How to Build Emotional Resilience -02

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In this unpredictable world, one thing can make a big difference to achieving all that you are capable of. The ability to develop your resiliency. In this episode, we'll explore the key skills that transform setbacks into stepping stones. Learn how emotional strength and savvy strategies can help you not only endure the highs and lows but achieve all of your personal goals.

You're listening to Real Estate Energized! Where real estate meets real life. I'm Dill Ward.

And I'm Nicholas Nascimento. And we are not just realtors. We're your guides to the world of real estate with a deeper twist.

If you're thinking about moving sometime in the future, are already in motion with an upcoming move, or are a real estate professional who recognizes there's more depth to real estate than just a transaction, then join us on a journey as we unlock the real stories of personal growth that happens while buying and selling real estate.

Each week we'll bring you unique perspectives and profound life lessons we've seen through our clients and our own experiences. Let's get started.

Hey, Dill, do you know what we're talking about today?

What are we talking about?

We're just talking about that thing, you know, that thing that gets you through all of those struggles and those setbacks and all those gut punches and all those dead batteries and all those disconnected wires and all those moments where you feel like you could just give up, but you know, you have to keep going.

Are you talking about resiliency?

Yes, I am. Resiliency. Hey, so you just came back from a number of conferences this month, and I feel like this is something that came up. What was your take on it?

I know. I went to a couple different mindset conferences this month, and I am highly recommending to everyone out there if you have a chance to go get around other people who are trying to be ambitious and learn and grow and work through their crap, like, do it. Even if you don't know why you're going, just go. But I could definitely tell the overarching theme of all the conferences was trying to sharpen your resiliency and really sink into your willingness to keep trying. Because let's just face it, it's hard. It's hard to get ideas off the ground. It's hard to grow something new. It's hard to work through the seemingly the million setbacks that happen as you're learning and as you're iterating. But one of my favorite takeaways that have really been sitting with me and I kind of word vomited all over you when I got home was the speaker, Cortland Warren.

He shared with us the study that was done by the Harvard Business School to try to measure how they could predict someone would be successful. And they used to think that IQ was the measuring stick. They said, well, if you have really high IQ, you'll be successful. But we all know somebody that's really smart and just has not hit their potential or created what they've wanted in their life. And then they moved on to more modern times, which is measuring EQ, which is emotional intelligence. And again, falling short. People who are super sophisticated in emotional language and intelligence still not being successful. So, they could no longer say that that was the way they could predict success.

But now they're saying, RQ, the resiliency quotient is the new way that you can measure whether someone will have the capacity to be successful. And they basically broke it down to these three things. They said it's like, the ability to not take things personal, to take adversities personal. And I know that you and I talk about this a lot because in real estate you're just gut punched like every other day and you feel like it's a personal attack on your character that usually has nothing to do with you, but it's really easy to take things personal.

Oh, man, it's almost like you end up feeling like you're a sponge for all the tough stuff that happens. But really, it's like true. A lot of it has nothing to do with what you do as a real estate professional. And in life too, I feel like a lot of us try to internalize that same thing. We try to find reasons to absorb personal responsibility or insult off of bad things happening.

Yeah. And when you're in real estate transactions like if you're trying to buy or you're trying to sell, it's like every little thing is like the universe is out to get you because this didn't happen right. But that's part of that developing resiliency is not taking things personal. The second one was recognizing that something that happens is an inconvenience and not allowing it to be like a pervasive thing that you're casting across the rest of your life. And I know that I can be so guilty of this and you help me when I'm like, this thing happened and now everything's terrible.

It usually shows up in one of those scenarios where it's like, why is it that I never get this right? And it's like, do you never get it right? Or do you just not get it right this time? And it feels like this is every time.

Yeah. And it's like what happens when you put on the lens of frustration and let's say you have a computer or technical problem, not saying that ever happens to us, but you have it. And then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, forget it, everything always breaks and you're then assuming the next problem is coming and then immediately your car is not working right and it's like you start building a case against yourself because you feel like you're hitting sabotage. But part of building your resiliency is to recognize like, hey, this was an inconvenience and this is over, and letting it go.

Yeah. Or there's the other side of other ways to translate things that you feel are always happening and create a different outcome for your emotions around it.

Yeah, and then the third one was permanence which we kind of talked a little bit about just like just time and being able to bounce back like not using always and never words that suggest that there's no getting out of the situation that's happened because it's now in a permanent state. So, building up your resiliency requires you to not have that permanent feeling about things.

Yeah, before we get to that, what's got you energized today, Dill?

You know what, I'm energized because I feel like I have been exercising my resiliency so much recently. I've been taking on a lot of new things, we've made a lot of changes and it's just been hard. Anytime you do something new and you have to be kind of a newbie again it humbles you and I'm really proud of myself. I feel like I know many of you out there probably can relate to this just the season changes, you get a little frumpy but being able to check yourself and pull yourself out of it, give yourself a pat on the back, and say I got this.

Yeah. And actually, that plays in pretty well into our strategies we're going to talk about right here. We have a list of four things I really want to get into. First of all, is one thing we already mentioned which isn't the solution to all things but is a vehicle for moving forward in life and that's emotional intelligence. I personally have found that when I've learned more how my emotions influence the way that I behave that I find myself feeling more at the helm of my experience and less of a passenger in the car. What's your take on emotional intelligence in regard to resiliency?

Well, I think we forget how many emotions there are and having a vocabulary for our emotions. I think it's interesting in children's books there are these pictures of like happy, sad, angry and we're teaching children how to identify their emotions because that will help them with their experience. But as adults we don't realize that there are hundreds and hundreds of emotions and when we can just own them and recognize them and even call them out to whoever we're interacting with, another level of compassion just comes over other people when they recognize that you're under the influence of anger or frustration or hunger, right? There's a softening that happens I know, between us. Sometimes we'll just be like I'm full in the brain and then we just are more compassionate and kinder to each other and we know how to show up for each other.

Yeah. I think one of the things that often happens, one of my biggest struggles is feeling like I'm trying to juggle too many thoughts. Like I'll sit there and you'll look at me and you'll be like hey, I asked you a question and I'll say, yeah. I am trying to figure out if it's more important than I figure out if our couch is the right couch that we have, or if we should make lasagna for dinner tonight. And you'll look at me and say, why are you thinking about those things when I'm asking you about something entirely tangential and a real sense of like, if you can communicate that you're feeling overwhelmed, don't feel confident about your answers, but you want to answer anyway. It gives a lot of power to the person who's going to influence you having a better outcome.

And Brene Brown says clear is kind, and I think anytime we can offer more clarity to those we interact with, even in business transactions, whenever we're in communication, if we just give the other person a little bit of grace and ask exploratory questions, like maybe we're not making the grounds we had hoped to make, especially in negotiations. If you're feeling like the other person's kind of just shut down or not communicating with you, offering up a valuable question to try to understand what they're going through. Because everyone's human, everyone's having a life, everyone's having body pains, everyone's having too many responsibilities, everyone's having overwhelm and tiredness. And we forget we're working 24 hours a day processing, thinking, making decisions, communicating, and we're not always at our best.

Yeah. And in this same scenario and swing of things, it's important to not forget the most important of emotional characters and the care that goes into that, and that is your own mind. You’ve got it. Number two on this list is self-care practices. Like, you've got to take time for yourself, you've got to give yourself love. I think that this is one of the things that's the most difficult to embrace because it's so easy to get caught up in putting out everybody else's fires that you can find yourself forgetting to go get lunch. And that is like, the easiest thing to cripple your brain so that you don't move forward with the agility you would have given all the other variables. Even if you're the most emotionally intelligent person, your brain is not going to be working good, so you won't be able to help anybody else with problems if your brain is starved. And then also physicality, like, feeling strong and feeling like you're able to take on the physical necessities of the day.

Absolutely. I think that we're very complex machines and we have to take self-responsibility to monitor where we're at, what we're doing, what we're feeling. Not just communicating, but getting enough sleep, getting vitamins, getting exercise. I know every time I get out of a routine of getting to the gym, I start just feeling stiffer in my body and guilt starts seeking in, like, why aren't I working out? Why aren't I doing the thing? And that, I think, also erodes my ability to be agile in emotional processes. But I think what would be super helpful is just developing that mindset of being able to switch quickly. I think we often call that recharge and regroup. Right? My mentor calls it stop, snap, and switch. She gave us a bracelet where we just snap it on one arm and put on the other. And you're just supposed to transform your mind from being the funk you're in and bringing it back to a more mindful place.

Yeah. And speaking of mindfulness, that's another characteristic that you can practice. You can meditate and you can work on empathizing and you can develop and cultivate that skill set, which is also very helpful in being mindful about yourself. And that can be another category of self-care to keep on top of your mind when you're thinking of what things you haven't tried to get yourself in a better mood today.

I know. And there's so many. You know, everyone responds so differently. Sometimes it's like just eating a cookie or going for a walk or sitting quiet or blasting some heavy metal. Today I was like having a difficult time and I was like, I never really liked metal music, but now I suddenly just want to play it at screeching loud volumes and just like, process what I'm feeling.

Then the third thing that came up was positive mindset. The general idea that if something happens to you, it is so easy to take everything that occurs and put it into the, because something bad. Because it's bad, because I'm bad because the world doesn't support me. And I think we had one mentor who gave us this list of emotions and she said often we try and describe things on this one side of the emotional wheel and when we do, we're just lumping more negativity together. But there's this other side and there's the positive side of this and it's like taking those words and those ideas. You can kind of encourage yourself to feel more optimistic about shortcomings. I don't know if you've felt things like this before out there, but when I wake up and I've got a headache, I'm like, it's going to be a bad day. But honestly, there's no evidence it's going to be a bad day. I just woke up with a headache. I just got to take care of myself and figure out my way through that headache. How does a positive mindset show up for you, Dill?

Usually getting around other people. Like whenever I can be in service to be an ear to listen to other people, I'm reminded that there's a lot of struggles out there and we're all just trying to figure it out. And when you can just be a kind person who shows up in someone's world, it kind of melts your own whiny little misery away. And I think that's what's great about real estate is there's always somebody that needs to solve a problem and is struggling to see a solution. And getting to be in service in that way often just boosts my whole energy. And you feel valuable too.

Yeah. And for those of us who like the scientific approach of things, the scientific method is all about reiterating and trying to find a lesson inside of failure. So, if your theory was something would go one way and it goes the other way, you say, well, now I know it doesn't go that way, it goes this way. And you try and figure out why, but you do it with the perspective of, how do I keep moving my general goal forward of developing knowledge and reframing that setback into something that's more of a growth opportunity.

I know one thing that we say often is, I'm learning, I'm practicing, I'm practicing, I'm practicing, I'm learning. And life is about taking shots. Life is about going out there and doing something you've never done before and making a mess of it and learning and iterating and growing and being proud of yourself for being brave enough to try and also getting in the right environment. If there's something you're trying to do and you just keep feeling like you're getting set back from it, you may need to get in a different environment with different people who have either done what you want to do or who are actively, ambitiously, ferociously going after the same kind of goal. Because that kind of energy is just moving mountains.

That's wonderfully said. So, then when you've got all these things in mind, the only thing left to do is to try and learn or try and tailor resiliency strategies for yourself. Like, if you know you're going to go into a tough meeting, prime yourself before you go into the meeting. What's one of your favorite ways to kind of prime yourself for something you know you're going to need resilience for?

So, I learned this from Brendan Burchard. He always says, visualize your day. So, the day before, you're looking at your calendar and you're looking at your meetings and you're looking at all this stuff that's required of you. I just love to go through the motion, act it out in my mind. How will it go? Where will I need support? Where will I need to stand up? Where will I need to slow down? And then it feels really good to just ease into something in real-time, in real life, because you've already practiced like athletes. You've already visualized yourself sinking the ball.

Oh, I love that. That is gained from preparing yourself mentally through pre-framing things like, I'm going to go in there. I've never done this before, and I'm going to learn how to do it better for the next time I do it, as opposed to saying, I'm going to give this a try and then walking away if it doesn't go right. Like, so often we feel we'd want to do.

I know. I definitely have run into a lot of people in the marketplace that that's sort of their approach. Well, I'll try. And if it doesn't work, then oh, well, it wasn't meant to be. I'm always like, wow, like, feel any more defeatist? You know, like, hey, if you want this, it's going to be hard. Most things worth having, take effort, take work. Otherwise, everyone would just have them.

That's wonderful. So, what are some positive takeaways we have here? What are some positive lessons from this cluster of Ideas?

Well, I think I'm going to stick with the one I always like to stick with personal responsibility. If you are going after something in life, resiliency is going to be your superpower. You got to just bring it in. Be like, wow. Bounce back, bounce back, bounce back and Mindset is the first place to start. Getting yourself right. Knowing when you're not right. Creating vocabulary for how to communicate with those around you, of your dissatisfaction, your frustration, your disappointment, your hunger. Right? Just giving other people clues how to work the machine. I like to joke and say I wish humans came with a manual so you could see which error codes were blinking so you could interact with them better.

Engine light's been on for a long time, hasn't it?

But I think we've covered a lot of things. But mostly I hope that we can remind ourselves. I mean, half of this podcast is just us saying stuff we want to remember ourselves, to be able to implement when times are tough. But keep going after your dreams. There's nothing you can't do if you truly believe it and you put yourself in the right environment to do it.

Yeah. Building emotional resilience is something that takes time, and it takes practice. And I'm hoping that you guys got something out of this today because it's been juicy and there's a lot of stuff that I felt like we've reiterated the importance of it, even for ourselves, and I can't wait to hear from you all what takeaways you have.

Join us next week for more energizing insights to help you own your full potential. As we close the door on another incredible episode of Real Estate Energized, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude to you, our listeners. If you're looking to buy or sell real estate anywhere and need a great agent or you are an inspired agent yourself, connect with us.

We hope you found inspiration and insight in this episode. Remember, real estate is not just about walls and roofs. It's about the stories and dreams that fill those spaces.

Stay tuned for more exciting stories and life lessons in the episodes to come. And if you have a unique real estate story or topic, you'd like us to explore, reach out in the links below in the show notes.

Until next time. Keep dreaming, keep growing, and keep finding joy in the journey. Thanks for joining us on Real Estate Energized.