Episode. It’s Not A Calendar Problem, It’s a You Problem with Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza
Transcript
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 00:00.246
In life, there's two types of games. There's finite games and infinite games. Finite games are the games that we're used to playing a beginning and an end. It's like Monopoly or like a basketball game or something where there's always an evident winner and a loser. Infinite games are games that have a different rule book. The point of an infinite game in order for you to win per se is by lasting the longest in there. So marriages, business, relationships. All of those are infinite games where the way you win is by lasting the longest. So the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is that we go into business thinking it's a finite game where there's a winner and a loser. If I keep doing this long enough, eventually I will win. I will get to the point where I no longer have to work. That is not the case. As business owners we know the way that we win this game is by adapting, by assessing, by planning.
By doing all of these different strategies and then continuously checking in. Same thing as I'm telling you, do a body check-in. You're doing the same things with your business, checking in what's working, what's not working. How can I improve? How can I make things easier? How can I hire people? How can I add my community to assist? And you have to be able to think of this new mentality with new set of rules.
Theme Music - 01:29.486
Welcome to The Ownership Game with Gary Montalvo. What would it take to get into the driver's seat of your life and leave your mark? The Ownership Game starts now. We live in a culture that glorifies the hustle, where productivity is praised, overworking is normalized, and rest, well, you can sleep when you're dead.
And while the hustle starts out with good intentions, discipline, ambition, building something meaningful, when it's all left unchecked, the hustle can also lead to burnout. That drive that helped you succeed is now the thing that is pushing you over the edge. And that's what happened to my guest today, Dr. Jaime Reigosa. Before he was a psychologist and coach helping others build healthier and more intentional lives.
Dr. Jaime was deep in hustle mode, grinding through a hundred hours a week with school, work, and internships, all driven by this unspoken need to succeed until a near fatal car accident quite literally forced him to stop and rethink it all. In this conversation, we talk about how trauma and identity shape our work ethic, the psychological signs of burnout that most people ignore and what it really looks like to reset your nervous system and rebuild your life from a place of inner peace, not the pressure to achieve. If you've been hustling at the cost of your peace of mind, if you've ignored your body and health in the name of productivity, if you know burnout is creeping in, but you just don't know how to stop yourself, well buckle up my friend because this episode is for you. Let's get into it.
Gary Montalvo - 03:26.176
Okay, Dr. Jaime, I'm really excited to have you on the show. You know, before we get into the meat of it, why don't we just get some background, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, your background. And I'm always curious when I speak to coaches and therapists and healers, like, what got you there, right? Like, how did you want that to be your career path?
So let's get into it.
Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me on. I'm very excited. My story is interesting, to say the least. So my name is Dr. Jaime, and I have been in the mental health field for about 15 years. And the way that I got into coaching is
So I, growing up Latino, I'm first generation, my parents didn't, here at a young age, met each other, had me. I didn't learn any English until I was like, what, 13? And I've always kind of struggled. And also being a person who has ADHD and was undiagnosed until his 30s, I was always kind of called lazy. I wasn't really good at school. So I always had to try.
10 times harder than the average individual. And people just always kind of discouraged me from doing better. When I was in high school, I had this high school counselor that told me straight up, she just had me sitting in her office and said, it's okay if you don't accomplish anything in life. There's certain people that are meant to just work at McDonald's and that's just you. And she's like, if you...
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 05:13.15
You ever want to like, you like, we see your grades, you see your effort, we see that you're really trying, but it's okay, you don't have to go to college. And it just like really took me it was very off putting and I was like, Yes. And, you know, fortunately for me that was like a fire under my ass to kind of like be fine.
Excuse me, ma'am.
Gary Montalvo - 05:33.006
Her. You should go back and find her right now and be like, ma'am, you should reconsider your career path. If you're doing that. yeah. Okay. Stuff like that just makes me bananas. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
You're good. I was super upset myself. like, you know, looking back into it, I was just like, I don't know how I did it because it's like as a high as a 17 16 year old, but like, man, like that burly is getting into the world like that can really discourage someone and really set the tone for the rest of their life. Like I said, that kind of like put a fire under me and I went to college, I tried my best to do everything as possible. And
What happened is that after I graduated from my BA, I got a paid internship to get into like this AIDS project to become a case manager. So I was doing that for 20 hours a week. I started my master's program full time and it was in person. So was driving back and forth. My school was an hour away from where I was living. I was working full time and I also got another part-time job. So altogether I was putting in anywhere from like 72 to 120 hours a week worth of work about those masters, part-time job, 20 hours, other internship.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 06:56.044
Internship.
Full time school, full time work, part time job and internship. Okay. So it was like juggling four different things at once. Yeah. And it was just getting super overwhelming. I was sleeping anywhere from two to three hours a day. And I was just like on coffee 24 seven. So I was slowly deteriorating over time. I was able to sustain that for about three, four months.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 07:25.902
And by that time I felt my eyes are twitching. I started getting random fevers, started getting muscle cramps. I was getting like stomach aches. My body was essentially telling me, hey, something's wrong. You need to stop. But I was young, kept pushing forward. And it wasn't until I decided to add something else to the loop, which I was like, you know what? I can have it all. Let me go on a date. And I end up going on this date. I end up like, you know, having a good time. But...
Like in the back of my mind, I know I was exhausted because I was just like, I'm just so tired and the date was an hour away from my home and I used to live in Palm Springs and people who do not don't know that the trip between Riverside of Palm Springs in order to get there you have to go through this windy road through the mountains and It was pitch black. There's no lighting. I was getting very very exhausted I was like driving and then I just kept dozing off on the road like
I was just like, no, this is dangerous. I stopped by, got a cup of coffee, added seven shots, and I chugged it. Even then, still struggling, struggling. And it wasn't until I barely got out of the windy road into the city, knocked out. And I ended up crashing in front of a gay club. I hit a pole, which ended up catapulting my car up in the air, flipped. I woke up.
And like, was getting flashes of like lights because I was like up in the air. I just felt my body dangling. I hit the dash, like the rear mirror, knock out again, wake up. I'm like upside down. I'm looking around. There's like pieces of my car everywhere. And I'm just like bleeding and I'm just like, what the heck is going on? But I kept coming in and out of consciousness. And I just remember like this guy on the window, like trying to break the window, getting me out. Next thing I remember, I wake up in the hospital and I was like, okay.
And like in a hospital gown, I'm like panicking, I was like, what the heck is going on? And then I see a nurse pass by and she sees me she's like, my gosh, John Doe woke up and I'm like, what the heck? then like, yes, like, yes, I was like, what is this an episode of Grey's Anatomy? Like, what the heck? And then like,
Gary Montalvo - 09:32.354
Who's channel? Who's channel though?
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 09:40.586
Like nurses come in and doctors come in they start asking me all these questions i'm getting overstimulated and i was like i don't know what the heck is going on and then basically they're like okay you had a really big car accident you've been you've been subconscious like you've been unconscious for three days and like we didn't know who you were you had no identification your car was like smashed all of your items were scattered we couldn't find anything and i was just like just start i was so overwhelmed i started crying and it was just like I was like, what the heck? And one doctor told me he showed me pictures of like the wreckage because the police came in and started interviewing me because they thought I was drunk. And like I wasn't I was just exhausted. So they essentially just they showed me like this and he's like, you shouldn't have been alive. Based on this accident. Most people who suffer this type of accident, die on like instantly. So he's like, I don't know who's up there taking care of you but you should not be alive today so take this as a warning or as a sign that you have to do something in this life. from that point on it was just like really like I need to change my life the way that I'm living my my life is not the way that I'm supposed to. I called my employer and I was gonna like I was already getting ready to quit because I was like this is too much I was like I'm gonna drop something and I was like I called them and they said uh
you're actually fired. You've been in my for three days. And I was just like, what? I was like, excuse me. And they're like, I got into major car accident. No joke. My manager was like, that sounds like a personal problem. Like, you should like manage your time better. And you should have like been more careful. but you went in my for three days. So you're you're like, go. So was like, what heartless people same thing happened with the internship. And same thing happened with the part time job. And it was like these managers just sitting care. So this is my long story why I decided to change my life started learning about burnout started learning about stress and I was like, me change this so that people nobody ever has to go through the same pain that I went through and sacrifice their life for people that really don't care about them.
Gary Montalvo - 11:52.43
My God, wow, okay. so many questions. So in your master's program, what track were you on?
Yes.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 12:04.59
I was a full-time master's program for my master's in public administration.
Public, okay, so you were going for something completely different. Public administration, okay. And so then you, okay, that's what I wanted to get at, I wanted to see if you were already on the path. Okay, what, I'm interested in getting into the mindset of what had you load your, you know, yourself so deep.
Right? Like what was going on for you that you felt like that you needed to do that or you know, you know, like what was going on there?
In the moment, like, if I really look back and ask myself, it had to be like the people in my life, like that counselor that told me I wasn't good enough and that I was never going to be anybody in life. So I really wanted to prove them wrong and I wanted to kind of have a higher self-worth. So I said, if I get all this experience, if I get all of these degrees, if I get all of these, like, you know, extra qualifications, I will finally be good enough to belong.
Where everybody else is. unfortunately, it just add everything added up and I did everything at once and it was just too much.
Gary Montalvo - 13:25.71
Yeah, so you're basically trying to prove your worth, right? Trying to prove something. No, I think it's really, I wanted to ask that question because I think it's important, you because I think that we have these motivations in the background that sometimes we are not really fully aware of the impact they're having, right? And in your case, it was, have to prove to these people that I'm worthy and that I can do it.
Sometimes it's, you know, I can't ask for support or I can't quit or if I'm going to disappoint people or, you know, there's some type of version, whatever the story is that's running in the background. But if you don't, you know, if you don't put that in check, it can cause havoc in the foreground, So, okay, so then you went and changed your, did you finish that master's or did you just switch?
I ended up finishing the master's so I had a little bit of PTSD. I did not drive for like about eight months because it was just like every time I got in the car flashbacks. So I couldn't go to work and my mom because nobody in my family knew that the accident happened. I was just like they didn't know who to contact.
Missing for three days. your mother must have loved that no. So when I, and I didn't have my phone, I didn't have anything. So the only way I contacted them was I asked the nurse to let me borrow her phone. And I went on Facebook and I started like, just like checking like for because I who memorizes numbers nowadays. so I was like contacting and I was able the only person I was able to find was my cousin who then then contacted everybody and then people rushed to the hospital and like
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 15:12.79
Yeah, it was very overwhelming. left Palm Springs, moved back with my mom, and I was like, I'm just going to do my full-time school until, you know, just stay with my mom, do full-time school, finish our program until I'm ready to go back.
And so at what point did you pursue your career as a coach? so did you go do another therapy, another master's?
No, that's why I got my doctorate degree. I, yeah, so I did take like about two years before I actually decided to go into this route. So, I, I did, I did take a job because I needed to make money and I went into more of a case management work. And that's when I started like really seeing that a lot of my employees were, cause I was a supervisor at a, at a case management, like home visiting like site and
So then you went to PhD.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 16:10.028
A lot of my employees were going through the same type of burnout that I was going through, the same type of insecurities that I was going through. So I was trying to coach them one person at a time, supervising them. And that's when I started taking like coaching certifications, I started taking more like burnout, stress, all of these different type of like, skills levels to improve myself so I can help my employees. Because I was seeing people deteriorate right in front of my eyes. And
A lot of my like supervisors are saying you're going way too extra. Like this is not part of your job description. Your job description is just to like make sure that they perform like you're not supposed to be like their caretaker. And I'm like, it's not that I'm their caretaker. I'm just helping them like treat them like human beings and making sure that they don't make the same mistakes I do. And I keep getting this feedback and I would switch job after job and then people are saying you're doing too much for them. This is not your job description. So I was like, you know what? Let me see. Why don't I make my own job description?
And then we really become a master in this area of topic. So I went to my get my doctorate degree in psychology and human organizational psychology to really see how stress impacts people in the workplace and how leadership impacts people in the workplace. And that's how everything else just kind of unfolded where I'm at now.
Beautiful. Okay, so I mean, I'm excited to have you on the show. First of all, I wasn't sure I was gonna I didn't know your background story fully. So I wasn't sure I wasn't I wasn't prepared for that. But I'm really glad we got into that. I was literally like sitting here with my jaw on the floor. I was like, Oh, no. Picture in the car flying in the air. I'm so glad you're okay.
Bye.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 17:52.494
Thank you.
You know, I'm excited to talk to you because I find this topic of burnout is really interesting because, you know, in my experience now, most people don't even realize they're burnt out. Like, most people don't even realize. Like, our threshold for pain in this area has gotten really high. And most people don't even realize that they're walking around, like, fully tapped.
So let's start there. I mean, what are, what are some signs or what are some ways that people can kind of check in and see where, where they are at?
Yeah, well, first of all, your body recognizes stress and burnout a lot faster than your mind. So your body will start giving you signals. So you have to start paying attention. And what I tell my clients is do like a full body scan, like at least once a day, like sit there for like at least 30 seconds and then kind of see where's my body at? How am I feeling? How is like from like your head all the way to your toes and then just really sit there and just pay attention to what's going on. And during that time, ask yourself, am I having any twitches around my body? So sometimes our body tries to release the tension that we have from all the stress by doing random muscle spasms. So you'll have like a twitch on your arm. The most common one is like your eye, the eye twitch. Am I having any headaches? Migraines start to develop, headaches start to develop.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 19:39.34
Sometimes you start having irregular bowel movements because your body's trying to regulate itself. So you'll have to go to the restroom often. Sometimes you don't go for several days. Your appetite starts changing. So you either start going to one extreme to the other. Either you're really, really hungry all the time and constantly eating, start gaining weight, or you essentially starve, no appetite, go days, hours without eating because you're just not hungry.
And so there's between that, there's also irritability. So is your are you losing your temper more often? Are you losing your patience? Are you not having? Are you sleeping too much? Are you sleeping too little? So it just a lot of different signs that your body tries to tell you listen to me. And easiest way to do that is just to do a simple check in with yourself and ask yourself like, how am I doing? Like, am I doing something about it? And if you do notice these signs, try to release the tension in your body first before you do your mind. go to go exercise, stretch, yoga, mindfulness exercises, things like that to just really release attention in your body. And then from there, do some journal work and release attention in your mind, like, you know, therapy, coaching, self talk, whatever it may be something to release all of the thoughts and put them out from where you're at.
Yeah, something, you know, as you're speaking, the thing that I'm really present to is that it's, because the first thing I thought about is like, when you are rushing, when you are putting out fires, when you are like, you know, picking up the kids and trying to care clients and you know, especially
You I work with entrepreneurs, wear many hats. know, you're putting out, you're putting, you know, you're the marketing director, you're the finance director, you're the client, you know, the customer service, you're everything, right? And so the idea of stopping and doing a body scan, I think it's like, I don't got time for that. You know what I mean?
Gary Montalvo - 21:56.288
And so the thing that I'm really present to as you're speaking is that doing this type of work requires a level of commitment to just check in and a level of commitment to pause and discern and see what's there because it makes perfect sense that we're not even aware that we're stressed out when we're always like running around putting on fires and a curse.
Like we cannot stop. But it's so necessary. I and I don't want to, it doesn't have to be as dramatic as Jaime's story. But operating in this way, it does impact your results. It does impact your ability to continue to grow your business, to continue to innovate. You get in fight or flight, right? You get...
I mean, let's talk about some of the ways that we start to respond or we start to switch our strategies when we're operating under this kind of stress. Because I think that's something that people are not even aware of as well.
Yeah, and it's interesting you say fight flight. So most of our response, our survival responses are flight, fight, fawn or freeze. And a lot of us tend to go into the freeze category or the flight category when we're stressed. It's just common. It's it's a lot of us are sometimes scared of confrontation, so we don't do the fight. And then the fawning it's just like more people pleasing. But a lot of the freeze happens and we don't realize that the freeze is happening because
What it is is just like ignoring the problem. So we know that it's there and it's a subtle inconvenience, but not enough where it's like, it's impacting my life yet. And a lot of that is like the health issues. So you notice that you're not feeling well, you're getting constantly sick because your immune system is going down and you're like, it's fine, I'll just take some Advil, I'll just take some cough medicine and ignore the issue. But when it's like a constant frequency,
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 24:11.138
have to go to the doctor, you have to be able to go and do things. And firsthand as an entrepreneur myself, it's so easy for us to get lost in this like cycle of stress because you're like, we don't have the luxury of taking days off. If I take the day off and the business doesn't run, especially if you're a one person show. And if you're the early stages of your business, it's going to be very difficult for you to just relax, you know, and
I've seen entrepreneurs clocking in at 6 a.m. and not getting out of their table or whatever they're doing until like 9, 10, 11, 12 p.m., like almost midnight. And then they just wake up and they're doing kind of like what I did, but with one, because they're working so many different positions. Like you said, the marketer, the customer relations, the manager, the CEO, all of this. So you have to be able to take rests.
One thing I tell my clients is if it's not on your calendar, it's not going to happen. Schedule breaks, schedule lunch breaks, schedule time off. And if you have, if you struggle taking accountability to take these off, schedule it with someone. So say, hey, call up your best friend and be like, hey, we're going to go grab lunch this day. And we're going to like hang out for at least four hours. And that way it's accountability that I'm taking time off. I'm not going to go to work. I'm just going to like relax, unwind and de-stress.
Like, you know, go get a massage, go get something to release the tension out of your body, go to get, you know, schedule a bi-weekly or a monthly check-in with a therapist or with the coach. You know, do the little things that are intentionally planning for success, because a lot of the reasons is if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So if it's not on your calendar, if you're not planning and you're not adding intentionality in regulating your body, then it's not going to happen. Life gets really busy. How many times do we forget?
Know, to eat a day. Sometimes we forget birthdays, we forget things. So how are you supposed to remember to incorporate rest and regulation and stress regulation if you don't plan it?
Gary Montalvo - 26:16.366
Yeah. And there's a, there's a, I want to throw in a couple more reasons in there as well. You know, when your body goes into fight or flight, it, it starts to distribute resources differently. So you, know, it, where, where is directing blood flow, where is directing hormones? it starts to really manage resources differently because it's in the mindset of
we're in danger, we have to manage our resources, we have to protect ourselves. We don't know when we're gonna get out of this situation. So one of the areas that gets impacted when you are in that type of mode is your ability to innovate and to create and to problem solve. Because you're looking at life in that moment as like, do I solve this problem? How do I get out of the situation? Some of the problems, many of the problems in your business,
are related to innovating, to being creative, to accessing problem solving in a different way, to being able to pause and look at how can I create possibility when I'm meeting an obstacle. It's really hard to do that when you're in in fight or flight. You know, when you're in survival mode, it really impacts your ability to bring innovation to your business. So
Definitely.
it does hurt the growth of your business. And I think one of the other ways that it impacts you is, I don't think about it as like, the way that I talk about it is maintenance. It's like people, when we talk about health and wellness, there's something about it. what's your, self care. It's like, yeah, self care, but let's be real.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 27:58.754
Yeah.
Gary Montalvo - 28:10.034
if you do not take the car in for your regular checkup, there is going to be a consequence. You know, that car, you can keep riding the car, you can get a whole year probably on that car, but at some point it's going to start performing, it's going to diminish its performance. then eventually it's going to break down. And then… trying to fix that problem from the breakdown is going to cost you instead of the hundred dollars that it was going to be for the tune up for the oil for all that. Now you're talking about, well, you need $10,000 because now you need a new engine. it, it operating this way is not a sustainable long-term strategy. It has a deep, deep impact, you know, and, and, and you will pay a price, but you're going to pay it with interest.
Yeah. Compound interest. So it is something that you should absolutely pay attention to and not treat as, as not necessary frivolous. Like I, I always say, what's your maintenance plan? You know, how are you going to make sure that you take care of these things so that you can go the long run? You know, we're in a marathon game. Like entrepreneurship is not a sprint. It's a marathon.
And if you don't have the capacity to hold, know, to stick it out the long way, the whole way, it's gonna have an impact on you and you're gonna be struggling. You're not gonna have the sales you want. You're not gonna have the growth you want. You're not gonna have the impact in the world that you want. So I implore you to pay attention to this conversation. And yes, it does require you to interrupt the way that you're doing things. requires it.
Jaime, the first thing I do with my clients now is I put in morning practices. I put in rituals. They come to me for strategy, they come to me for growth. And literally the first thing I do is, no, how do you wake up in the morning? What are your journaling practices? What are your meditation practices? Because if you don't have the capacity to take that pause that Jaime is talking about and reflect and do that check, you can't do the work of bringing in
Gary Montalvo - 30:29.518
the problem solving to it. can't bring, you know, can't address it. So I am going on a tangent here because I really believe that this is such key to being successful in life and in business.
Yeah, I do want to add two things to you. Because it's super important. There's this concept that was coined by Simon Sinek, lovely author, really good author. And it's actually right behind me called the infinite game. Yeah. And in life, there's two types of games. There's finite games and infinite games. finite games are the games that we're used to playing. And when we're young, they have a beginning and an end. So it's like, you know, Monopoly or like a basketball game or something where there's always an evident winner and a loser. Infinite games are games that have a different rule book. The point of an infinite game in order for you to win per se is by lasting the longest in there. So marriages, business, relationships, all of those are infinite games where the way you win is by lasting the longest. So the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is that we go into business thinking it's a finite game, where there's a winner and a loser. If I keep doing this long enough, eventually I will win. I will get to the point where I no longer have to work. That is not the case. As business owners we know, the way that we win this game is by adapting, by assessing, by planning, by doing all of these different strategies and then continuously checking in. Same thing as I'm telling you, do a body check-in. You're doing the same thing with your business, checking in what's working, what's not working.
Can I improve? How can I make things easier? What can I, how can I hire people? How can I add my community to assist? And you have to be able to think of this new mentality with new set of rules. And if you are new to the, to the field of business, if you're new into entrepreneurship, really pay attention to what's working, what not working and constantly do check-ins every week. It's hard as an entrepreneur to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. What's Einstein's
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 32:44.866
Definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So always the way that you stop that chain from happening is constantly assessing is what I'm doing actually benefiting my business benefiting me my body, or is it hurting me? And if I continue doing this, what are the unintended consequences that are going to happen in the future? So it's something you really have to pay attention and kind of going back with that survival mode, like higher mazl's hierarchy of needs.
Says that in order for you to even get to that level of creativity and productivity that you were mentioning, you have to meet the foundational needs, which is like food, water, sleep, you know, and feeling that safe of security. But if you're in a constant survival mode, because you're adding all of these unnecessary stressors and unregulated stressors, then we're going to stay in that survival mode, which then limits creativity and then our decision making skills are decreased.
A person who is stressed performs 70 % worse than a person who's not stressed. So how are you supposed to be show up to your business 100 % at your 100 % when you're already performing at a 70 % less scale? Yeah.
Let's talk about what to do because you know in your situation for example you had the you had the benefit, privilege, know, whatever, to go back home and just quit all your other jobs, right? I can see some people feeling like, well, I can't, I have to, I can't quit my kids, I can't quit my relationship, I can't quit my job, I can't, you know, I can't quit my mom being sick, can't, you know, like what, so how do you, what are some tips for managing stress?
Gary Montalvo - 34:41.313
When you can't change the circumstances per se, right? When you can't really change what's on your plate.
There's certain things that you have to focus that are within your control. if you can't, you know, if you have your business going on and you, you know, you're trying your best and things are not working at the speed that you want it to, that's something you can't control. know, businesses are going to grow slowly and they're going to grow over time. So you can't just expect, you know, a million dollars overnight. So if you have certain things that are happening in your life, like you said, there's a, there's a loved one that's sick or you have kids to juggle with or there’s just like there's certain things that you're, they're fixed. Don't obsess over the things you can't control. That's number one. So what are the things that you can control is how you show up every day and what you do to be able to manage you. So ask yourself, what are things that, what are places that make me feel regulated? It makes me feel safe, makes me feel good. So one thing you can do is switch your environments. If you are constantly working in the place where stress is manifesting, then you need to take yourself out of that level of stress because your brain starts conditioning in itself and it's kind of like an adverse conditioning behavior where when you enter a certain space that you usually feel a lot of pain, a lot of sorrow, a lot of anger, a lot of stress, you're automatically going to get into that mood and that bad disorientated mood when you enter that workspace. So in order to avoid your mind from
setting a theme or that feeling with that one specific location, change up where you work. If you're able to have the flexibility of changing rooms, changing locations, or just like, you know, if you can go out into the field one day versus working from an office, or you're able to like, you know, have different meetings, just change your work environment, whatever you can do little by little. Second thing, there's a simple psychological concept.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 36:48.738
of entryways. If you feel that you're getting very, very stressed and you feel like you can't breathe, switch rooms. Our brain has this soft reset that happens when we pass through a door. And I don't know if you've ever had this concept where you are like, Oh, let me get my phone charger from the other room. You walk into the other room and you're like, what was I doing here? All the time. Your brain.
And we're like, we're going crazy. your brain, psychologically, there's like this little thing in our brain that studies have shown that when you enter through a doorway, your brain does a soft reset to be able to relax, like the stimulus is that you have are experiencing in the other place, and be able to focus on the new stimuli in the new in the new location. So that's why we kind of have this like little like, like, I don't know what was happening, you kind of feel a little bit more relaxed.
So use that for your advantage. If you're feeling very stressed, move, leave into another room, take a deep breath and then come back when you're ready. That's a forced little reset. That is something so simple, so small, it seems really ridiculous, but it helps. If I'm working with the client and they're having like, they're close to an anxiety attack and I was like, do me a favor, take, stand up, let's go to another room. And I was like, and then we'll come back. And then just like, that's why people say go take, go outside and go take a breather.
Go take a walk. You know, that helps because you're changing your environment. You're changing the stimuli. You come back and you get to reset to exercise those wonders. Our bodies hold on to the stress physically in our muscles. Like studies show that each muscle, like different areas in our body actually holds the stress. So yoga, stretching, walking in place, a simple five minute walk a day.
Can help reduce stress a lot. Another thing that is like super, it's free, it's organic and takes very little effort is laughter. Laughing with someone for five minutes can reduce our stress hormones, increase oxygen levels, increase endorphins, increase our atonement into our brain, naturally reducing our stress hormones. So by adding a little bit of laughter every day, whether it be watching a show, laughing with your partner, laughing with your friends,
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 39:11.5
or even just laughing on your own. There's this concept that I teach, which is called laughter yoga, where you can just intentionally laugh with no reason just to be able to relax your stress hormones and get you centered again. So there's so many different practices you can do to be able to just do that. And it's within your scope of control.
I love that. And I want to highlight something in what you're sharing, because mostly how we are wired to respond to challenges is by trying to do things, is by taking more action or a different action. And we, you know, what this is, what you're really talking about is not trying to manipulate the circumstances of life which is what we what i mean like okay well let me let me change my job or let me divorce my partner or let me you know find a caretaker for my parent blah blah all that stuff may need to happen but you may still be stressed out but what you're really talking about is changing the strategies that you're using to manage yourself, regulate yourself. It's coming at it from a different perspective. It's like, okay, this is reality. I'm stressed. have this. What are the things that I can change in how I'm interacting with them? And I think it's an important thing to distinguish.
Because most people will try to solve it from that angle. And you can't always do that, right? You can't control the circumstances, but you can control your breathing. You can control your practices, which impacts how you experience those circumstances. Yeah, I love that.
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 41:18.06
Definitely.
Gary Montalvo - 41:23.368
If, I kind of want to talk a little bit about this laughter yoga because it was one of the things that I saw was like, was like, huh? What in the heck is that? I mean, I get it. get the, I get the concept of it. And I certainly subscribe to laughing at any given opportunity. The idea of sitting there laughing by myself seems a little silly.
So how does that work? Like, how do you, I don't know. I guess tell me a little bit more about it because I don't even know enough about it to ask you a question.
Yeah, so laughter yoga was actually coined by Dr. Madhanka Darya in India in 1995. He started it, he started the practice with five people in a small park. And now it's it's practiced in over 120 countries worldwide. And the whole concept of it is that studies show that your brain can tell the difference between synthetic laughter or real laughter, you still get the same benefits which are increased endorphins, serotonin that race to your brain.
And it starts reducing stress hormones in your blood. And it starts regulating you little by little. The statistics says that five minutes a day can simply reset you and de-stress you for the day to be feel refreshed, more energetic, being able to breathe and release the tension in your body. And all it is is different yoga techniques, whether it's stretching, yoga breathing, like Yoga nidra added in there along with natural laughter exercises. So the whole point is to be silly is to tap into that inner child, start healing the inner child, reintroducing play, reintroducing imagination, and then just laughing for no particular reason. So you're not really telling jokes, but you're doing different activities that really force you to go on kind of like go into that child mindset and get into that sense of play.
Gary Montalvo - 43:19.566
So you're not sitting there laughing, you're also doing some yoga poses?
Little bit sometimes. So it just really depends. There's hundreds of different activities you can do. Sometimes it's like yoga poses, sometimes it's doing an activity. one of the common ones that I like to introduce people to laughter yoga is counting laughter. So we're going to count to 10. But instead of saying numbers, we're going to laugh that many times. So it's like saying ha ha ha, ha ha ha. And then each time you're adding more energy, you're adding more enthusiasm until eventually you're laughing 10 times in a row.
Running out of breath, you start like crying because you're laughing so much, like you get those people that are just like getting really into it. And like I said, fake it till you make it. Your brain is not going to tell the difference whether you're fake laughing or if you're real laughing. So just laugh. And a lot of it starts off fake and then it starts creating more natural organic laughter as you go a little bit longer.
Gary Montalvo - 44:19.477
So fake would be like, ha, right? that would be, and then I should. That was easy.
Like that, you see?
Exactly. that's what I usually tell people. Like, a of my clients, I'm just like, sit in the car. If you have like an interview, if you have a client that you have to see and you're just like very anxious about it, sit in the car, sit, go in, go in a closet, go outside, whatever you do, put your hand out and just say, ha ha ha ha ha smile and then just feel as much joy in the activity. And if it like it feels distracting, you feel embarrassed.
Pretend you're on the phone, pretend you're doing something. I've done that where I'm in public and I just feel super stressed and I was like, I need to laugh. So just grabbed my phone and I pretend I'm talking to somebody and I'm just like, ha ha ha ha ha. And it works because it gets you out of whatever you were thinking and gets you in the moment.
That is, it's so funny because it feels ridiculous. But it also seems brilliant. it's such a dumb thing to do, but it's like, can totally see how that would work. Okay. All right. Laughing. So as we wrap up here, what are some...
Dr. Jaime G. Raygoza - 45:35.109
Yeah, definitely.
Gary Montalvo - 45:47.01
I guess is there a question that I haven't asked you yet that you think is important to the conversation that there's like, we didn't cover this, but I want these guys to know this.
The message I always like to tell people is don't take life so seriously. Be able to incorporate laughter, incorporate love, incorporate joy into everything that you do. Science shows that we don't, we feel the happiest in our lives while we're working towards something. Not when we reach the goal. It's the process. So if you feel the happiest while you're in the process of reaching your goal, why not enjoy every single moment of it? Be in the moment. Celebrate the small wins. If you made $50 that day, that's a win. If you were able to answer all your emails, if you were to connect with new clients, if you got new leads, whatever it may be, celebrate all of the little small wins and feel joy that you have the privilege to do what you're doing. Not everybody is able to like just open up a business and get it. You should feel proud of yourself.
Because you made the risk on yourself, you're trying it. So just continuously celebrate yourself, enjoy the process and just know that your today is not gonna be here forever.
Yeah, I love that. And I think I don't, I don't want to say stress is part of the journey. The friction and the learning is part of the journey. And if for you, that is showing up as how to manage your stress or how to manage a burnout, then
Gary Montalvo - 47:32.716
That's the gift for you, right? Like that is getting reflected, that is getting mirrored, that is coming up. And I think a lot of people fall into a judgment of themselves and a judgment of the situation. And I really would encourage you to put the judgment aside and really step into a space of gratitude that is showing up and that you're seeing it and that there is tools and some of them are pretty simple. mean...
you know, stuff that Dr. Jaime is talking about is not complicated to do. It takes something to pause and do it. takes a willingness to put it down so that you can actually do that. But this stuff isn't complicated, you know? But it's super powerful. It's super powerful. So, yeah, so just be willing to pause and do that work. I think it will absolutely help you continue to… make your impact and grow your business. So thank you, Dr. Jaime. I so appreciate you joining us. We will put all of your information in the show notes. I know that you have, you know, you do coaching, you have all these programs to help people manage their staff and their stress and burnout and...
And you also work with people with confidence and also do career coaching. So definitely reach out to Dr. Jaime. And what's your website? rainbowcareercoaching.com
Gary Montalvo - 49:04.13
Rainbowcareercoaching.com. I love it. Well, thank you, Dr. Jaime, for joining us. I so appreciate you joining us. I know it's a bit early where you are, so thank you.
Of course, thank you for having me.
Burnout isn't just a scheduling problem. It's not just about being busy or not having enough time. It's about the story underneath the hustle. The one that's saying things like, if I slow down, I'm gonna fall behind. I have to do this right. What are people gonna think if I mess this up? This is my one shot. This is about more than overworking. It's about over identifying with the outcome that you're trying to achieve. It's about collapsing your value into the performance and outcome. It's a well that can never be filled and trying to will eventually run you to the ground. Dr. Hymer is reminding us that burnout is always the symptom and never the root. And addressing it is about far more than just taking some time off. You have to look at the story that is driving it in the first place.
Question isn't necessarily how can I push through this or how can I take a break or how can I get help. But what's my motivation for pushing this hard? What does it mean about me if I don't? What will it mean about me if I have to get help or change my plans? Look, I'm not trying to convince you not to work hard or go for what you want in life. That is not what I'm about. Quite the opposite.
Gary Montalvo - 50:48.12
But I am trying to point out that doing it within the context of proving your worth rather than expressing your truth will cost you. It's gonna cost you your peace of mind. It's gonna cost you your health. And eventually it's gonna cost you your ability to enjoy the thing that you're chasing in the first place. Because when your identity is tied to the outcome, you're never really free. You're just performing, hoping.
That this next time, this next win will finally make you feel enough. And if this is hitting home for you, then it may be time for you to slow down. Listen to your body, revisit the stories and the background that are running the show. Because your value isn't in how much you hustle, it's in how deeply you live in alignment with what matters to you.
I want to give a big thank you to Dr. Jaime Reigosa for modeling that kind of integrity and for reminding us that inner peace isn't weakness, it's wisdom. As a reminder, I am hosting an event on July 26th in New York City called Beyond Circumstances. It's going to be a one-day workshop where we're going to go to work on identifying some of the root causes of why you are.
Stuck in hustle mode? Why are you stuck pushing so hard? Why are you judging your outcome so harshly? It's going to be a really powerful experience. If you're in the New York area, check out beyondcircumstancesnyc.com. We'll also put the link in the bio, excuse me, the show notes. As always, keep slowing down, keep choosing peace, and keep playing the ownership game. I will see you next week.
Gary Montalvo - 52:39.534
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ownership Game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform, as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.