IDL108 Season 3: The Art of Bouncing Back with Darleen Santore

How do you face adversity in your life and in your work? Have you ever had to bounce back from a tough situation? Why should you utilize gratitude as a tool, not just a feeling?

Today, we have a very special guest, Coach Dar - Darleen Santore. Darleen is the author of the book Bouncing Back, and together we get into the heart of resilience. Darleen shares her own experiences, and highlights how all of us in life are going to face adversity, and find the opportunity to bounce from that.

Meet Darleen Santore

As a Board Certified Occupational Therapist, CEO & Founder of Performance Meets Purpose Consulting, author, and keynote speaker, Coach Dar is passionate about helping people break through adversity to achieve greatness. Recently named Senior Fellow of PathNorth—an organization of world leaders and CEOs of Fortune 100 companies—her powerful message continues to reach a global audience.

Coach Dar blends a knowledge of psychology, life, experience, and her personal mission in life to inspire greatness in everyone she meets. The result? Individuals, corporate executives, and professional athletes discover their own personal missions, individual gifts, and set their sights on the goals that they thought impossible. It is her unique style and approach during transformational seminars, high impact speaking engagements, and exclusive one-on-one sessions that has helped countless people say NO to the status quo, raise the bar in their lives, and break through adversity to reignite their fire.

Visit Coach Dar’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• What it means to bounce back 07:41

• Where bouncing back starts 10:09

• Use your gratitude as a weapon 27:01

What it means to bounce back

You cultivate your ability to bounce back the moment you start to shift your mindset and framing of situations from: Could this happen to me? to What can I learn from this?

Develop your tenacity by bouncing back, including your grit and self-compassion.

You do not turn away when things get tough. Instead, you become more flexible to overcome that situation to make it to where you want to be, and who you want to be.

Where bouncing back starts

1 – Embrace the suck: you need to sit with the fact of your reality first.

You need to feel your emotions, take ownership where you can, and not run away from the experience.

2 – Build an emotional foundation: things are going to happen in life, both good and bad, and you need to have a buoy in the storm to hold onto to. Make a big part of that buoy yourself, and your emotional fortitude and relationship with yourself.

3 – Create agility: through practicing bouncing back, you are strengthening your skill of being agile in life, and that is another key aspect that can help you to thrive.

It is not about the event itself that happens, but how you react to it.

Stay light, stay agile.

Use your gratitude as a weapon

You can use your gratitude to flip bad and toxic mindsets around, wash them away, and allow yourself to choose your reaction. You empower yourself when you remind yourself that you can – always – decide how you react to an event.

Gratitude is a tool in this. You can be consciously grateful for all the things in your life thus far, and automatically shift this event from something that was difficult to something that can teach you.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Darleen "Coach Dar" Santore – The Art of Bouncing Back: Find Your Flow to Thrive at Work and in Life ― Any Time You're Off Your Game

BOOK | Peter Drucker – The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

BOOK | Simon Sinek – The Infinite Game

Visit Coach Dar’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com

Check out the Practice Of the Practice

www.tylerdickerhoof.com

Awaken the Leader Workshop April 3rd and 4th 2023: theimpactdrivenleader.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

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Bouncing back is like bouncing forward. It really does propel you forward if you use it in the right way.

Darleen Santore

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Man, nice to see you. Glad you're here. Whether you're listening, watching on YouTube, wherever you're at, I hope you hit subscribe so that way you get notified. Just go ahead and hit that button so that way whenever a new episode comes out, you're aware. As well on YouTube, I share a live segment every day, just sharing what I'm learning. So if you subscribe there, you'll also get that stuff. Alright, today, very special guest, coach Dar, Darleen Santore. Dar and I got to know each other, had her several years ago, mutual friends, had her as a podcast guest on a previous podcast I hosted with my wife, the Impact Makers, very similar to Impact Driven. She is the author of the book, Bouncing Back, and I'm excited to talk to her, have her share about the art of Bouncing Back: Find Your Flow to Thrive at Work and in Life - Any Time You're Off Your Game that is available for pre-order and it releases on February 28th, right after this episode releases. This is what I'm most excited about, Dar sharing, is your own experiences and you're going to hear about experiences and these mind-bending like, whoa, that's a lot to go through and as we discover and we talk about the difference between bouncing and splatting and why all of us at some point in life, we will face a challenge and we have the opportunity to bounce from that. I hope you have an enjoyable time listening to this and I'll catch you at the end. Dar, it's so nice to see you. [DARLEEN SANTORE] Oh, Tyler, I've been waiting for this like, can ducky dirty horse getting out of the, oh man, let's go. [TYLER] You know what, the greatest thing is just to see your smile in knowing what you're so excited about and how deep it is in your heart to serve people. Man, I just wish I had more times like this, but I'm glad we're here to chat, to talk about your book Bouncing Back, but just to talk about the world we're in now, all the things, and correlate it all together and just have a chance to catch up and serve people. So let's do it. [DARLEEN] Sounds good. Sounds good. [TYLER] So why don't we do this, why don't we first start with where you're at now. Let's talk about Bouncing Back. That's your book, but as friends, I know that you've gone through some tough situations in life and maybe everyone listening has not heard that. So, what you've gone through the last couple years between your strokes, between your dad, all the things? Like you've had to bounce back, so what you're writing about, what you're sharing with people, people is not something that you haven't gone through or aren't going through. So why don't you just take and run with that ball however you choose. [DARLEEN] I think the reason I started to even write this book was because I've helped people bounce back from so much but I've also had to endure bouncing back. But I think about this now, and I think it goes back to even my mother, when she was 40 years old, we came from an Italian East coast family, so you could imagine it's the Sopranos. And so, she, but she had a massive heart attack at 40, triple bypass at 40 years old and has to, the pain, she had to go through what she had to do, endure at 40 years old, it's just, it's early and it was hard and we didn't have a lot. So she was working three jobs. I saw this woman bounce back like no one else I'd ever seen bounce back. Even my family, like members of my family, my cousin had gone through being burnt as a little kid on one whole side of his body and how he bounced back from that. My uncle who had like an extremely hard job drilling concrete every day outside in the East Coast weather, no matter it was, and he never complained. My mom never complained. My cousin to this day is like the happiest person and he has graphs obviously all over his body and he's just full of light. I'm like, when you see that Tyler, you're like, what is that? Because that is human resiliency at its highest level. I started out my career as an occupational therapist taking care of traumatic brain injured patients. So like your eye, a car accident, motorcycle accident, stroke, whatever, changes their whole life. I was the one that had to come in as the calming force and help them set their eyes and their hearts on a vision and work at that every day when they wanted to give up because they wanted to give up. I mean, when you first, your whole life turns upside down and you're like, I don't want to live like this, I don't want to be in a wheelchair, or I don't want to live with half my body not moving, whatever it may be and I was like, we are going to do this. The irony of this is at 25, I've gone to see a chiropractor, I've shared this with before and when they manipulate my neck, they rip the artery to my brain and I have a bleed and I suffer a stroke. So the very patients I'm taking care of, I endure suffering symptoms, thankfully no paralysis, but I have to endure my first setback, major setback. I wish I could say that was the only one, but I ended up having three strokes, now the last one was about three or four years ago and losing both my parents over the past three years, my dad, most recently, just a couple months ago, in the middle of writing this book, going from my third stroke to my mom having a stroke. Well, my mom had won before me that I'd won after, then she passes away, then Covid hits and all of, I'm in sports, I coach pro-athletes and world leaders helping them with their mental skills. Well, covid hits and everything shuts down. like it did for all of us and I thought I was, I had hit my stride too. I'd really hit a career stride and I'm thinking, what in the world? I'm trying to write this book and then start to bounce back better than before, then go through massive heartache with some of that I thought I'd share my life with, then my father passes away right after, all while I'm writing this. I mean, it was like one after the other. But I say all this because one, I am definitely at this point much stronger at this part of the game of my life than I was when the first stroke was have a better wherewithal and these principles that I was writing about, I was writing because I knew darn well that this is what, this works, that this is what you need to do and this is what I needed to follow myself, but also help the people around me. I didn't stop by the way, coaching and helping people even when I was going through what I went through. I almost think that helped me because it wasn't just about myself at all. But these were the principles that really helped me bounce back but also because I work on this consistently with everyone, these principles and learning this mental resiliency, this mental fitness does get you stronger. So I'm not going to say life's going to get easier because it's not gotten easier for me. It's actually gotten harder, I'm serious, but it doesn't look that hard from the outside because I bounce back faster. I have a good foundation and sure I feel, sure I hurt, sure I cry, but I know how to get back up and I know how not to stay there because staying there and getting stuck forever, that's dying and I don't want to die while I'm living. [TYLER] So let's take that. It's like, explain what is bounce back. Like, when you're talking to someone and you're like when you walk through this process or you describe it, what is a bounce-back? [DARLEEN] A bounce back is, there's a lot of things. I think it's the best 30 for 30 story you're ever going to write. It's literally like your ability to take a setback and write the comeback. It's the comeback from the setback. It's the ability to rise back up when you think you can't go again and it's the ability to see adversity and in a way that it advances you. Bouncing back is like bouncing forward. It really does propel you forward if you use it in the right way if you frame it in the right way. So bouncing back is your comeback story. It's, and by the way, I don't even mean this in a catastrophe standpoint. You don't have to have add a stroke. It could be that you were off this morning about a call that you had and you have to get your head on straight to have your meetings, to finish out your business day, to get, come back home with the level set, mindset so that you're not taking this all the way through and it's not hurting everyone. Bouncing back is bouncing back to center and then you can go forward, [TYLER] John Maxwell, and I don't know what book or where it is, he talks about the difference between bouncing and splatting. To me, that's like this element of like, all right, I'm going to choose to, like you said, bounce forward. I'm going to use this moment. I'm going to use the tools that you talk about in the book, but also choose to do that instead of splatting and let it get me down, or as you describe, you end up letting it bury you. Because I think that happens to so many people, is they take circumstances, the challenges that you and I have shared, that each of us share that maybe I don't look back at those experiences as something that could have buried me because it didn't but yet it buried a lot of people. I think that's what you're talking about, the difference. So as leaders listening into it, I mean, right now there's a lot of people right now that are facing this. They're facing this, oh my goodness, what is life like now? Is it post-covid? Is it just a normal challenge? So where does this process start? [DARLEEN] it really starts, so principle number one, the reason I started with principle number one was called embrace the suck. The military term we all know "embrace the suck" because there's no way when you're off about something, hurting about something and pain about something, at loss for something that I'm going to come along and I'm going to go, "Well, these are the ways that you're going to get back and this is what you need to do right now." I need to meet you where you are with what you're dealing with, here you, see you have to meet yourself where you are so that you could feel what you need to feel, collect yourself. Like I said, bouncing back is getting back to center, so you could almost get back to center to start to make an educated choice on what you need to do next. Because like when they're in the middle of battle, they have to stay emotionally neutral to make the best next decision. But you have to get into it and go, okay, we need to assess the situation. What is it? What is the situation? It usually, excuse my language, sucks at that moment and you're going, all right, this is reality. I'm a realistic optimist. I'm very much a realistic optimist. I am not a pure optimist. Optimist, and I'm not a pessimist. People see me as an optimist, but I'm very realistic and like, well, what's the situation? Now what are we going to do about it? That's where they're like, Dar you always think there's a way. Well, there is always a way. There's always a way. It's your mindset. [TYLER] Well, and I think if you look at any challenge, any situation that occurs, and if you have the mental capacity, the hardwiring per se to say, okay, yeah, I have to recognize the challenges so I can see the opportunities, because if I'm not willing to accept the challenges, then I'm going to delusively think they're not there and how can I guess try to solve a problem that I have no idea what the problem is. [DARLEEN] That's right. That's right. Exactly. So we have to embrace it. [TYLER] So after we embrace the problem, we say, okay, there's a challenge here. Well, what do you do next? [DARLEEN] Well, I would start to categorize the chapters into, you go from embracing it to then understanding your hardwiring and seeking a flying feedback. I'm merging a couple of chapters, but I do that because I need to build an emotional foundation with you. I need you to actually have a foundation and when stuff is going to happen, which it always is, we're either going in the mess, we're in the mess, or just came out of it. Just like today I'm working with a hockey player and we're working on him understanding his hardwiring, where we had him do an assessment, who is he? What's his hard wiring? How's he made? Literally, how was, how did God create him? What is, whether you do the Enneagram, whether you do strength finders, whether you do DISK, whether you do the elemental profile, do an assessment, or remind yourself, do it again in the middle of it so that you start showing, hey, let's start talking about where your strengths are and let's start getting really strong on, you may lose your job right now. There might be a recession, you might have been laid off right now, but you know what they didn't take away is your strengths and your talents. So talk about bouncing back and a comeback. Now you're going, oh, okay, I might have lost a little, my swagger there for a second. [TYLER] Well, I think the, it's one, I've had a couple other guests, we talk about strengths, but I'm in the process of, again, reading through Peter Drucker and this idea of focusing on strengths. And it's not a new phenomenon. It's a forgotten phenomenon. It's also a reminder, and I think it comes back to this idea of understanding who you are, that sometimes we end up in a spot that we're not really meant to be. It's just where we're at right now. The situation that's happened to me I wouldn't be where I'm at today if it wasn't for some of the very tough situations that I had to endure, getting fired, going through financial struggles, whatever, being in a situation like, ah, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. What if have the experiences to know where I'm at now and the opportunity? And I think that's as a leader, one, helping other people recognize that it's an opportunity for them. But if it's yourself saying, okay, what benefit? And I think it's so wonderful you said that the foundation that I can start from to then move to. [DARLEEN] Yep, yes. We're building, so think about this, problem, no problems. Starting even before the problem, taking inventory on this, when the problem hits, you're solid., you're locked in on this. So you're going, okay, this is coming at me. I didn't forget who I was this time though. I'm locked into who I am now. The situation happened, but I didn't, didn't change my hardwiring didn't change. I still have this gift I get to offer the world. So don't forget that. [TYLER] To me, that was one of my biggest struggles through it. It's not understanding what value I had. That's where from my insecurities and my confidence got blown up so much because I didn't realize what I had to offer to people and I didn't have the mental training. I didn't have the mentorship. I didn't have it to say, okay, just calm down, understand the situation and what are you uniquely gifted at and then work from there. [DARLEEN] Yes, right? You said a key thing, you didn't have the mental training. Like, this is why I'm so passionate about this. We're not taught this mental training. I mean, I've been doing this 26 years, so it's so natural to me, but that's why I started my practice in 2008 when no one thought this was cool and people are like, what language are you talking? I'm like, this is mental skills training. This is working on your mind. They're like, lady, please. Now people understand this more because they're seeing great leaders, great athletes, great anyone are going, and they're starting to seek this and learn it so that they can be better and stay more levelheaded, surefooted, and lead at a higher level. [TYLER] So, let's, I'm losing my notebook. We're just having a conversation here. This is good. Let's take that and let's just take that idea of, I believe, whether coaching youth sports, when I coach involved, and it's like I've understood and now realized the best thing that I can do is help athletes feel safe and challenge them at the same time, meaning, go make a mistake. It's okay. I'm not going to criticize you for the mistake you make. Instead, I'm going to help you see it as an opportunity to stretch yourself and understand, if it is uncomfortable, how to react. And I think that's the same in leadership positions and yet --- [DARLEEN] Sorry, that is all my bouncy balls. Literally a whole glass jar of bouncy balls that literally just shattered all over. There's like hundreds of bounty balls of glass all under my feet. I mean, this is what I'm talking about. You just have to bounce back. [TYLER] There's an element where I want to cut this, but Dar, I really want, because I love you and appreciate you. I think it's, here's what it is. There's a story in this. [DARLEEN] There are bouncy balls all over, literally hundreds of bouncing balls. [TYLER] If nothing else, you'll remember this [DARLEEN] It's fine. Well, yeah. [TYLER] So let's get back to athletes and talking about mistakes. Sometimes you drop a jar and it breaks and balls go everywhere but instead of getting upset about it, realizing, okay, what can come of this, what value, you're going to have a story to tell now. And I think those are the pieces when it comes back to the, we talk about being realistic and understanding the situation. Yeah, it sucks, but, I can move forward from here rather than let it weigh me down and I think if leaders do that with others, they help them build resilience. [DARLEEN] Yes, yes, yes. Gosh, that's so true. One, you're creating the ability to be agile. You're creating a safe environment. That agility is actually how we thrive and that's how we, greatness happens through agility. So when something happens and you allow people to, when something happens, you emotionally stay somewhat neutral, and, not that you don't feel it, not that you don't like in the middle of a game or in the middle of something at work, or like the scenario, something breaks, whatever happens, you have to just say yourself, like, okay, again, let's embrace the suck. Let's figure out where this is. How do we stay agile? Because the greatest delusion we could stay in is that everything's going to go perfect and everything's going to go as planned in our life and in business. That is the greatest delusion that people have bought into. Do not buy into the delusion of that. What you should buy into is things are going to go wrong. How will we stay agile when they come? It's like, when it comes, it's like almost like, wow, this is actually a situation that I get to start building grit again. You can't train without any stress on you, so you can't build the mental resiliency and grit. So this ability, when problems come to say, how will I handle it? You won't handle it great every time, but every time you try, it's another rep in. That's why I call this mental fitness. [TYLER] How much do you think grace plays into it for yourself? Hey, you just, I want you, one because hopefully you trust me. [DARLEEN] Yeah. [TYLER] Like yourself right now, grace. [DARLEEN] Yeah, great. [TYLER] It was an accident. [DARLEEN] First of all, having three strokes. I can't tell you how many stuff, things I've, I dropped sauce --- [TYLER] You should probably, you just have a glass free life Dar. Let's be honest. [DARLEEN] Yeah, I totally have a glass, but I mean, I dropped it in my kitchen, wipe everything, and I get to a meeting and there is sauce everywhere. I looked and I go, well, I legitimately, there's nothing I can do at this moment. [TYLER] It's hard. [DARLEEN] But here's the thing, because I've gone through so many things that have happened, it's here grace and also the power of perspective. Think about this is this the worst thing in the world that if this is the worst thing that's happened to me all day, I drop something? Or even you have a bad meeting or you don't get started on the team, something, even health problems, if you are still here and breathing you still have another chance. A majority of the stuff that bothers us, health is a big thing, but a majority of the stuff, like your kids don't do something, you break something, something didn't go well at work today, you got to annoyed driving home, but if that's the worst thing you had to deal with in perspective of all of life, you're doing good and so gratitude comes into it. Grace and gratitude, I think goes along. [TYLER] And I think of like a circumstance is it's not, again, tying into the bounce back, it's not what affects you. It's not the instance, it's not the event, it's how do you react. T plus E plus R equals O and it's what, however you react to it. And I think whether as a leader or as a coach, it doesn't really matter what happens. It's how do you react or when it happens to someone else, how do you react to it? Do you guide them through the process? Do you have grace for them? Do you say, okay, here's this opportunity, how can we use this collectively instead of, I guess finding a pylon effect where it comes back to that, hey, let's make this a splat rather than a bounce? [DARLEEN] I love that. I'd never heard of that, but I love it. What I was, the reason I had the glass thing I was going to show you is from that was because when you take a bouncy ball, it doesn't splat, it bounces. Honestly, you don't even know which direction it's going to go. You don't. It goes all over the place. That's how life, we think we're going to go in this way, but sometimes it could go in another direction. Can you move? Can you go get it? Can you bring it back? The other thing is, it's just staying open, the bouncy ball is a metaphor for the harder you bounce it, the higher it goes too. So all of this is a metaphor for, we are meant to bounce back. We are not meant to splat Like, so, but to, here, the way I look at that too is a splat is because it's so heavy whereas when you get your mindset and mental fitness so locked in, you're lighter, you're mentally lighter. So when adversity hits, you bounce and go bounce and go. A splat is just like so heavy to me. I think of it that way. So stay light in your thinking. Stay light in your heart. Stay light in your emotions. Not that, you still take things seriously, but stay light, stay agile. Like the palm tree, Wayne Dyer says, like, the palm tree could bend in 150-mile hour winds and come back up. So stay agile. [TYLER] Let's, I want to take an opportunity, and this is in popular media today, sports media, Jessica Pegula, the tennis player, whose mom, Kim had the heart attack just found out about it. It happened back in June. One of the articles that I read, and you know this, you see this in athletes that are on the stage and they're in front of the world performing and yet no one knows what's going on behind the curtains. Connectively that's us every day. People we work with, there's stuff going on behind the curtains. And she shares in an article, I think it was in The Athlete's Tribune that she goes, I need to talk about this because I need, it's been burying me. So talk about going back, we shared that earlier bearing, but how important is it to discuss what we're going through with others as a process, not to be a victim, but yet to help us get through that so it doesn't become this heavy weight to where we can't bounce? [DARLEEN] Well, it's getting it out and you have to find the right people that you could discuss this with. This is a little bit of a two-fold because we've gotten to, in some ways where some of the younger generation is like talking about their emotions now, which is so good. But sometimes I'm seeing now the shift where they stay talking about it anxiety, depression and they stay in the emotion of it instead of going, okay, we've got to go play now. Like, we've got to get back to where's our joy. So you could talk about it to where you stay stuck in it because what you focus on, you feel. So I want to make sure the pendulum gets back to center, like everything. But yes, in general, especially like a lot of the athletes I talk to, they need a confined space that they will talk to the right people, that they know it is not going to go anywhere, confidential space, not confined, confidential space where they can go and it's not going to be shared so they can get it off their chest. Because if not, anxiety is real. Panic attacks are real, things happen. So it is important that you find someone to talk about. And you can use your life. I mean, I use all my scenarios where I'm like this is what's been happening and I have one or two, really two confidants that I could go to and I say, this is on my heart. I get 24 hours to talk about this, feel it, and then I've got to move forward. I have to. So I feel better once I get it out. And your brain, once it gets it out, it's like, oh, we don't have to fight or flight this. We've talked about it. We've actually heard if we can find a resolution or a solution, and sometimes it's just saying we don't have it. That's enough to say, okay, we can let it go now. [TYLER] And really choose to move forward. There's one piece we can go back to. Grace is talking about gratitude and pet a friend, share this with me is using gratitude as a weapon. Being so grateful that the circumstance had because one, what does this then present as an opportunity? Or it's building that resilience in me so if I'm a little bit tougher now, I'm going to be tougher later when some other circumstance occurs. [DARLEEN] Yeah, yeah. Gratitude is gratitude and the power of reframing, perspective, all of it. You get to shift from especially gratitude. One of the players when, I was so proud of him at an interview, he said they had lost the game and they said is it getting hard on you, especially on the road? He said, at the end of the day, I'm still in the NHL and I get to play the best game in the world with great people so I'm still grateful. I was like, yes. [TYLER] It's, you allow the greatest opportunity is whatever game we're playing is to play the game. [TYLER] It's a, life is, work is your interaction. I mean, it's a game. If you can look at it's like, all right, Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game and it's this idea as long as I'm continuing to be in it, and I think the opportunity, whether it's from our personal self or extending out to others to say, hey, if we can find the tools so we can bounce back through whatever happens that's going to help us succeed more in the long-term because it's not going to overwhelm us. [DARLEEN] Yes, absolutely. A thousand percent. That's why learning these tools now helps you. I'm not going to say life's going to get easier, but I am going to say, you're going to get better at life. [TYLER] Will the right way to phrase it maybe is it'll help you be more composed? [DARLEEN] Oh, for sure, composed, compassionate. [TYLER] You think about it, the professional athletes you work with, and it is like, it's usually the ones that are most mentally composed, able to dig into whatever they need. They have composure in the moment. Those are the ones that usually perform the best. [DARLEEN] Yes, emotional agility. I would say composure in the sports world, we call it, in leadership, emotional agility. You could have emotional agility where in neutrality, neutrality is composure where you are not reacting, you're truly responding in the best way. So when the event happens, you take a pause and you say, okay, what is this information? What is it asking of me? What do I need to do about this? This, what's it evoking? If you just create a little separation from the situation and what you want to do, your E plus R equals O. But it really does help but that happens from practicing and practice with the little things. Practice with the people that are triggering you in your own home. [TYLER] Well, and I think one caution that I think is important is not to be apathetic, meaning you need to be emotionally in tune. Because if you're emotionally out of tune, we've seen that all over the world where people are just out of touch, they're out of tune, but it's saying, I can be empathetic enough to go with you through these emotions, but I don't need to allow the emotions to escalate my own emotions to where now they start to cause conflict. [DARLEEN] Yes, yes, yes. [TYLER] So what's the best process in your reframing and through the process to say, to allow that to happen? [DARLEEN] I think it's really learning and I write a lot about this, about emotional neutrality, because emotional neutrality is truly creating that space and understanding what's going on and you're able to create, bring the appropriate amount of response, knowledge, intellect to the situation that yes, you have some empathy around it, but it is also not taking you down where you are so stuck in the, you can't get caught in the whole thing that now you can't leave. So you have to create that distance with it. Think about it, when I walked into the room of my patients that were literally just had their legs amputated, or they had their skull removed because of swelling in their brain and they're not sure how to get back, I had to empathize for the situation, but I had to create a neutrality where I felt it, but I did not get consumed so much about it that I could not lead them through their most challenging time. Or when a leader or an athlete is coming to me with something very major that's just happened, I mean, this is 26 years trained as a therapist, but I'm trained to be the calm in the middle of the storm to go, what are we dealing with? What is it that we need to do? I feel for what is going on for them, but I am not consumed by the situation. [TYLER] Well, and I think that one of the notes that I made is it's keeping a in touch view, emotions, but yet being realistic enough to understand what is the path forward, instead of being clouded by emotions to where you're just trying to say, okay, where's out, instead of saying, okay, what's the best path forward? [DARLEEN] Right. And by the way, majority of times if when I ask people from adversity and what they went through, I would say, would you say that most of that ended up making you better who you are today? They're like, yeah. I say, so would you actually change any of it? Most would say no. Mostly they'd say no, because we do get better through adversity. It's like, I think of Gino Ama with the Yukon Girls basketball when they won 111 games and then they finally lost and he goes, good. Not that he wanted them to, but he's like, it's not realistic to learn this, that you don't win 111 straight anything. That's just not how this goes. You learn through, now he's like, now it's real. Now how do you deal with this pain of loss? How do you deal with this feeling of failure or rejection or whatever it is you're interpreting your head? How do you deal with this because this is actually what's really going to help you in in life. [TYLER] I think there's an element of that is if you've never faced that adversity in a challenge, then you don't know what you're made of and if you don't know what you're made of, usually in that case, those are the ones that struggle the most in adversity because it's never been tempered. You never put in the heat to where all of a sudden, now I'm challenged, or okay, how strong am I? [DARLEEN] Right, right. [TYLER] If there was one perspective that you were able to really encourage people to have, what would it be? [DARLEEN] I think it would be the ability, all of this is so important, but quickly to be able to reframe situations. If you could reframe things, reframing setbacks, reframing situations, reframe the game, which is really power of perspective, you will be able to then bring in emotional neutrality. You will then be able to have a distance from your emotions a little bit. You'll be able to lead better. You reframe it to realize it's a bad scenario that's happening, but it's not a bad life. It might have been a bad game, but you're not a bad player. You might have had a bad day at work, but you're not a bad leader as long as you're working on yourself, as long as you're making yourself better every day. The ability to reframe situations say, is this the worst that it really is? Is this the worst that it really is? Is this scenario the worst thing I will ever live through in my life? I don't know, but is there a better way? Is this going to make me better? How do I reframe this? We do live in a world and in a country, right here, that more often than not, we are blessed more than we are stressed, and stress, meaning we interpret our stress but we are very blessed in this world in a lot of ways. There's a lot of things that people are going through, and I don't discount that, but I'll reframe things sometimes. Even my third stroke, I said, okay, well, I lost a lot of my speech. I lost my fine motor, I lost my balance, I lost my ability to read and I was sitting there by myself doing my rehab in summer in Arizona, which is hotter than Haiti, and it's very lonely and isolating and I thought, well, I may not be able to hold things on my hands the way I want to, but I still have movement in my arms and I know I'm going to be able to come back because I did before. Even if for some reason I didn't, if this stayed where it was, I still can serve people. It may not be how I want, but I could still serve. I say this to you today, and I mean this with all my heart, Tyler, that if God never blessed me with another thing, I would, I'm beyond grateful. I'm beyond. Anything else that happens in my life is like a cherry on top. I still strive for goals that I feel he's calling me to. I still have dreams, but I could stay so grateful in this moment while not getting complacent, but just staying in a state of gratitude. [TYLER] Man, I love it. Dar, great to catch up with you. So great to see you. Thank you. Excited about your book, excited to be able to have you here chatting about it. I hope everyone gets an opportunity to grab it. What I look at this is, it's a tool to have in your toolbox. It's a process to learn yourself, but also I think the great opportunity is we're all going through something at some point. Learn the tools, share the tools, embrace the tools. [DARLEEN] Yes, they're simple tools. This is not a thesis when you're in the middle of it. You don't want a thesis. These are principles, hands-on. This is, we take complex things, we make them simple, and then we teach them. That's what I do. Appreciate it. So take these principles and apply them, and you'll be glad you did the next time something hits. [TYLER] Yes, Dar, thank you so much. [DARLEEN] Thanks buddy. [TYLER] One thing that I know and I've realized this is, and we talked about it during the episode, and having grace for yourself in a moment and just allowing yourself to say, that situation happened, okay, how can I roll with it, how can I move on? I think as leaders, one of the greatest opportunities we have for others is to guide them through that process instead of piling on, instead of putting more on people and trying to throw out shame. I believe this, you don't build emotional, mental resilience by piling on people. You don't just dump them and bury them and bury them and bury them in hope to build resilience. Instead, I believe it's through the practice of empathy, putting your arm and walking through it with people that builds their ability to endure. It's being realistic in the moment and say, this is the challenge I'm having, whatever it may be. We talked about it, understand what your values and strengths are. If you have your values locked down, if you have a routine in life, no matter what happens, you can continue to work forward. In my Awaken the Leader Within training, I go through the five Rs which are very similar to what Dar pointed out, it's, for the five Rs or have a routine. It's a reset, find a place to reset. Remember or not, is it going to serve you or not? Be realistic and then repeat. Those match up so much with what Dar shares in the art of Bouncing Back. I surely hope you'll grab the book as I mentioned in the episode. It's a tool to have in the toolbox to make sure that you are preparing yourself for whenever those situations happen or it's going to happen or those around you. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for listening in. Go check out Dar stuff. She's a wonderful lady who I appreciate having my life because she's been so good to myself, my wife Kelly and I, our family. I hope you partake in her content and make sure that you support. It's a great tool, book that she's gone through a lot and shares her journey and I think it's something we can all relate to. Again, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Till next time, have a good one.