Rewiring High-Functioning Anxiety for Workplace Performance with Shelly Martinez

Welcome back to the behavioral profit, the show

where leadership meets human behavior and drive

performance, productivity and sustainable success.

I'm your host, Debbie Longo, executive behavioral

coach. Each week we unpack the mindsets, habits

and cultural shifts that turn teams into high

performing, profit driven. powerhouses. So you

can lead with purpose and win with people. Today's

guest brings a powerful lens to the hidden behavioral

challenges affecting high performance and teams

and leaders. We're joined by a licensed psychotherapist,

certified hypnotherapist, and anxiety coach who

specializes in supporting achieving professionals,

especially those who appear to have it all together,

but may be silently struggling with high function.

She works at the intersection of emotional intelligence,

nervous system regulation, and workplace performance.

Her approach helps leaders understand how stress

and understressed anxiety can quietly corrode

productivity, decision -making, and culture from

the inside out. Good afternoon, Shelley. Welcome

to the show. Good afternoon. Thank you for having

me, Debbie. I have a few questions here. The

first one is why does behavior -driven leadership

go beyond presence and into action? Well, it's

really important for leaders to not just talk

about the changes or the culture that they want

within their company. They have to actually embody

it. They have to act on it. And really, change

comes from the top down. So if a leader wants

their company to be more cohesive, wants the

culture to be more positive and proactive, anything

it is that they're shooting for, they have to

act it out first. They have to model it for their

employees all the time in order to really get

their employees to buy into it, but also to start

doing all of those things themselves as a group.

So it's mainly teamwork, leadership equals teamwork.

And that equals productivity. How does subtle

burnout show up in your best performing team

members? Burnout is really insidious because

it comes on a bit at a time, of course. Most

people don't just suddenly have burnout, although

it may look like that to leaders because they

may have a performer who's doing really well,

they're high achieving employees, the ones who

never ask for help in particular are susceptible

to this. but usually they've been struggling

for quite some time and it shows up with decision

-making, with their ability to attend to and

focus. They may start making a few more mistakes

here and there. They also may be putting in a

whole lot more hours than is healthy for them,

which might initially sound like a good thing

to a leader, but it actually can be a problem

because that can be a sign that they're becoming

very perfectionistic and really having to work

two, three times as hard. to get their work done,

to get it accomplished at the level that they're

used to and that the leader is used to as well.

You also start to see tardiness oftentimes, or

even just people missing days out of work, irritability,

difficulty getting along with the other coworkers,

withdrawing, just changes that don't seem like

this person at all if you know them well. Sometimes

when I, because I know when I do coaching, And

I coach executives and business owners. This

is what they are interested in is being perfectionists.

And sometimes they're really not concerned with

whether they burn out their themselves or their

employees, because what's the main thing is that

when they get promotions, they get power and

then money and greed come into the picture. so

now you have all three things you have money

greed and power and that is like an addiction

because it just feeds and feeds and feeds and

then it's like a cycle and they can never get

out of that because the more money you make you

always want more money and as another point I

have clients in other countries and they don't

work on weekends They don't take calls. They

do. They with their family, they do everything

social. They do not want to even be bothered

with anything. And these people own businesses

and they don't want to be bothered with anything

at all on the weekend. No, absolutely. And that's

so interesting that it's different. I kind of

would expect that. And I think maybe our leaders

here should take a cue from that. because often

they think that the perfectionism in particular

gives them their edge, that that's what makes

them more productive. But in fact, it works the

opposite way. It's a hindrance. It's a roadblock.

And learning how to excel instead of be perfect

is where I try to steer people towards. So excellent

work rather than perfect work, because perfect

is unattainable, but you'll make yourself crazy

and bring yourself out trying to get there. What

simple evidence -based interventions can help

your organization shift from anxiety to aligned?

So there's some really, really simple things

to just build in that aren't going to require

a lot of effort. They're very low lift techniques.

One of the first is starting to perhaps put on

some kind of or provide some kind of information.

about nervous system health about burnout and

what are the signs of that so employees can begin

to monitor themselves because a lot of that self

-care is going to happen at home hopefully so

that if you catch it before it's going to be

a lot easier to change and shift around and you're

going to not have the retention problems that

you can have when burnout gets severe. you'll

be able to keep your talent, basically, and keep

them functioning at an optimal level, just like

you take your car in for oil changes and tune

-ups and things. People need regular maintenance

to function their best. So providing some information

about it is the first step. Then also for leaders,

like I said before, to really model this from

the top down. So things like building in two

to five -minute breaks between, say, back -to

-back meetings. allowing for nervous system resets,

or what I call them, where people are able to

just kind of breathe deep, walk up and down the

hall, a little stretch, whatever it is they need

to do. Just really basic, simple things like

that are very powerful in resetting our nervous

system. And what they're going to see is that

their employees are more creative, they're going

to be sharper, they're going to be happier, and

they're going to be more productive overall.

So looking at Do meetings have to be also as

long as they are? Are there some things that

could be done through emails? Changing some of

the language and the culture is important too

instead of really urgent language like we've

got to do this ASAP and we got to crush it and

we're swamped, we're completely underwater, to

start to look at instead more phrasing like what's

realistic, what's our priority here? How do we

break this down into smaller chunks and tackle

it? So it's more proactive and it's more positive

language. So it doesn't tend to set off the nervous

system in the same kind of way. Those are really

important pieces that are really easy to implement.

They don't cost anything, generally speaking,

or very, very little that can make a huge difference

if the leaders are also embodying it. So for

a leader to say, I'm going to take a couple of

minutes and reset here before the next meeting

or the next call. to really model that and make

it safe to do and to not focus only on performance

metrics, but also encouraging what's going right

with the team. What is working well and encouraging

those things as well. Yeah, so that's good. So

one of the things I do is I work with energy

and that's how I get a lot of my information

for coaching and different things. And that's

kind of the back end of it. And that's really

what I teach. And what you're saying, believe

it or not, you're talking about changing what

you're saying and talking positive and different

things. And in essence, that's going to be changing

your behavior, all of your behavior, right? From

too positive, because all of these things that

we're talking about. the burnout and how the

business owner and managers talk to their employees

always turn out to be negative. Nine times out

of 10, which is what we're talking about here.

And so when I talk positive, even as a human

being, but here we're talking about the workplace,

I'm changing my energy because I'm only saying

positive things. And that not only will help

me increase sales and profits, because that's

the ultimate goal here, it will change me totally,

change my behavior and everything about me, because

now I'm producing a different type of energy.

And I take that home. I take it to my friend's

house. I take it to the store. I take it in my

car when I drive in the car. So It kind of carries

over and it starts with the workplace because

if I work 40 hours a week, whether I work from

home or I work in the office doesn't really matter

because even if I work from home, I'm still interacting

with my employees and my boss and everything.

So I might be working 40 hours a week. So whether

I work night or afternoon doesn't matter. I'm

with my peers. In that i work with forty hours

a week so that means that how long am i really

with my family i might have a child i get off

of work at five o 'clock and i might have a child

that has to go to bed at eight o 'clock and i

have to eat dinner and all this stuff so i'm

spending maybe an hour or two hours with the

child so really i only see my family saturday

and sunday. I'm just giving an example, you know,

if somebody works five days a week, I know everybody

works different. But the point is that you're

only available for your family a certain amount

of days. So who's going to influence me more,

my family or the people that I work with? So

that's why I want to really be careful. And when

I go on an interview and I apply for a job, I

want to make sure that the boss the business

owner, the company itself is going to constantly

be feeding me positivity and helping me grow

and helping me in my position. I'm going to learn

from them. Maybe I'm going to use them as a mentor

or something like that. And that's really, really

important. And these are all things that I teach

because people don't know. People don't even

know what coaching is. People might not even

know what therapy is because they just say they

might not even go. They might just say, oh, I

need therapy. I have a lot of stories, a lot

of stories, all different stories about therapy.

So this is the whole thing. But either way, whatever

it is, whatever industry or whoever you ask to

help you, we want to make sure that that that's

the ultimate goal. And one of the reasons why

I do these podcasts is to educate people. I'm

not trying to sell anything. I do have a service,

but trying to. educate people and help people

to understand what coaching is and what I do

and how can it help you, whether they go on and

do it or not. I mean, they could just take the

information and bring it to their workplace or

whatever and just learn from it. And that's fine

with me. You know, I mean, I've done like 15

of these already, these podcasts where I was

a guest and a host. What is high -functioning

anxiety and how is it different from regular

anxiety? Isn't this just normal for high achievers?

That's really the rub, isn't it? That we've started

to think that high -functioning anxiety in particular

and some anxiety in general is normal. That that's

just the price you pay for success. To roll back

a little, the difference between the two is anxiety

in itself is kind of what most people think of

anxiety would be. It's worrying a lot, being

very stressed out, being very overwhelmed. It's

being able for other people to be able to see

how anxious you are is usually how I think of

it in this realm. A little different with therapy,

but for coaching, it's I think of anxiety. as

just the anxiety that people can see, where they

recognize that someone else is really not doing

well, that they're getting very anxious, and

that person is having a really hard time carrying

on their day to day without that anxiety intruding.

But high -functioning anxiety is like the evil

twin, because in that case, people usually look

really, really good. They're usually... The overachievers,

they're people who are highly dependable. They're

very responsible that you can kind of count on

for anything. And often leaders are going to

love these employees. They're great in a lot

of ways. They also have a bit of a time bomb

within them. So some of the signs are externally,

these people always look very busy. They're always

taking on extra projects, they're always doing

more and more and more because they tend to have

trouble saying no to things and setting appropriate

boundaries. But also, they tend to do what I

call the three P's, which are people pleasing,

perfectionism, and procrastination. So some of

that procrastination lends itself to being overly

busy all the time. At the last minute, the perfectionism

makes them double, triple, quadruple check something

that they already checked twice. and trying to

get everything perfect as opposed to excellence

could actually slow down the organization. Internally,

what these people are experiencing often is that

they absolutely never know how to rest. They're

very uncomfortable, usually slowing down because

their brain just keeps hopping. They spend a

lot of time in self -doubt, oftentimes imposter

syndrome is really common, and also physical

issues, so headaches, stomach aches. tight chest,

things like that, so you're going to see more

doctor's appointments. They're going to miss

work for things like that, health -related things,

oftentimes. And so they also tend to need a lot

of approval for what they're doing because they

don't feel like anything is ever quite good enough.

And so they're always seeking that maybe a little

bit needy in terms of reassurance. And so that

can sometimes be frustrating for leaders. But

all of this adds up to someone who is very unlikely

to ask for help and is doing everything really

well until they're not, because we all have a

breaking point. We're not really designed, nervous

system -wise, to stay in this state of high -functioning

anxiety all the time. And so it does wear us

out. And you see all kinds of physical and mental

issues coming up with it. The problems you're

going to see at work, like we talked about. are

going to be things like problems with decision

making. They're going to get behind in things.

They're going to have trouble focusing. They're

going to be less creative. You know, and then

there's the attendance issues that sometimes

come up later on. You can run the risk of losing

really, really good employees if you miss these

things, if the burnout gets out of hand. So I

just looked up. I know this is a very general

thing. What are the physical? issues from high

functioning anxiety, muscle tension, headache,

fatigue, sleep disturbance and digestive issues.

So that's just, you might not have all of those

issues, but that's just a broad range of something.

Somebody that has that high functioning anxiety

might have like one or two of those. So when

I work with somebody, I consider everything as

a separate process. So if somebody has anxiety

at work, okay, well, why does that person have

anxiety first? And then I find that out, hopefully,

and then the person, we go as deep as we can,

and then we solve that issue. And then I say,

what's happening in the workplace? Then they're

gonna say well this person does this this person

does that they're always pointing the finger

and then I say after that That's a separate process.

So now you have two processes and then after

that I say, okay Well, let's put these two together

and why do you function? with Anxiety in your

workplace. That's the third process So there

were three separate processes, but if I make

them separate and then I put both of them together

Let's just say for example Some things have like

four or five processes, then they can clearly

see it. But if I just say, why do you have high

functioning anxiety at work? Then to me in my

the way that I do my coaching, you might do it

a little differently, but I don't do it like

a traditional psychology way. I'm not like a

psychologist or psychotherapist or anything like

that, but. the way that I teach it, if I were

to directly come out and say, OK, let's see why

you have high functioning anxiety. They're going

to be all over the place. Well, this one first

pointing the finger. This one did this. This

one did that. My family did this to me. I don't

feel good at work. My boss says this to me. And

then you come out with all of these different

things. And it's like a mishmash. It's like making

mashed potatoes. And then I can say anything

I want. And then it becomes. To me, the way that

I do it, it becomes a lot more complicated because

now I have to organize everything that they're

saying. That's just how I do it. And it works

good because it's much easier for them and they

see it right away. A lot of times they'll see

it even before I finish it. They might call me

and say, oh, wow, I didn't realize this, this

and this. Sometimes it's a little problem and

now I have to fix this and I think I can fix

it. Or they might say, I don't care what you

say. And after I give them the solution or on

the way to the solution, I don't care what you

say. And I'm not interested. And this is not

the problem. And then the problem is them. And

they just completely refuse to look at themselves.

They just want to point the finger. And these

are all experiences that I've had from coaching

people. So these are real life experiences. These

are not like theories. and stuff that I'm just

making up as I'm talking. And the reason why

I say that is because if it happens to one person,

most likely it'll happen to somebody else. If

one person thinks one way, most likely somebody

else will think the same way. That's the whole

thing. And if you're listening to this, if you're

a listener, then you might want to think about

if you have high anxiety, different things, or

maybe you think there's a problem. You might

want to think about. Debbie said, these are the

processes. Let me think about why I have high

anxiety and what's happening at my workplace.

There are things that I can do self -help. A

lot of people do it. There's a lot of self -help

books. How far I'm going to get, I don't know,

but it does work to a certain extent. A lot of

them have good advice. I mean, there's always

a couple out there. that are questionable, but

yes, I always start with understanding anxiety

because I work with anxious people. That's my

niche. So understanding how it works in your

nervous system, what it's for, it actually serves

a purpose and you don't want to really get rid

of all of it. Believe it or not, you want a moderate

amount because that causes you to be alert. But

we generally don't think of that moderate amount

as anxiety. We just think of it as being aware

and alert. And so understanding that our nervous

system starts to change depending on what we're

exposed to. When you were talking about negative

work environments and this being at work so often,

when we're in a negative environment, our body

and our nervous system adapt to that and not

particularly healthy ways, unfortunately. Agreed,

definitely. How does high -functioning anxiety

negatively impact businesses? So again, these

are the employees typically who are your star

achievers because they rarely make mistakes.

They're very, very dedicated. They work very,

very hard and they usually don't ask for help

either. And the problem there is that oftentimes

they're really struggling because of those things

that are internal for them. The external looks

great. They look wonderful until the wheels start

to fall off slowly. I think in your language,

it would be their energy starts to get depleted

or starts to shift. And so then they start to

have more and more problems and they'll be small

problems initially. There'll be things like,

like I said, like starting to make smaller mistakes

or be tardy. or being a little bit late for deadlines,

being a little less creative, a little less enthusiastic,

a little less support within the team, because

they just don't have the bandwidth to keep it

up. And then it progresses to more significant

issues of decision making and things getting

more and more late, absences and the like, where

they're just... oftentimes not doing really great

with the team, they're not interacting with the

team or they're being more irritable with the

team, having trouble getting along like you were

mentioning in that example. So leaders really

need to be aware of those employees and I recommend

periodically just taking their temperature. When

you're one -on -ones or whatever, just how are

things going? What's working for you? What's

landing for you? And just kind of checking in

with them because they may not know. And unless

the leadership is taking advantage of some of

this learning and modeling it themselves, then

employees are also not going to feel safe talking

about, well, you know, I've been struggling a

little bit here. I could use some extra coaching

on how to manage my time, or I'm not quite sure

where to prioritize this project. They won't

ask questions if they're not used to the boss

even opening up about certain difficulties and

challenges. Yes, that was very good too. And

these are all things also that I teach because

not only is the person going to internalize their

anxiety their high functioning anxiety and Think

that they can do it. They got it. There's no

problems they don't need to ask anybody for anything

and They might be successful for a while, but

it's not a positive thing, obviously. So eventually

they're going to start going down the tubes.

And when that happens, they're going to say,

I don't need, they're still going to go on with,

I don't need any help. It is no problems here.

And then they're going, she's going to go down

and who's going to go down or he, the business

owner, and who's going to go down with the ship,

everybody. Exactly. And it's not even, I find

sometimes it's that I don't want to admit that

I have a problem, but if I'm honest with myself

and know that I'm struggling with my performance,

that things are starting to suffer at work, if

I have high functioning anxiety, I'm also really

afraid of people finding out that I'm not perfect,

that maybe I do need some help with this project,

or maybe I do need a little more direction from

leadership on how to tackle certain things. And

if I don't know how to take care of myself and

don't want anyone to know I've got a problem,

then it's likely to fester. We'll bring everyone

down, like you said. Yes, agreed, definitely.

Okay, next question is, can an anxious brain

be rewired for better performance, and if so,

how? That is so important. So, actually, yes.

In particular, a lot of people with high -functioning

anxiety and anxiety have often had it for a long,

long time. So they're very aware of their problem,

whether or not they want to disclose it as a

whole other ballgame. And many people believe

that if they're anxious, they're just anxious.

They're just stuck with it. This is who they

are because they've often been doing it a long

time. And a lot of the regular advice and the

techniques out there really deal with the surface.

Change your thoughts and you'll feel better,

things like that. things that really, if they

work at all, they only work for a short period

of time and then you're right back feeling anxious

or your high functioning anxiety is out of control.

And so people tend to feel pretty hopeless when

they have high functioning anxiety and anxiety

about ever being able to change that, which is

why it's so important to me to get the word out

that no, in fact, your nervous system is very,

very malleable. that it's plastic, as we say,

your brain and your nervous system are plastic.

So they change based on whatever experiences

you're having. So when you were talking before

about positivity in the workplace and working

with energy and all of those things, I know you

know what I'm talking about, but just for your

listeners, we actually, every experience we have.

we start to rewire our nervous system. So if

we're speaking more positively, if we're in a

better environment, if we learn something new,

if we read a book, if we go see a movie, anything

that we do, try a new recipe for dinner, whatever,

we're actually changing our nervous system. And

our nervous system can be rewired to be more

calm, which then makes everything else more calm.

It makes work go more smoothly, our personal

lives go more smoothly. We feel better. We're

aware of changing things like that with stroke

patients who might have an injury to their brain,

and then they work with specialists to be able

to route around that so that they can regain

functioning and do better again, get back to

their normal place, hopefully. We don't think

about that being the case for all kinds of mental

health, but in fact it is. So we can get in a

habit of becoming or being very anxious one way.

with high functioning anxiety or with regular

anxiety, but that's not the end of the story

that you actually can rewire and change your

brain pretty easily if you know what the tools

are. Yeah. So that makes sense. I do something

very similar, but I call it reconditioning the

brain, the minds. And it's pretty much exactly

the same thing that you were saying. But the

main thing is to get rid of the negativity, which

is everything that we've just talked about every

single thing. Yeah. Because there's so many examples

of that. And then I'm able to become a little

bit more positive. And the thing with physical

things, even if I have anxiety and different

things, if I try something, if I don't directly

fix the problem, I try something else that's

like similar that problem might get fixed So

and I've had this too. So let's say I say forget

about the anxiety Just let's just not focus on

that. You still have anxiety. We know but let's

try to think about all the negative things that

you say and what's negative in your workplace.

And let's try to focus on becoming more positive.

And the person might say, I need help and I'm

not making any money. I'm just going through

job, job through job. I'm just running through

all these jobs and I'm getting fired or being

asked to leave. And I'm at the point where now

where I don't have money to put food on. my table

for my family because I just keep going through

jobs. So then they say, Oh, I don't have this

problem. They say it, I have anxiety, but then

they say, I don't have this problem or however

they phrase it. And then I could say, let's not

worry about that. That's fine. Let's not worry

about that. Let's think about some things that

are said, maybe that are negative or I might

go around and say something else. And then let's

think about something that's positive that you

could say instead of that. And then after a few

weeks of that, they might say, oh, I realized

I have anxiety and now it's gone. Yeah. And we

kind of call that beat around the bush. because

I can still help somebody that doesn't want to

be helped and that doesn't say that says they

have a problem, but they don't want to fix it.

It's not that difficult to do. Think anything

you help helps everything else. There's a lot

of situations about that. So somebody thinks

I want to get help, but somebody told me that

I have this problem. I have high functioning

anxiety, but I don't think I do. But if I go

to somebody, they're going to tell me, I do or

I don't, but I'm not going to do anything about

it. Well, you know what? I'm not going to tell

you. I'm just going to say, let's think about

something else and that'll fix the problem. So

they think that I'm thinking on the same wavelength

as them, but I'm not. Because if I was, then

I wouldn't be able to help them. You have to

be able to think about the problem sideways.

How can a company build a brain friendly culture?

Well, I think the biggest pieces are leaders

in particular getting educated about fight or

flight response, stress responses, burnout, nervous

system, which you could do pretty quickly. It's

not a giant thing. You don't need a PhD to know

that basically people need to feel safe at some

level. They need to rest. They can't be go, go,

go all the time. because we're just not designed

to do that. It would be like a zebra running

and running and running and running and never

stopping. Eventually the zebra would just collapse.

And that's what happens to employees when they're

in this state and they're just running and running

and running. So doing some of those really easy

things like educating about different factors

so people kind of recognize. Yeah, maybe something's

going on here and these are some really easy

and quick things to do because I rely on really

easy, fast things because who's got time for

it otherwise? Leaders are busy, they are trying

to run a company and make a profit and employees

have a lot going on in their lives too and they're

trying to work and do their best and hopefully

move up in the company. So doing things to take

those little two to five minute breaks. in between

and during that time doing some breathing doing

some stretching walk around the building for

a sec whatever it is to just sort of reset your

nervous system so that you can come back fresh

that's really important considering shortening

meetings so that there's a break for that there's

an extra that two to five minutes is built into

maybe you cut off the meeting at 25 minutes instead

of 30 or 55 instead of an hour, trying to limit

meetings for everybody because meetings are very

intense and draining, typically. So really looking

at, can you do some things asynchronous? What

can be done by email? Because that also frees

up time for being more productive in many cases.

I mean, teams obviously need to meet as well,

but they need to balance that with, is this really

going to be productive for us? Is this going

to get us anywhere? Is this going to get us where

we want to go? And the biggest one is for leaders

to embody what they're doing for leaders to take

action in modeling some of these behaviors and

taking these breaks and being a little more open

to positive changes like that. And even talking

about it in terms of I'm going to take a couple

of minutes here to regroup before the next call,

because if your leaders aren't doing it, your

employees aren't doing it. And I read something

really recently. that 80 % of most C -suite leaders

felt that mental health is something that their

company doesn't really look at a lot, and yet

70 % of them felt that they themselves were feeling

some burnout and some high -functioning anxiety

and stress in a significant way. So this is a

huge thing that could be very easily shifted,

very cost -effective. takes almost nothing to

do some of these skills to reset your nervous

system and calm down again so that you can be

fresh for the next thing. It's good for a business

owner or an executive to know these things, to

teach these things. But they have in a lot of

big companies now, they have help that you could

get. They have therapists that you could talk

to. They have somebody who is a medium who doesn't

have who doesn't sway one way. So they'll talk

to you, but they won't. They'll talk to the employee,

but they won't tell the company. Same thing like

going to a therapist or a psychologist or something

like that. Basically the same thing. Or sometimes

they'll have coaches that they could talk to.

but the business owner is the one or the executive

is the one that needs to Really do this and really

understand it because they're the ones That if

something happens, they're going to be responsible

So what I want to know is as a business owner

or an executive are you doing this? Think about

if you're the listener Are you doing these things

that we are talking about right now? All the

negative things. If you're doing the positive

things, that's great, but I don't want to help

somebody that's doing positive things. The idea

is to change. So I want to know what negative

things are you doing. If you're doing this because

you most likely are going to be attracted to,

because the title of this podcast is going to

be something to having to do with high functioning

anxiety. So you might see that and you're gonna

be attracted to something and that's probably

most likely why you're gonna turn on this podcast

So think about if you have these issues or you're

just curious or maybe somebody that has them

Think about is this going to can I relate to

any of this that we're saying? The reasons why

because I'm really focusing on I mean, I'll focus

I'll do the whole company. I've done that before

but I'm focusing on What is the business owner

or the executive doing? How are they acting?

How are they treating their employees? And to

me, that's the most important thing Sometimes

people get jobs because they're looking for mentors

Because they're looking for a boss the boss that's

gonna be boss obviously and the boss might be

a mentor maybe they're going into a new industry

and They don't really know about it different

things and they want to find out about it So

if I'm a boss or an executive, I want to be able

to present that Positivity and that's how I'm

gonna get good people. I don't want to get people

who are gonna be the revolving door where they

stay for a little while, and then they're negative,

you're negative, they're negative, and then they

leave. I have stores over here and companies

over here that tell me these stories all the

time. This is not uncommon. This is a very, very

common thing that happens. And they just constantly

blame other people. That's the one thing that

I find the business owner will just say the employee

Did this the employee did that and that's the

reason why the employee doesn't work here anymore

Or the employees don't show up. Well, why is

that? Okay, because I'm just gonna say big companies

the biggest companies on earth Microsoft Apple

they don't do this They don't have this problem,

okay? They don't act like this because if they

did, they wouldn't be this successful. They wouldn't

be the biggest companies. Their executives, their

everybody, their managers, everybody are all

positive. They have coaches, they have therapists,

they have counselors, they have everything available.

And alls they do is they give positivity to all

their employees. Okay, and their employees want

to work there and their employees do not quit

they might have temporary jobs But I'm talking

about the employees that are really there that

are really interested in staying there And that's

the reason why they stay there main thing is

that as a business owner an executive or whoever

is the higher up? I want to be able to focus

on myself. I don't want to point the finger and

say I have this problem or there is this problem,

but everybody else is the problem. I don't have

the problem. And that's big because not only

is that more difficult to help the person, which

I could do anyway, it doesn't matter, but it

makes there be extra steps to helping the person.

It just makes it a little bit more complicated.

It's an easier time. if the person recognizes

it or even just acknowledges it in some way.

But it's fine with me because I could do it either

way. I'm just saying it's easier for the person

themselves, right? So is there anything that

you would like to say in closing? It really is

important to look at these pieces because they're

preventative. And so... to do that preventative

work. As I said, it's very low lift. It's not

a lot of effort. It's not a lot of cost, but

you stand to gain so much and make so much more

profit and have the potential to become one of

those big companies like you're talking about

to create that kind of culture. And it's kind

of the same, as I said before, Doing routine

maintenance on your car if you want your car

to last a really long time Then you do that maintenance

on it you get the oil changed you get the tune

up you do those things People aren't really any

different in that aspect then investing a little

bit of energy into people as you go along is

Going to pay off huge dividends in the end. Yes

agreed. Everything is agreed. This was very very

good Thank you for being on the show I really

appreciate it. Thank you. And my pleasure.