The Key to Stress-Proof High Performance with Susan Choi

Christine Li: 0:01

Hi there, this is Episode 35 of the make time for success podcast. In today's episode, you're going to meet a new friend of mine. Her name is Susan Choi. She is a coach to sales executives, entrepreneurs and other industry high performers. She teaches her clients the stress proof method, her signature program that helps stressed out and sensitive leaders break free from their emotional roadblocks, and negative thought patterns. Susan and I met each other for the first time during this interview. But as you'll see, the conversation between us just flowed we share a lot of similar viewpoints. But Susan brings her unique background story to her work. And you're going to hear that backstory of how she became a stress management coach, and the process that she takes her clients through so they can heal from overwhelm and burnout and develop a really deep self awareness. I loved this conversation. So let's go listen to the episode now. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast if you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together, so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to my new friend and colleague, Susan joy. She is a high performance stress management coach, and the host of the very popular podcast called stress proof. Thank you for joining me today. Susan, welcome to the show.

Susan Choi: 2:21

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Great.

Christine Li: 2:25

I'm glad to have you here. And I'm really looking forward to hearing all about who you are, and how you serve your clients and what you'd like to share with my audience to please start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got to be a stress management coach.

Susan Choi: 2:45

Yeah, well, you know, I don't think it's any surprise to anybody who knows me personally, or even from somebody who sees me from the outside is I'm a very highly motivated, self motivated, ambitious person. And so all throughout my life, it was all about the goals, it was all about accomplishment, it was all about success. It was all about what I thought I wanted, or needed in order to survive, be happy, basically what everybody thinks that they need. And so I went all throughout my life, pushing myself up until the point where I myself got extreme burnout, and was eventually diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. And at that time, when I was told that my body was failing me, I was very confused. I was told that I was doing all the right things. On the outside all of my accomplishments, the awards that I received in my corporate life, people were telling me that I was on the right path and doing the right thing. And yet, something inside of me was screaming, know that I needed to change something. And everyone always says this, that some of the hardest times in their lives is some of the greatest blessings that they've encountered. And for me, that truly was the case, because I realized that I was not listening to two things. And one of those things was, I wasn't aware that I was believing the stories in my brain, the stories in my head that I thought were very logical. But I had no conscious awareness of how to think on purpose. So I was being led and I was being at the effect of what I thought to be true. And it was all because I wasn't learning how to take control, and have empowerment and ownership over what I wanted to think so for any of you listening, if you've ever had that weird thought, or that grotesque thought and you're like, What's wrong with me? Well, that's just you being entertained by a passing thoughts. But if you really wanted to take it on a deeper level, you could actually change the meaning of that thought you can change how you want to think about that thought and I had no conscious awareness. How to do that. And so I was being at the effect of the outside world of my own brain of everyone outside of me. So for example, if something were to go wrong at work, instead of understanding that I actually have control over my brain control over my body of how I want to feel about that, what most people do, what most stressed out success is doing, what I was doing was that I would use all of my universal power to control that person or the situation, by working harder by trying to control the outcome or how that person responded in order to feel good. And so that's number one. And then number two, what it taught me was, it also taught me how to really be in my body whenever I felt any emotion. And what I used to do in the past was, whenever I felt stressed, I would go work out, I would go get a Mani pedi, I would call a friend event, I would go soak in the bathtub, I would go to yoga, I would do all these things. Again, the word is do instead of going to the root cause of what was causing how I was really feeling which is coming from my brain, it was coming from how I was personalizing a certain event. And so once I learned how to process an emotion, which all emotion is is a vibration your body and last 90 seconds if you really allow it. And beyond that it's a choice. Once I learned to do that, then I felt like I can have my power back, I felt like I can have a little bit of peace, versus being at the effect of everyone everything outside of me. And so it was really through that learning. And I make it sound like oh, I discovered as soon as I got adrenal fatigue, no, it took me years of putting all this together and discovering all of this. But once I learned where stress really came from, and what it really takes to, you know, remove unnecessary stress and take back all of your power. It left me feeling as if I had unlocked the keys to the universe, suddenly, I can look back to you know, 30 plus years of my life and realize, wow, I was operating on such a low level of conscious awareness. And again, using all of my finite time, energy and resources, trying to control the things I actually have no control over. And, you know, I want more people to realize that they are so much more powerful than they think that they that the miracle that they're looking for is it could be in an instant if they really wanted it.

Christine Li: 7:40

I love it. It's a multiple year process for you. But of course the information is right here, right wherever we are, when we're feeling calm. And when we're feeling well, thank you so much for sharing already so many different educational tips with me and to our listeners. I for whatever reason circled the word ambitious as I was taking notes about your story. Could you tell us what your definition of ambition is? And also how that might have played into the adrenal fatigue the body doing the revolt? And what you think of ambition these days?

Susan Choi: 8:21

Oh, that's such a good question. Because that word ambition is going to be unique to each and every person, right? It's not always about the white picket fence and a certain monetary number. I mean, for some people who let's say they're more spiritual or not like that ambition can drive them to burnout in and of itself, right. And so one way that I like to think about ambition is what is driving you to a point of exhaustion or even a logic? Right? What is it that you feel that your life would be less than if you didn't have that. And oftentimes, when we're not conscious to our ambitions, and the impact of what our actions have to ourselves, and the people around us, it can be very dangerous, right, I like to talk a lot about with, you know, on my own podcast and with my clients is that most burnout these days is mental burnout. We're not living back in the days of, you know, the agricultural age where we're, we're working, you know, like eight to 10 hours out in the field under the hot burning sun, and we're physically exhausted, where we have to rest on Saturdays and Sundays, which they probably didn't back in the day, or eat these really big, highly nutritious meals in order to fuel ourselves. But these days, when we look at the results that we create for ourselves, there very little in comparison to how much mental exhaustion and burnout that we actually have. And it's because of all of this unnecessary Stress, it's the burden that we have of linking mental drama, and emotional drama versus separating what you are physically feeling and allowing yourself to have that physical experience because what most people are doing is that they might feel stressed. But then they're adding unnecessary emotional drama, unnecessary stress through their minds, and what they are making it mean about themselves, like something is wrong with me, why can I keep up, or they're playing this mental image in their mind, like this horror movie, literally, of what's going to happen in the future, thus adding even more exhaustion on our body. And then typically, at the end of the day, we don't have the physical result that we want, which is, you know, maybe an accomplished deliverable or finishing up a podcast or whatever it is. And instead, we're just left feeling so burnt out. And what most people do then is instead of listening to their body, they pick it right back up, they either put in the additional hours or tomorrow, the next day, they start that cycle all over again, never realizing that they need to separate the physical process of letting that emotion play out on a physical level. And then doing the thought work of understanding. What am I really thinking right now? What is my biggest fear? That is driving this stress, this anxiety or whatever emotion that you're feeling? And do I really believe it? Is it true? We never question our thoughts. The analogy that I like to use all the time is that people are sitting in the movie theater, eating popcorn and drinking their Coke, or Diet Coke. And they're just being entertained by this montage of thoughts that look like a movie in our mind, instead of realizing that were actually the director behind the screen. And we get to change that at any moment. Like it can go from drama action thriller, to rom com Or like documentary if we wanted to. Yeah, we're not practicing that conscious act of thinking on purpose. So sorry, I know, that was like one piece of it. And you had so many more questions. But is that a good starting point?

Christine Li: 12:10

Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think you highlight how if we're just performing, performing, performing with no analysis, and with the accumulation of mental and physical burdens that were destined to feel burned out, at a certain point? Yeah, yeah. I

Susan Choi: 12:33

mean, think about it this way. Let's say that you're having a really hard week. Right? But then, and for anybody ever listening, if you've ever received good news, right, or if you've been told like that there was gonna be a break next week, for some reason, I don't know, maybe there's a this, let's think about pre COVID. I'm thinking about where I live in Washington. Oftentimes, in the wintertime, if there's a big snowstorm, because our city is not equipped to be prepared for snow, the whole city shuts down. And it's like, you get to work from home. And everybody's just kind of chill. Again, this is pre COVID. Nobody knew how to work from home. So when you know that that's going to happen, all of a sudden, your body feels so calm. And it's not because anything circumstantially changed, it's because somewhere in your mind, all of a sudden, your belief center shifted to, oh, my God, I'm stressed out, I can't keep up to all of a sudden feeling. This is awesome. I get a break. And suddenly, like you literally feel better. Right? It's not because something happened. It's because literally, you just shifted your focus of attention to something that you believe to be true. Because, you know, the next day the weather can change, and you might go back into work. But does that change the fact that you had a perfectly peaceful afternoon the day before? No, it had nothing to do with connection to outside circumstances. It has everything to do with how you decided to think. And so, you know, I am so adamant about really helping people to realize the power of how they are thinking and whether or not they really want to believe what they're thinking. A lot of people kind of have this thought, and they just follow it. They just assume it's true.

Christine Li: 14:25

You're making me think about many of the clients who are drawn to working with me and with whom I work, that there is the belief that they do not deserve the break, that they do not deserve the time or the peaceful observation of their feelings and experiences. And instead, they're behind they have to hyper perform, if anything, because they're feeling not worthy in some way and also literally behind. So how would you coach That kind of person, someone who's feeling like, I don't deserve that feeling of everything's okay. And the weather's Okay, and everything's gonna work out.

Susan Choi: 15:10

Oh, my God, I love this question. So there's two parts to this. And it's a two pronged approach. On one hand, you know, one thing that I would invite this person to really think about is their upper limit. And I'm sure you've heard of this, right. It's a famous kind of concept or framework that was developed by gay Hendricks. And he basically, you know, says that we all have some normal temperature of what we allow in our life. And so once we hit that limit, of, I'm only allowed this much peace, or I'm only allowed this much happiness, or I'm only allowed this much time before something terrible happens, we're actually just reaching a hotspot of, you know, what we normally are allowed to feel. And our goal isn't actually to come back down, it's actually break through and expand our capacity to feel a little bit more joy, a little bit more peace a little bit more time. And only in that way, can you then really enjoy the fruitfulness of everything you work so hard for. Otherwise, you're just always going to be stuck to that small little sphere of what you feel comfortable. And so that really, in itself is like a portion of work of emotional work, can you expand your capacity to feel discomfort, and a lot of people think this comfort is like stress, anxiety, you know, frustration, all the things. But for other people, it's discomfort of feeling happy. Right? Like, I know, I'll give you a personal example, when I get really excited about an idea that I have. And it's like, oh, my God, this is gonna be such an amazing program, or Oh, my God, this is gonna be such a good podcast, I can't wait to write about that I have all these ideas. Guess what my brain wants to do. That feeling of excitement is so much for my little body, that all of a sudden it wants to suggest going downstairs making an espresso and grabbing a piece of chocolate. Right? It's like, oh, too excited. Let's go downstairs and like break us up a little bit. Right? Instead of now I've learned, you have to be aware of what are those triggers for you? And then what do those triggers want you to do. And so for me, I've learned that every time I get excited, I allow myself to feel that vibration in my body, to feel that discomfort, because in feeling it I am allowing myself to expand my capacity, my normalcy to just a little bit more discomfort. And that way, I'm also expanding, so much more results, so much more joy out of being able to withstand that. The other thing that anybody who's struggling with this needs to realize is that all of this is training for your future self to be able to enjoy that moment. So for example, I love how tech, not Han, he basically says, in order to enjoy dessert, you have to enjoy your dinner, because most people are like rushing through dinner. And as they're like shoveling food down their throat. What they're thinking about is Oh my god, I can't wait to sit on the couch and eat the dessert. Right? But what happens typically, is that your innate nature is to rush. So by the time you sit on that couch and eat the desert, you're not even thinking about desert, you're now thinking about what time it is and how you need to hurry up and get to bed. And so it's really not about time, it's really not about that moment. It's about who you are being right, what is your natural tendency? And do you like that? And that's why I always say every moment in our life is a training opportunity to basically have our future selves, thank us for being able to enjoy that next moment. And so it's really about ourselves. Yeah,

Christine Li: 19:14

yeah, you're also I keep thinking about the concept of being present, and feeling safe in the present moment. And it sounds like you're really helped people to see for themselves that they haven't been allowing themselves to feel comfortable being who they are with their needs, with their desires with their vulnerabilities and feelings. And they've been pushing instead. So you help people to just kind of bring in the joy again and create more space for work and play. It sounds like Absolutely.

Susan Choi: 19:54

I mean, I think that most people, whether they realize it or not, they almost think think of themselves as like this fragile glass face. Right. And if anything were to happen, like, they would just break, that they wouldn't be able to handle, fill in the blank, because for every person, it's a little bit different. For some people, it's immense sadness, they can't imagine the conflict, feeling conflict, whenever they argue with someone that they love or something, God forbid, were to happen. Other people, it's the feeling of stress or frustration or failure. But when you really think about it, all of those feelings are literally sensations in your body. But what causes you to think that it's unimaginable that you can't make it, it's just thoughts in your head. And when you think about that, and if you know, you can change your thinking, it excites me to think that there is so much more opportunity, if you can just withstand the feeling. I mean, imagine if, let's say that you are afraid of sadness, and you've never been in a long term relationship for some people. Right? If you can just be with yourself and just know that this sadness, whatever you think is going to be so terrible, on the physical level, it's sensation. And if you can just manage your own brain, think of the learning opportunity, the amount of love you can share and receive. If you can just like seem to wrap your mind around that. Right? Think about failure, if you weren't so afraid of feeling failure, oh, my God, like we would be eons ahead of where we would actually be. And so that when I think about that, and when I share that with people, I get excited. And I know for sure, like other people get excited about the idea about their own potential.

Christine Li: 21:52

Yes, yes. And I just through the joy that you use to talk and describe your experiences and describe how you teach. I love what you're showing people. And I love the fact that you're opening up the possibilities for them. I want to ask a question about your own journey again, so hopping backwards in time, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious. How did you move from the ambitious Dewar? and logical? I got to get there got to make this happen. Part of you to this part, I know you said it several years, and it wasn't an overnight thing. And my thought is, what did you have to let go of, in order to allow yourself to grow and change in this beautiful way?

Susan Choi: 22:51

Love the question. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I can say something romantic, like, Oh, I just decided and, you know, like, I just knew that this was my path. Absolutely not. I mean, I literally could not, not share this. You know, you hear the term, the dark night of the soul. I for sure had several of those. And one of those was I was in so much misery over not knowing what the heck was going on. You know, I was a smart person. And all of my clients feel this way too. It's like, if I'm so smart, why do I feel so bad? Like I should be able to figure this out? intellectually? I've read all the books. But on a body level, where is this knowing? Right? And so I just had that moment where I was like, literally, in fetal position, praying to God, the universe, whoever would listen, whatever existed. And I said, if you can just show me, if you can help me fix this, I promise I will share this. And even as I was saying that, like, out loud. I was like, Wait a second. I have to be careful here. Do I really, what? Am I really ready for this, but I wasn't that much pain. And it's not like it happened overnight. Like I was saying before, it was a long process of befores and afters of doing the work and showing up and it really wasn't a choice for me. I mean, I had moments where I was like, I'm gonna go crazy if I have to think or feel this way for another day. Right. And it was through those desperate moments where I would have a big breakthrough. And it's now part of my program, because it was like, wow, like, how did I not know this? And then, you know, through going through other programs and certifications, it's kind of like, you see all of the common threads. And you bring it together into these piecemeal ways that people can easily digest and really understand it for themselves and then just run with it because I struggled I had to go through so many have, you know my own personal, dark nights? You know, and then I find a little piece here and there. But I've just become so passionate about sharing this. Because I look back and I think, Oh my God, if I knew some of this, I would never have had the bingeing problem, right. I never, I maybe I would have gone through burnout, maybe that was part of my path. But maybe maybe it could have been avoided, things like that. And I think that's why all of us, we all go through something in our lives. And once you learn it, you want to share it, you want to help other people.

Christine Li: 25:35

I think that's the background story of so many of us shares and podcasters. And thank you so much for sharing that piece of your journey. And I agree with you, it's those darker moments where our real self is kind of fighting for survival. And I think fighting for recognition, and fighting for us to see what stays with us, no matter what job we're in, no matter what phase of life, were struggling with that there are some things that really make us who we are. And it's always important to attend to that garden to make sure the soil is healthy, the seeds are healthy, that we're treating ourselves well, because otherwise, what's the ambition for because ambition is not going to go very far if we're not feeling well, at our core.

Susan Choi: 26:33

Absolutely. And I will say that just because you and I and other people have this knowledge, it doesn't mean that life is suddenly rainbows and daisies. But, but I bring in that awareness and that knowledge. And I just honor those difficult moments when I have them. And the experience of just allowing yourself to feel bad, allowing yourself to just be in this human experience that you're having is so much more. I don't know if gratifying is the right word, but it's so much more beautiful than what most people do, or what I had done in the past, which is open a bag of chips, right? like Netflix, binge, whatever that is, and you're not learning anything when you're doing that. And if anything, you're actually feeling worse, because you think something is wrong with you. But now, you know, like now that I have the tools, I allow my physical body to feel something, I do the thought work with my trusty I'm pulling up my notebook here, my trusty notebook. And I dig into my brain and I say, what is unconscious that I am not aware of? Like, what is so scary that is making me react this way? And how can I learn to respond in a healthier, more beautiful way that benefits not only me, but the whoever else is involved. And so I just I want people to hear that. Because it's like, I don't want people to think it's like, oh, well, like, it's gonna be wonderful. Once I have that enlightening experience. I mean, I've had clients who've gone to Peru and done all the things, you know. And it wasn't until they just took conscious control, like of what they are thinking of how they're thinking and deciding how they want to think, you know, and allowing their body to have that human experience that then eases things, you know, makes it more beautiful. I love it.

Christine Li: 28:22

So Susan, I'm imagining that the way that you work with your clients, it's in depth, and it's over time. And I'm wondering if there's a framework that you go by, or a set of steps that in the larger scheme of things you want people to absorb from working with you if you could share some of that with our audience?

Susan Choi: 28:47

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I pretty much highlighted most of it. But essentially, you know, whenever people work with me, I walk them through a three month program, where we're diving really deep into your personalization, right? Meaning things happen in life. But if I were to hold up an apple, in front of 100 people, I would get 100 unique responses. And that is each individual person's personalization. Because one person is gonna say, That's not right enough. Another person is gonna say, Oh, I have apple trees in my backyard, did I water them, you know, another person's gonna think of their grandmother's apple pie that they really want all of a sudden. So it's like, what we perceive as reality always boils down to what your current personalization is. There are a set of filters and beliefs that you have, whether you realize it or not. And so once you can identify, be aware of that, be aware of personalization and then using that to think on purpose. That's like one big piece of the puzzle and then we can move on to understand the on an emotional level, how can you allow emotion? Do you even know what you're feeling? I mean, I've sat with people for a good five minutes in silence, because, you know, I'll ask them, and I'm sure you have to in many sessions, where it's like, so, you know, how did that make you feel? And most of their responses as well, I feel like I need to come up with a strategy. And it's like, that's not the feeling. How is your body feeling? What are you feeling? And so it's like, that's a whole journey in and of itself, of understanding what the stress feels like in my body. What the sadness feel like? How does failure feel like? What does it even look like? And learning how to become friends with it, because there was a part of you that wanted to express itself in anger or frustration. And you want to understand and get to know yourself real well, of shedding light on that paying attention to that, so that you can learn from that become friends with it, because guess what, just because you remove an emotion once, it doesn't mean it's never going to come back. So you might as well be friends with it. So that's a whole other pieces emotional management, right? How to allow it, but also learn how can you generate more happiness? How can you generate more peace in your life? And then the other piece is, and this is the one that everyone always forgets? Because it's easy to is, how do you train yourself for that constant next step of your evolution? Because there is no end to our consciousness? Like, we're always I mean, unless you're maybe Eckhart. Tolly, right. Like, do you feel constant peace. But for most people, it's a constant unpeeling of the onion. It's a constant, like, oh, now it's this. This is my next homework assignment. And, you know, most people think that. And I think this is like, really what's scary about forms of other modalities, whether it's iOS, ska, or simple as coaching or therapy, whatever it may be, is that you think that, oh, if I can solve this one thing, then life will be so much better. But that's kind of saying like, oh, if I can go to the gym, and just benchpress or back squat, like, I don't know, 200 pounds, then life will be amazing. And it's like, no, if you want to consistently have that, and go beyond, you have to train yourself. And so like that third pillar of like, training your brain in your heart to be in that alignment, that's work, too. And so that's kind of like the steps in which I, I work with my clients on and obviously, there's bigger things that come up in a person's lives. And we'll, we'll go dial in on that. But it's always related to one or all three of those things. I'm sure you've probably experienced that, too.

Christine Li: 32:46

Yes, it's multi level, multi layered work. And it oftentimes involves so many different phases of the person's prior life that we have to go backwards and see, where did this all takes shape? How did you develop these beliefs? How did you learn to shut down certain feelings and keep others so prominently? It is kind of like searching a map and exploring the terrain and seeing what are the things that keep lighting the person up, keep stressing the person out, keep resonating with us, as providers and teachers. And doing that work of just opening up like you said, the onion. The image really works here. Because we're always going to need to know what our feelings are, we're always going to benefit from being able to read our bodies. In the moment. I think there's no drawback for doing this kind of training, as I'm sure you would agree, because it's become your life's work.

Susan Choi: 33:57

Yeah, and I just want to add on to that you brought up something that's really important is that we all just want to be seen. We all just either need that acknowledgement that whatever you are feeling is not weird. There's nothing wrong with you, but you need to express it. Most people hide it, or they brush it off. This is so funny that we're talking about this because I was just writing my weekend wellness newsletter for Friday that's going out. And it's like, what I basically talked about is that we need to normalize like feeling bad. Because oftentimes most people you know, when somebody asks like, Hey, how's it going? Even if we're trying to be honest, we'll say but you know what, that's life. Anyways, what about you, like, you just immediately brush it off, right? Like, it's like, I can handle this. And I think it's because most like stressed out successes like they are always under the belief or they've always been the one in control. They've always been there for other people. Or again, it goes back to that thing of like, they know on an intellectual level, like you shouldn't be bothered by this. And yet they are. And whether it's through therapy, or coaching or yoga, whatever that is for you, it's like just express that, like, you can't just know it on an intellectual level, you have to bring it down to the body level. And only then will you feel this integration, and then you'll feel so much more present, like you were saying that word presence, right, you will feel so present, that you are completely here to then move on as your whole self, not as like a part of yourself, and then you leave some part of it behind you. So yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge what you were saying and add on to that, too. Okay,

Christine Li: 35:39

beautiful. I really feel like you're helping me as I'm listening to you. So I appreciate this session with me. Could you describe, tell us a little bit more about your podcast, your experience as a podcaster? And what people will gain when they subscribe to your show?

Susan Choi: 35:59

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, as you mentioned, at the beginning of your show, it's called the stress proof podcast. And I basically go through the brain management, emotional management training, and I go through specific examples of, you know, what it means to people, please. You know, I talk about very specific work examples, you know, how to get along with people, you know, your co workers. I go through scenarios of, how are we unnecessarily stressing out? And why do we do that? And how can you bring yourself back to who you really are. And so I do that, because I think about myself, and what I needed to hear. And I try my very best to always come up with episodes where, where it speaks to not only my heart, but I know somebody else out there is going through. The reason why I came to do this, this is really funny. And I actually mentioned it in one of my podcast episodes is that back in the day, and I'm talking like, early 20s, I actually wanted to be a radio DJ. I wanted to be like the age of Oprah. Right? And so I thought, and that dream never died. And so and I, but I didn't know how it was going to manifest itself. And it wasn't until I really came into this work that I thought, wow, like, there are so many avenues like, people are amazing. instagramers I know them. Some people are amazing at Facebook Lives. That's great. But I prefer the audio format. And that's how I came to start the stress group podcast. And if you hop on over there, you know, there's several I think there's over 100 episodes on all things stress related. Wonderful.

Christine Li: 37:39

I invite my listeners to go find Susan, again, the stress proof podcast, please let us know what other ways we can follow you. And any last tip you might want to share for our listeners so that they know how to make time for success.

Susan Choi: 37:58

Yes, absolutely. So on all the socials, I'm at Susan joy wellness. My website is stress proof, podcast calm. And you know, the last tidbit that I would, it's more practical, is before you do anything to feel better, right? Again, most people, they pour the glass of wine at 4pm or the extra glass of wine, the six by six, right or they'll go open the pantry door and I'm sorry, but like happiness is not in the pantry. So before you do anything, I just invite you to sit with yourself, right and maybe even repeat to yourself. This is actually one of my on my latest podcast, I actually invited my listeners to ask yourself the question, look at what my brain is doing. And just don't be in your brain. Observe your brain. What is it trying to tell you to believe right now? What are you believing? And do you want to believe it? And this is opening up another can of worms. But it's kind of like you have to learn how to cultivate the seniority over your brain because it is your brain and decide which train track Do you want to be on? Because there's always a choice, but you have to cultivate the seniority to think on purpose. So that's where I want to leave your listeners with.

Christine Li: 39:23

I love it. Great, great point. Do you have a free resource that you would want to share with our listeners?

Susan Choi: 39:31

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I if you just go to my website or stress free podcast.com slash free masterclass. I have a free masterclass of how to release stress 10 times faster. And it goes through all of the three biggest mistakes that most people are making in order to feel better and what you actually need to do.

Christine Li: 39:52

Beautiful. Thank you so much for everything you shared today. your freebie, your podcast, your story and And just the joy that you have in this current moment. With our listeners, you've given me so much. I'm so glad to meet you on the show and today. And I want to thank you again. I'm sure our listeners are having so much to think about after listening to this episode, because you've just brought our understanding about what is going on inside our brains and hearts to a much deeper level. So thank you, Susan.

Susan Choi: 40:26

Thank you so much for having me. This is such a blast. Thank you again.

Christine Li: 40:30

Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach, send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.