By Steve Beseke, beseke1@earthlink.net

In the last three weeks, I have focused my articles on handling different types of stress because of requests by many of you around the world. These are highly stressful times, and your happiness and success depend on how you manage life’s “ups” and “downs.”

All of us are resilient 24 hours a day. In saying this, there are moments in my life that I’ve just wanted to bury my head, cruise off to a south sea island and not worry about the every day craziness of life.

This craziness may be caused by me having a truly challenging day at the office, losing confidence in myself with some part of my life I’m usually very great at, someone has said something I have taken the wrong way, or I just feel like I’ve let people down – including myself.

This is when my inner resilience voice has spoken very softly but firmly saying: “Steve, you are not going to get through this challenge unless you understand that life is much more than being a good worker, good father or being good co-worker. A resilient life is about being good to myself and learning from missteps I have made in my career and personal life. And then bouncing back from these setbacks to become even stronger.

As you think through your life actions, I’m sure you agree that sometimes being good to yourself is the hardest accomplishment. To help with life, I’d suggest:

Listening to your self-talk…

What are you telling yourself? If it’s negative — rewrite it! Keeping a daily or weekly log of your self-talk may help you identify what it is and when you do it. You might write it something like this:

Stressor #1:

What I said to myself…

Before:

During:

After:

Type of negative self talk:

Stressor #2:

What I said to myself…

Before:

During:

After:

Type of negative talk:

Stressor #3:

What I said to myself…

Before:

During:

After:

Type of negative talk:

Compare your talk to the different types of negative self-talk. You may find patterns in the type of talk you do in these examples:

All-or-none — Everything is black or white. If it’s not perfect, then it’s unacceptable.

Over-generalization — One bad event means everything is bad forever.

Disqualifying/minimizing the positive — Focusing only on the negative parts of an event.

Jumping to conclusions — Assuming negative future consequences without the support of facts.

Mislabeling — Putting negative labels on yourself, which influences future events.

Personalization — Assuming all responsibility for a negative event, even if you are not responsible.

Stop your self-talk and change your outlook…

Immediately say to yourself, “STOP!” Do something else as a distraction. Ask yourself:

- What would I say to someone else who was in this situation?

- What would my [mother, friend, sister, coworker] say to me about the situation?

Pick a positive self-statement. Repeat it over and over. For example, “I can do this,” or “I can get through this.”

When I literally trip and fall because my physical disability (Cerebral Palsy) has made my back seize up, this is when I need to use my inner courage and fully understand my stressors.

When I have not been as patient with someone (including myself) as I should be, I have to remember how lucky I am to have such great friends and colleagues at my side. And determine what type stressors are making me less patient.

When I have disappointed myself because I did not properly gauge the best course of action, I have to remember that I am not perfect and my next decisions will determine how I successfully move forward. What stressors are causing me to think this way?

As I write to you today, I have received many comments about how you are thinking the same types of things. What stressors can you better control or react to in a different way?

We all live our resiliency every day, but I feel it takes a bit of extra reflection to make sure our resiliency in highly stressful times stays at least on an even keel. As I try to do, I suggest you reflect on what goals and values are truly important to you. Is it work? Is it your personal life? Is it both? Reflecting on this will help you better handle the stress and good times in your life.

To be successful at long-term resiliency, I have found you need to truly understand what’s vitally important to your on-going needs. For me, I absolutely want to be successful in resiliency speaking and writing business. But in need to manage my inevitable stress to help me see clearly as I talk worldwide.

Life has been extremely challenging for many of us during this Great Recession. Nerves have become frayed, some dreams have been put on hold, and personal relationships have sometimes taken back seat because of the unabridged stress we have found in these uncertain times.

I am definitely not an idealist, but I have come to realize that 24-hour-day resiliency is not something you can take for granted in any way. Handling stress is so important to our overall well-being and confidence in ourselves. It’s all up to me – and you!

Take care, and I will talk with you next week…

By Steve Beseke, beseke1@earthlink.net

Life can be a true joy or such a paradox in so many ways for all of us.

Take me, for example…

- As I very humbly become known nationally and internationally for my resiliency writings, speeches and conversations, life has moved in a very terrific direction over the last year.

- I am getting use to a walking aid – a cane – that I’ve never needed in adapting to a lifelong Cerebral Palsy physical disability in my 50 years.

- My wife and daughter are doing great, and warm weather has finally decided to make a sustained appearance in Minnesota.

I also had two important speeches/conversations last week that went superbly. Life was good.

That is, until I became very sick with food poisoning last week after a resiliency speech at a local hotel. Talk about running up against a brick wall, or remembering when I smacked my head against an unforgiving marble floor after falling at a work conference a couple years ago. Nothing prepared me for this last week…and I felt like I was going to die.

One thing was re-emphasized, however, and a point for all of us: Be ready to stay nimble and grateful for life because, in an instant, your world could detrimentally change – even if it is only a short period of time.

A good friend just told me that a young person he knows was just diagnosed with cancer. Life can be unmistakably unfair sometimes. That definitely tempers my challenges of last week.

I am finally recovering and Godspeed to my colleague’s young friend.

But what about you? Are you going through a dramatic change – and worrying about your job or where your next great work adventure will surface? Has your health suffered or changed in some way?

A recent study showed more than 30 percent of us are acutely stressed by these challenging times, which has created an inordinate amount of health issues for us. The stress of life is causing us to get run down and become susceptible to many health concerns.

All of us, of course, need to stay as healthy as possible without the everyday life challenges pointing us down an unhealthy road. Before unhealthy stress or anxiety can cause your body to react negatively, I’d suggest trying to understand what stress can do to our bodies. If not managed properly, it can lead to many health problems that might derail your successful journey in navigating the undercurrents of staying healthy in these challenging times.

The following resiliently healthy tips are part of a managing stress regimen that has helped me keep mostly in control of my health – despite the recent food poisoning. It has provided me a process to keep cruising down a healthier road. I hope it does the same for you.

Thanks, again, to my local health provider, for information about understanding how unhealthy stress can compromise your body. While I was stressing about the food poisoning, I was making it worse because I was also had anxiety about the work/life actions my illness was preventing me from accomplishing last week.

Here’s what I need to remember, and I hope you keep in mind to stay “healthy.”

Stress and your body

A stress response can set off all kinds of complicated activity in different parts of your body. And it can all happen as quickly as the flip of a healthy switch.

A closer look

What you feel as stress actually starts in your brain the moment you perceive a stressor. Say, for example, a mean-looking dog growling at you while you stroll down the sidewalk.

Here’s what happens:

-      Your eyes send a dog image to your brain.

-      Within a split-second, your brain registers that image as “stressful.”

-      Stress hormones are released into your in your brain. They’re like little boosters that help your body respond to the stressor with the classic flight or flight response.

The classic fight or flight response? Yes — this is your response to stress hormones that release from your adrenal glands after a signal occurs in your brain. The purpose of stress hormones is to get your body ready to react — fight or flight.

Here are some examples of how your body prepares:

• Heart rate speeds up
• Blood pressure rises
• Muscular strength increases (or tightens)
• Brain activity increases
• Breathing rate quickens
• Metabolic rate speeds up
• Potential energy sources — sugar and cholesterol — release into your bloodstream

Now you’re ready to give that stressor your best shot. Or, if you see that the mean dog is behind a fence and can’t hurt you (phew!) — your body realizes it no longer needs the heightened state of readiness. You then return back to your normal state.

Why prolonged stress is bad – and unhealthy

Stress hormones are useful for short periods of time. But if you’re under stress much of the time (chronic stress), stress hormones and their effects are present, too.

Let’s take a look at how chronic stress and a build-up of stress hormones can be bad for you.

Know the signs of stress

Not surprisingly — with all that potential for harm — unmanaged stress tends to leave its evidence behind.

Here’s a chart showing some of the most common signs of stress. If you find these signs of unmanaged stress look familiar, you probably have some work to do. Your overall health may depend on your actions.

Meet your stress hormones

- Adrenalin increases your breathing, heart rate and blood pressure.

- Cortisol increases the amount of blood glucose (sugar) to your brain (helping you think fast and focus your attention) and to your muscles (helping you run fast and boost your strength).

Mean dog or microphone: The response is the same

Here’s something you may not realize. Once the stress message leaves your brain and the stress hormones start to do their job, your body only reacts in one way. Regardless of the situation, your body’s reaction is the same whenever you sense a stressor. It might be good stress or bad stress. It could be a dangerous dog or standing up to give a speech. To your body, it doesn’t matter. The physical responses are the same, and it all counts as stress.

Tracking stress

Learn to stress less — track it! Awareness is the first step… so keep a stress log.

Once you take a minute to write things down, you will have a clear idea of your stressors and how you respond to them. The first step in managing stress is to identify its source.

When this triggers, your body gears up for action.

While I was worrying about my health last week, I was not thinking about any of this. I just wanted to get well. But if your health is suffering from your job or unfortunately lack of one right now, please think through how stress can lead you down a bumpy – and unhealthy road. A road that may not give you the opportunity to use your tremendous resilience…

I truly appreciate your ongoing readership and look forward to our chats in the future. Please let me know if you’d like to talk about other specific resiliency topics. Take care.

By Steve Beseke, beseke1@earthlink.net

Understanding the importance of dealing effectively with the diversity and differences of people can get lost as many of us try to reinvent ourselves in these new economic days.

This is when, though, we need to understand certain life connections to be successful. Finding that healthy balance between our own self-interest and the way we compassionately treat others will determine our long-term resiliency in our lives/careers.

Diversity means many things to all of us. Some of us see it as the millions of types of plants in this world. Others may think of the thousands of types of birds on our planet. While additional folks simply think of the diversity of life and how we relate and treat others fairly.

To me, diversity begins with how I have successfully overcome a lifelong physical disability known as Cerebral Palsy…and how people react to me because of it. CP is a birth defect that affects my entire right side of my body causing my hand to be limp, making me walk funny and fall more than I want.

No matter how you define it, I think it is important that all of us react with empathy for those who may be a bit different from us. Even as we navigate through the challenging economic currents of life today, I encourage you to remember how lucky most of us are in this world.

I was watching a news program awhile back about people in a certain part of the world living on and eating from garbage dumps. I first pitied and felt sorry for them.

But, whether it is age, race, gender, a place where a person lives or someone like me with a disability… A difference should not always mean you should treat anyone less than how you’d like to be treated. As far as those living on landfills, I decided to give some money to organizations helping provide safe housing for them.

Learning Through Actions of Others

Because I was born in the 1950s, the way folks dealt with differences were less enlightened and tolerant than they are today.

My parents had to fight for my individual, basic rights when I was growing up in the 1960s. Back then, people still were able to institutionalize folks like me or put them in a back room of a house with the shutters closed. Society was not always ready to see anything that was not considered “normal.”

Through 2nd grade, I was in – what they called back then – a crippled school for children. The school was a very nice place, but it softened every blow or mistake students like me made. Like your parents, my mother and dad wanted me to achieve my potential – whatever that potential was going to be. I could have stayed in this school but was mainstreamed into a “normal” school in St. Louis Park in the third grade. This began my journey of truly growing up and seeing how kids reacted to my differences.

It was not always a pretty sight and I still have a few emotional scars today.

I’m not going to tell you examples of my life to gain your empathy. I hope my stories help you think just a bit about the way you react to situations different than what you think, or people different than what you are used to. This will help you become more successful in your career…and especially life.

Whether it is someone with a disability like me, a co-worker that is challenging to get along with, or someone who just does not fit in with your types of friends, your future achievements depend on how you react in a resilient, tolerant way.

A story of a great athlete in the Twin Cities is an enlightening diversity and differences example. I heard that Joe Maurer, a famous Minnesota Twins’ baseball star, use to do something rather cool in high school. Instead of always sitting with his circle of close friends at lunch, he would, gosh forbid, sit at tables with others he did not know. Whether they were geeks or those considered on the high school fringes, he wanted to get to know them…instead of only relying on what other people’s perceptions.

This was no mere gesture by Joe but a way he could find a more open path to effectively dealing with people who may be a bit different from him. I truly applaud his attitude.

Differences That Could Be Seen

Very humbly, I’ve been very successful in relating and treating others in my career/life because of the many life hurdles I have overcome. How have your life hurdles shaped the way you resiliently treat people everyday?

Life is truly special for me. Really, I should be dead. I was born in the late 1950s two months early and less than four pounds. This was very serious back then, and I was in an incubator for quite a long time clinging to life. Then, doctors found that I had Cerebral Palsy caused by a birth trauma. They told my parents I would have little use of my right hand, not walk normally and have many other problems.

They did not give up on me, and I have been blessed with a great life because of them.

The road after that was not easy, scripted or always fun – especially in elementary school. My resilience was born the first day of third grade…I only wish I had a person like Joe Maurer sitting with me at lunch those days.

I was 10 years old in 1969 and was escorted to my “normal” classroom on the first day of third grade. All the other kids were in the gym listening to the Principal welcoming them to the new school year.

The kids finally came to the classroom and the first one said after seeing me seated at my desk: “Why are you here…are you some sissy who can’t get to the gym?” Well, after a few minutes, the teacher asked me to walk up to the front of the room to introduce myself. Everyone laughed and said, ”Why do you walk so funny?”

Now, many of you may have much more challenging life issues than mine, that night was the first of many that I cried myself to sleep because I did not understand what was wrong with me and why the kids were being so mean. While my parents were extremely loving and supportive, this brought me to the “Naked Truth.” A reality – a signature moment – that would have a profound affect on my entire life.

Even though I was 10 at the time, I remember thinking that I was not going to let the constant teasing ruin my life.

More Lessons Learned

As any teen, my hormones were raging when I was 16. I liked a lot of girls, and a few actually liked me. I went out with this particularly pretty girl to a movie that I don’t remember – my whole focus was nowhere close to the movie screen.

Everything was going great until an older boy came up to me in the bathroom afterwards and said: ”You have no right to be out with this girl, you should only stick with your crippled friends.” She just feels sorry for you…you’ll never have a real girlfriend.”

I also was told by another student: “I would never date and marry except ‘with my own kind.’”

Talk about devastating. I didn’t date another girl for a long time until I got past the hurt and remembered: “Yes, you have a difference but there are many wonderful girls that see more than just your challenges.”

I now have been married more than 25 years to a beautiful able-bodied woman, and we have a cool 15-year-old drama queen-type daughter, two dachshund dogs and a guinea pig. A terrific life…

This from a guy who was close to not making it out of the incubator because of a series of complications after being born. Resilience is a blessing!

Not many in school also thought I could do anything normal like sports-related activities. They laughed again when I said I played golf and tennis. They did not laugh after I lettered in high school tennis and golf – and became a, very humbly, a terrific golfer when I was a little older.

Additionally, another high-schooler told me I should not take any advanced classes because “my kind” only works at menial jobs suited for them. Well, I achieved nearly straight “As” in high school, and had a blast and studied hard in college. As I have moved on in my career as a corporate communications executive and resiliency speaker/writer, I have gratefully been financially successful.

The point in these stories is that you should never try to unfairly judge someone because they may not necessarily be like you at work or in life. It’s not fair to the person but also will not help you in life or the working world where everyone has some type of difference or diversity you may not be familiar with…

A Creaky Realization

Now that I am older – I just reached 50 in December – I have to think harder about those with differences from me. I am extremely independent and have never required walking aids such as a cane or scooter to get me around. While CP is a birth defect and does not get worse as you age, your body starts to wear out – back, joints, etc. I’m at the point where I may need a cane to walk a longer distance.

I’ve always felt more normal because I did not need such aids. I now need to change my diversity definition and not think I’ll be less of a person because I can’t walk as independently as I once did.

So, I understand how it can be hard for many of you able-bodied individuals to compassionately and effectively deal with those different from you – especially at work. I thought I’d never be like those individuals who need aids. In a sense, I felt more independent and not needing to rely on others. Now, I need to adapt my perspective a bit.

As you look at possibly retooling parts of your life and work career, I’d suggest thinking first about how you currently treat others. If you are empathetic and compassionate, please commend yourself. If you want to retool a bit in this area, you will find greater satisfaction to continue your resilient success.

You’ll definitely be happier and gain a healthier, more tolerant perspective as you move forward. It’s definitely up to you!

Thanks, again, and look forward to talking with you next week. Stay resilient – and tolerant – my friends…