handsome yo he said it's not the stress that kills you is your reaction to it and that is that is so so true for me because I was in this very stressful world where I had deliberately chosen to work in the hardest possible place to do my kind of work and but I was making it so much worse for myself by the way I was thinking and reacting to the situations and when I learned that and learned how to change the way I thought I haven't been ill once since I still get stressed obviously that's normal but now I know how to react to those triggers in a way that is not going to lead me to that place anymore of illness and a panic attacks 
 Elise
Tell us a little bit more about how you learnt  that connection I'm fascinated to hear about that well
Kirsten
Well the the key thing to learn about is about this thing called neuroplasticity so the brain changes depending on the thoughts that you think that literally physically changes so the more often you think of thoughts the stronger than neural pathway becomes they've actually filmed it the the synapse is get closer together so it becomes literally a path of least resistance so you are more likely to think that thought in the future so I had a lot of very unhelpful neural pathways that were hitting me from you know into a place of kind of stress and panic and illness and and I learned that you can if you catch those thoughts early enough you can change them to positive thoughts and therefore change the impact of them so the best way to describe it is and imagine a field with two gates on either side and as people walk across that field between those gates gradually the grass gets worn away and then everybody ends up walking on the same path even more because it's the obvious path but if you think of one of those gates being moved suddenly a new path is created and the crucial bit is the grass regrows over the old path and that is that is exactly the same as happens in the brain if you can divert your thoughts away from those old unhelpful pathways you can create new strong pathways that are taking you to places of calm and balance and you know it required efforts and work to catch myself at the beginning stages of feeling stressed or having unhelpful thoughts that were to really you know in reaction to the place around me since situations I was in but over time those those no negative pathways the with it and now my positive pathways are the strong parts of least resistance  
Elise
Did you learn this through work with a coach or physical   
Kirsten
No I did there's a man called Phil Parker who actually ended up during my training with to be a coach and he has developed a process which it's called the Lightning process and it's all about how to it's a it's a tool that you can use when you catch yourself with one of these negative thoughts to transfer yourself into a into a positive state instead and it's it's completely transformational and that is why when I decided to become a coach I ended up training with him because I knew I had the kind of I knew that I wanted to be a coach but because I loved the coaching and mentoring part  of my job when I look back across all those years in civil service it's the coaching and mentoring helping people get promoted you know people used to come to me and they would leave on promotion because they've learnt new skills you know I'd help them with the job applications like kind of open theireyes intelligence officers would suddenly become strategy people you know it was brilliant
 Elise
It's wonderful isn't it? it's such a gift to yourself to be able to help somebody else in in that sense I
feel exactly the same way   
Kirsten
Exactly it's completely amazing and when I look back you know sadly the world of government things change so often but a lot of the things I setup don't exist anymore because politics changes and you know ministers change but I know that my legacy kind of lives on if that's not to profound the O's in the in the people that I helped in the people I coach their mentors so that that for me was very clear I wanted to do that and I knew I had the kind of skills and background in it because of my management experience but I also knew that I wanted an additional element of understanding about how to help people with their mindset with limiting beliefs with these kind of unconscious blocks that we all have and so that's why I ended up training with this this same person because he's a specialist in all that kind of stuff  
Elise
Yeah a lot of what you've been talking about is really resonating with me because I talked to my coaching clients a lot about retraining our thoughts and creating a new way of looking at situations that aren't necessarily how we assume we you know we've seen things before and I think that those retraining of your thoughts is absolutely possible but it's not easy is it it can be quite a challenge especially if those thoughts are deeply ingrained and you've been telling yourself the same thing over and over again for maybe years 
Kirsten
yes and no.  So yes in the extent that you know those patterns are then kind of deeply ingrained and you have that so strong neural pathway but another way of looking at it is there will once have been a time when you believed in Father Christmas or the tooth fairy and there will have been a moment when you stopped believing and that will not have been hard that that transition from belief to not belief it can be easy so sometimes it's quite important to remember that you know people people can think our change is hard but change can be easy and actually thinking that change can be easy can also be quite helpful when you're trying to achieve change so I think we have to be realistic about yes you know you are then trying to kind of retrain the brain and you're trying to divert cure self away from these well-trodden neural pathways but there are there are and will be times in everybody's life and I asked I also can't this once and she's never been leaving on Christmas and she'd never believe in the tooth fairy so I was like oh dear another example oh he didn't have any of this she was Americans maybe why but but I said okay did you ever believe that your parents were invincible? and she was like yes so you know they would everybody will have an example in their life and when they believe something and then they stopped believing it in and if that would have been easy.
Elise
So it's like a switch?
Kirsten
yeah exactly exactly and I think it can be really helpful to remember that to rember it is possible
Elise
One of the things that I talk to my clients a lot about is their stress triggers, is that something you can talk to us about?

Kirsten
Yeah absolutely so I actually have a stress diary which you can download on my websites so whenever I work with people who've got particular issues with stress this is something that I suggest they start with so you know keep a diary for a week to keep a track of .  Also think about which places exactly how does it manifest itself in your body?  Some people have it in their shoulders some people I'm a Jaw clencher I always feel it in my jaw some people get headaches some people get snappy and they might not have physical symptoms but they might have behavioural symptoms so if you spend a week identifying kind of the the situations that lead you to have those reactions and also what might  be happening before you know if there's a pre-staged and then also to understand what your actions are then you can you know ask the fundamental of grounding for changing your reaction to stress is to have that self awareness as a starting point and then once you have it you can take the next step. 
Elise
Exactly, I think that you know that can that mind-body connection and tuning into where you're feeling the stress in your body is such a powerful tool for self awareness 
Kirsten
yeah absolutely so I used to think I'm invincible and I'm not gonna ask for help.  Which is again something I've worked on a lot over the years and I'm encouraging everybody to ask for help if they ever feel any of these things but I never asked for help with my panic attacks and I actually taught myself how to stop having a panic attack by focusing on my my triggers focusing on those physical sensations so I would notice things like my breathing would start to speed up and my shoulders would start to tense and my palms would get sweaty and just by doing taking physical steps to reverse those symptoms so I would consciously relax my shoulder that was consciously slow my breathing and I would be able to head off the panic attack I used to describe it like end up going down a spiral staircase and when I when I couldn't when I didn't know what to do that that descent was inevitable you know I'd end up on the first step and then as soon as I on the first step be down at the bottom and then over time I we don't even get to the first step you know I would then recognize okay I'm on the first step I would be able to bring myself back out of it again and you know again the power of neuroplasticity the more you do that the stronger that pathway becomes and I haven't had a panic attack now for years I sometimes they'll end up on the first step if a tube stops in this tunnel you know sometimes I can feel myself and I breathe and I but you catch yourself in time to be able to study yeah okay never goes in never descents  
Elise
yeah and there you know there is the power of self awareness isn't it?
 Kirsten
Yeah exactly knowing where this is going to go if you don't physically intervene yeah yeah and then no and then knowing for me it was as simple as directly reversing those symptoms I mean you can do all sorts of different things so um one technique I really recommend is something called box breathing and this is a very very simple way if you're if you're ever feeling in a in a state which you are not comfortable with whether that stress or panic or anxiety wherever it is um you can help find your calm just by doing box breathing this is very simple so shall I  demonstrate?

Elise
Yes please do
Kirsten
Just breathe in for for slowly one and then hold it for four and then breathe out for four and thenhold for four so you can see you're kind of creating a box and then you just repeat and I it is instantly calming I mean it can't help but be instantly calming and the something else I wanted to talk about was the the important difference we acute and chronic stress is that it's now a good time to talk about that, or come on to that in a bit? 
Elise
no absolutely I mean one of the things that I'm really interested in understanding is what advice you can give our listeners who are you know season one has been mostly about how to start well in a new corporate job or any any big job you know it would have been useful to you I'm sure in terms of your background in the civil services because we're facing largely the same challenges but all of those challenges one on top of the other you know the the stress of starting something new let having to  earn and meet so many new people the stress of expectation that we put on ourselves and yeah but we anticipate  ther people have a well you know that can bring on this this this kind of like tsunami of little triggers can mount up and what I was wondering is on top of you know getting closer to your understanding yourself and tuning into your own mind-body connection and yourself-awareness how else can we listen and watch out for when we might be stress?
 Kirsten
Yeah absolutely so I think this there's two elements to this and the first one is a kind of practical one which is watch out for your language so language is so important the way we talk to ourselves is so important and one of the things that I used to suffer from was what I used to call the tyrannical 'should' so this is when you are always telling  yourself I should I ought to I need to and all you are doing is piling on the  pressure and it's this classic thing you know that the stress will be there it's inevitable given the situation but if you start talking about should and ought to and must and need to you are just ramping up that level of stress and that is so unhelpful and it's avoidable. it's absolutely avoidable so I I would suggest  just a little story here so I recognized the importance of this once when I was and when I had had learned about the power of the mind-body connection I was doing some investigation into different ways of looking at it and I went to see somebody who specialized in kind of physical therapy so using movements to understand yourself and we were talking about this should and he asked me to start stand-up and he gave me one after the other I held out my arms and he gave me this kind of pile of really heavy floor cushions here in Thailand and they have these really heavy cushions and he piled it on one on any pardon on only Parliament wanna and he said to me do you want any more and I mean my arms were aching I was holding up my arm sure anymore and I was like no this is this is really I mean this is bad enough already and he said every one of these is a shirt you are carrying around all of these shirts and the choice is yours whether or not you have anymore and the choice is yours whether or not you put them down and it was so vivid to me this kind of physical manifestation the weight of these cushions in my arms was astonishing
Elise 
I think they're very powerful metaphor thank you for sharing

Kirsten
quite amazing isn't it so yeah I really the thing to choose sorry the word choose I choose to I I would like to I wish to it can have exactly the same ending but suddenly the power of that the negative power of that word is taken away and that will that will really make a difference to the pressure that you're putting on yourself because that that's a practical thing that the kind of overarching thing I wanted to say around this was it's about being kind to yourself you know um I went to see woman called Marie Forleo recently and she said patience is the most underrated superpower and I think when you first start in a new job you are so impatient to make a difference and to make your mark and to be seen to be succeeding and actually that can be run completely counter to you achieving those goals I mean  you talked about this you know you can't do it all at once and you can't do it alone
Elise
don't hit the ground running 
Kirsten
thank you exactly don't hit the ground on you don't try and jump before you already give yourself that time to understand the context to understand the priorities you know to understand the people and the politics and give yourself time to build up that Network because you can't do it alone you will need a supportive network around you so in order to be able to give yourself that time you need to need it is better to choose to be patient and to try and operate within that sense of I am the kind of guy on the tortoise not the hare you know and be kind to yourself allow yourself that time. 
Elise
absolutely and if anybody hasn't listened to episodes I think it's three and four of this podcast where we we talk about really the power of patience not hitting the ground running because you're likely to end up flat on your face and giving giving yourself the time to be successful in your new role rather than leaping at something which may not actually be the right thing I would really encourage you to go back and listen to those episodes again if you if this if this message is resonating with you okay well this has been a really amazing conversation I'm so grateful for all of the information that you shared and some of those practical tips are fantastic just before we leave though Kirsten is there a myth that you'd like to bust about stress?
Kirsten
Definitely this is brilliant because this brings in the acute and chronic thing so people have this perception that stress is bad actually I mean yes stress is a part of life the there are two types of stress one is the acute type and this is the type of stress that has literally kept Homo sapiens alive you know it's the fight-or-flight response though there will be times in our life where we are experiencing either you know real danger or perceived danger and you know our heart rate will increase to get the blood round pumping around our body our breathing will increase to get the oxygen in you know and you will feel those physical responses but they are there for a reason you know they were to get us away from the saber-tooth Tiger that was chasing us in you know a long long time ago that physical response is still there and that response is not is not bad that is the spawn response is completely normal thing that when it becomes dangerous to us and the kind of stress that this man-hands seller was researching is the chronic type and this is when we don't
give our body time to recover in between these acute episodes and this is a product of this kind of always on modern world that we're in you know we end up in situations where we are we are in fight or flight we're having these acute and responses far too often and most importantly they are too close together so it takes between 20 minutes to an hour to recover from a stress episode and the fight-or-flight response and if you end up in acute stress in that period again you are never getting a chance to recover so your body has to current governing systems it's got the sympathetic nervous system which is the bit that kind of activates you and then it's got the parasympathetic system nervous system which is the one that calms you down and the the one thing that people can do that will make a difference in a long-term is to learn how to activate their parasympathetic nervous system through something like Box breathing you know getting into state you can go outside go for a walk that really helps you know meditation all of these sorts of things that will help  learn how to calm yourself more quickly and effectively so you don't end up in this in this chronic condition because the acute bit is the inevitable one stretch you will get stressed but the chronic stress which is what happens when you don't recover in between that's the one that's dangerous and that's the one that we can avoid by learning how to deal with our stress triggers better and learning how to recover in between 
Elise
and I think that you know what I'd add to that is this what you're describing as acute stress is what I would call positive tension yeah it's kind of you know when you are feeling as though you need to perform in a certain way maybe when you're you know getting ready to present it maybe you know when you're preparing for a difficult conversation it may be maybe at this time of year when you're preparing to go into your performance review and your boss I don't know you know but that's when we you know our nervous system kicks in and gets us ready to perform at our best and I think you know one of the things that we can do is kind of try and harvest in terms of taking the postitive out of the situation and helping us to perform our best and recognizing that it's there to help us but you know then being able to calm ourselves down after that and come back to a normal situation so that we've experienced both the high and the you know the low the calming effects afterwards as well 
Kirsten
yeah now I absolutely agree I love that phrase positive tension and that's a really good way of putting it and this another thing I heard Marie Forleo say she was saying that before Bruce Springsteen goes on stage to perform he gets the sweaty palms he gets the butterflies you know he gets his heart beating and he says to himself this means I am ready to rock and I just thought I was brilliant and I thought if you can reframe it like that you know especially if you're gonna do it you know it's the presentation or any of these things we're talking about this means I am ready you go rather than I'm feeling nervous oh my god it's gonna make it worse no actually this is a this isn't this is positive tension this is a good thing this is going to help you perform at your best in this situation when you need it  
Elise
important part of that story is that we will always feel it because our body's natural reaction so how many times does Bruce Springsteen performed on stage the fact that he still gets the sweaty palms you know is a positive sign that he's still excited he still wants to give his best performances and that's why his body is reacting in that way yeah exactly so they see all of these tips are really fantastic but I know that you've got a new short course available why don't you tell us a bit about that 
Kirsten
Yes so and as you can tell stress and being with stress is something that I'm typically passionate about from my own experiences and seeing how how much of initiatives my clients so I've recently developed a it's a 30 day course that is designed to help you transform the way you deal with stress so it's it's one tiny little piece of information or tiny little tip each day over the 30 days though it's very much designed not to help people it's not to get people more stressed you know I don't want people to start doing a stress course and not overwhelmed by it that would be a bad outcome so it is it's tiny bite-size steps to help build yourself awareness that helped you understand some of these really small things that you can be doing that will make a big difference and you can get it on my website which is www.kirstengoodwin.co.uk and you can get it there.
Elise
we will also put the link in the show notes and I'll be promoting it on LinkedIn too so we have so much in common Kirsten I mean not least that we both had very high flying careers decided to exit those and retrain to become coaches so that we can help women in similar situations that we faced and succeeded to you know overcome yes but there are a few others have come to light during this conversation as well so we're both fans of Marie Forleo I've just finished her new book 'Everything is figureoutable' and taken her online course for that as well we're both big fans of Mallorca  yes so I think we both knew that but there's one that you might not know which is we both met our husbands on holiday 
Kirsten
Oh how fun! so that's quite a lot of coincidences quite a lot of combinations 
Elise
yeah isn't it just!  so this has been a delight thank you so much I'm sure that our listeners will get tons of benefit from your experience I just want to thank you for coming on this conversation with me 
Kirsten
it's been a complete pleasure it's lovely to talk to you thank you very much too