You don’t have to be crippled by anxiety | DFS 308

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:00

Music. Welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:04

host, Jennifer Takagi, and today I want to talk about anxiety.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:10

Do you have crippling anxiety? Is it keeping you from doing the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:14

things you want to do, living the life that you want to live?

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:19

I'm very fortunate, because I don't struggle with anxiety very

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:23

much. There are times when it hits me really hard. I remember

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:28

one time at work, my boss came to me and said, Hey, our his

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:35

boss, like two up bosses is coming to town tomorrow and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:40

wants to meet with you at 10am Well, I had already scheduled to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:44

be off that morning and was going to be late. I wasn't even

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:49

planning on being there till 1030 and he said, Well, that'll

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:53

work. You can, you can come in at 1030 and I said, What are we

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:57

meeting about? And he said, I don't really know. I said, so

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:04

your boss's boss is coming to town to meet with me, but nobody

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:08

knows why? Yes, I'm gonna tell you I was feeling an immense

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:13

amount of anxiety, like I was up and down all night. I was

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:18

stressed out. It was so scary, I didn't know what they wanted.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:22

What they wanted me to do was be a temporary boss in a in a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:27

position, and it all worked out just fine, but that created a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:33

lot of anxiety for me, because there was a history of those

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:36

meetings not being in the employee's best interest, and so

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:41

it was really scary. And that was like, Whoa, I don't know if

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:45

I can do this. And you you've probably heard if you've been

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:48

following me for a while. I had a boss for a number of years

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:52

that created anxiety just when I could hear her footsteps walking

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:56

down the corridor. So I knew what I was in for every day

Jennifer Takagi: 00:01:59

based on the the cadence of the steps. So I have, I have dealt

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:04

with that. I have suffered with that, and it was not fun at all.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:09

But mine works situational. I actually went to the doctor and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:13

I was like, oh, I want Xanax. I hear people just eat Xanax like

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:16

candy, and it solves all the problems, and my doctor wouldn't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:20

give me Xanax. So there you go. I guess I didn't do a good

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:23

enough job selling it, but he did give me a mild anti anxiety

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:28

medicine that truly made all the difference in the world, because

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:32

I was calmer and I could think through the situation. When

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:36

you're in those situations, when people are just coming at you,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:40

it can be hard to think through what to do next if you don't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:44

have the right skills. And I will be perfectly transparent,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:48

clear right here, I I'm sure I didn't have the skills, I'm sure

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:52

I didn't have the skills to be able to handle it. But anxiety,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:02:56

when you look up a psychiatric definition of anxiety, it's

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:00

excessive apprehensiveness about real or perceived threats,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:07

typically leading to avoidance behavior, often to physical

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:12

symptoms such as increased heart rate and muscle tension. Again,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:19

mine was situational. If I was not at work, I was pretty good.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:26

I don't think I dwelled on work all the time I might have, but

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:31

thank God that's in the rear view mirror that career path.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:36

But I'm talking about this real or perceived threat. I have

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:44

friends who can literally list every single possible thing that

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:51

could go wrong, and the list is long and it's in depth and it's

Jennifer Takagi: 00:03:58

specific, and then you wonder, is that stuff gonna happen?

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:06

Let's just talk about the news for half a minute. I quit

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:10

watching the news years ago, because after the Oklahoma City

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:15

bombing, for the first solid year, at least, there was not

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:20

one local news report that didn't have something to do with

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:24

the bombing. And then when that finally laid up a little bit and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:29

it wasn't so much, then it became all about the trials. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:34

so that, just like created even more more stress and anxiety,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:39

because what's gonna happen? And so at some point in there, I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:44

don't remember exactly when it was, I quit watching the news.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:49

And my husband and I had had a habit for years. We would watch

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:53

the local news the world or nightly news, and then the local

Jennifer Takagi: 00:04:57

news again, and then 630 whatever. Our show came on then,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:02

but we watched it pretty religiously, and one night, I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:04

was like, Yeah, let's not do that. And we quit. And it's kind

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:09

of funny, because sometimes he watches the news without me, and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:11

I'm like, oh, yeah, oh, it's on. Let me go in the other room. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:16

some people have criticized me about it and said, You need to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:20

know what's going on in the world. And I said, Well, so do

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:25

you know what's going on in the world, and what are you doing to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:28

change it? What are you doing to change it? And I heard, I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:35

believe her name is Leslie Osborne. She was a state senator

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:39

here in the state of Oklahoma, or maybe she was a state

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:42

Congresswoman, I can't remember, but she held public office in

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:47

that way, and then she was our labor commissioner. And she

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:50

might still be, I don't know, but at a at the Oklahoma State

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:55

Safety Council, I was honored to do breakout sessions out two

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:59

years in a row. She was the keynote speaker, and she said,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:05

Don't worry about what's going on in Washington. You can't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:08

necessarily affect a change there. You need to worry about

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:11

what's going on locally in your community, because if you change

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:15

what's going on in your city and your county and your state, that

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:20

affects your life much more greatly than what's going on

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:24

elsewhere. And I think we are creating a whole group of people

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:31

who are anxiety ridden because they watch the news, and I don't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:34

care what channel it is, it doesn't really matter. But when

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:38

you have the news on 24 hours a day, because you need to know

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:40

what's going on, you're creating more anxiety for yourself. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:45

the question becomes, is, is that a legitimate anxiety? Is

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:51

that going to happen? I had a friend after the Oklahoma City

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:56

bombing, said, I'm scared of strangers. I'm scared of moving

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:01

vans. And there was a third thing, I can't remember the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:03

third thing she was scared of. And I said, Wait a minute.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:08

Strangers came and helped our friends and colleagues, and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:17

we've both moved multiple times, and we took moving trucks every

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:20

time. Like you can't take one event and then project it to all

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:26

future things, because that's kind of what anxiety does you're

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:30

looking at, what problems can be happening in the future. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:37

that begs the question, Where is your focus? There's a lot of

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:43

research out there. Whether you're airy fairy Wu like me, or

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:47

you're very structured and and sound. If you're a Christian,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:52

the Bible talks about where you put your focus. Keep your eyes

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:56

on him, and if you're focusing on all the bad things that could

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:03

possibly be happening, you're gonna feel more of that anxiety.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:13

Mother Teresa said, Don't ever invite me to an anti war rally

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:20

that's negative in every single connotation, our words matter.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:27

She said, Now you invite me to a peace rally, and I'm in so

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:32

where's your focus? Are you focusing on all the possible

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:35

good things that could happen? Or are you focusing on all the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:40

bad things that could happen. Funny little silly story, one

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:45

morning, I woke up and our cat was at our island that has

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:51

wheels on it, and he was, like, completely focused. And I ran

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:58

and got my husband, and I was like, Oh my gosh, we have a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:00

scorpion in the house, which I'm in Oklahoma. We live near a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:04

pond. We get scorpions occasionally, but it's pretty

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:07

rare. So he comes out, and that stupid Scorpion just took off

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:11

and went underneath the cabinet. How did it get under there? I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:14

don't know. I They can just squish into little bitty, tiny

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:17

spaces. So my husband left and I finished getting ready for work,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:22

and I've got the dog and the cat now staring at this wheel, and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:26

that stupid Scorpion had come back. So I ran Newsflash,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:31

newsflash, if you don't know this, hairspray will kill pretty

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:36

much any bug that you don't want to deal with, because it like

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:39

freezes them. It freezes your hair, freezes the critters. So I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:45

squeezed I sprayed that Scorpion, and then I can't hear

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:50

the sound of killing something, so I have to cover my ears and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:53

scream, la, la, la, la, really loudly.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:56

I put a paper towel over it, and then squish it and threw it

Jennifer Takagi: 00:09:58

away. And then I. To leave, and there is a little frog in the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:05

garage. And so I got a broom and I brushed it. I was like, You

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:08

need to go away little frog, because it was hot, and that

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:10

frog was going to die in the heat in the garage. I brushed it

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:14

outside, and the stupid thing went under my car. So now I've

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:17

got the broom and I'm trying to move it out from under the car,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:20

and it won't go and I thought, well, there's nothing I can do

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:23

about you, buddy. I've done everything in my power. I put

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:28

the broom up, Shut the garage door, I back up, and I hear a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:31

squish. I ran over the damn frog. So at the time, I don't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:37

think I had a cell phone, or if I did, I didn't have Bluetooth

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:39

in my car. And I got to work, and I called my husband, and I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:43

said, Well, it was death day at the Takagi house this morning.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:48

And he goes, What are you talking about? And so I told him

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:51

about what had happened, and I said, but thank goodness I got

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:55

to work and it's all over. Like, whoosh, whoosh. Wipe it off. I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:10:59

love to run my hands down my arms and just like wipe off all

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:03

that bad mojo, weird feelings, whatever, it's gone. And I did

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:10

have a tiny bit of dread about coming home that night, because

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:14

there's gonna be a dead frog in the driveway and what. So I am

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:21

pulling up to the house, and my driveway is clear. There's

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:26

nothing there. And my husband comes in a little bit later, and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:30

I was like, Oh my gosh, did you see this? I guess the birds came

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:36

and and took care of that frog, and it's gone. And he goes, No,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:40

I came home and hosed off the driveway because I knew it was

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:43

going to upset you to come home, so yeah, bonus points for Bill

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:46

Takagi, because he got the dead frog off the driveway. I could

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:52

have spiraled that day about all the bad things that could

Jennifer Takagi: 00:11:57

happen, but I made a choice. I made a conscious decision, that

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:03

that was over and done. Jack Canfield talks about it a lot in

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:08

his book, The Success Principles and in that training that I went

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:11

through, which was amazing. And he talks about, when you wake up

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:16

in the morning and stub your toe, you can have the thought

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:20

process of, Oh, thank goodness that's over. I don't have to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:23

worry about that again today. My one bad thing's over. Or you can

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:29

start in and create your own Sunday night melodrama. You

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:33

could be your own lifetime movie. Oh, I stubbed my toe and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:38

then I cut myself shaving, whether it's a leg or a face. I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:41

kept myself shaving, and then I was out of hairspray because I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:44

used it yesterday to kill the scorpion, and then, and then I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:49

didn't have anything to take for lunch, and then I spilled my

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:52

coffee, thank god on her and coffee, because I've never had

Jennifer Takagi: 00:12:54

to do that. And you can just create your own day of horror,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:03

and it creates anxiety, because you're creating everything

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:07

that's happening as it happens, where you focus your time and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:12

attention matters, and it matters a lot. So where's your

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:18

focus? If you're struggling with anxiety, what are you focusing

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:22

on? Is it something so far in the future that you have no

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:26

control over, or are you focusing on doing what you can

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:30

do really well right now? I believe it's Mary Barr is the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:36

CEO of GM, and she was asked when you started GM, did you

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:42

know that you wanted to work your way up and be the CEO? And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:46

she said, Oh, absolutely not. My focus was doing the job that I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:52

had to the best of my ability. And people took notice. You

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:57

don't have to jump up and down and show everybody you're there.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:00

They see you're there by consistency, by doing a good

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:04

job, and by focusing on the here and now, what you're doing right

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:10

now. So my question for you to ponder as I close this out is,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:19

what would your life look like without the anxiety? What would

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:25

your life look like if you assumed the best, the best out

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:30

of yourself, the best out of your employees, the best out of

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:35

your spouse, the best out of your kids, the best out of the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:39

person at the grocery store that checked you out. What if you

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:44

just expected the best? My friend told me a story recently

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:49

that Esther Hicks, who's a total woo person, if you don't know

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:54

her, and Abraham Hicks is how she channels and shares magical,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:58

mystical, wonderful. Uh, stories and information and guidance.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:03

And she had a very expensive car. I don't know if it was a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:06

royal Rolls Royce. That's easy for me to say Rolls Royce or

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:10

another kind, but it was a very expensive car. And they drove up

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:16

to park or and they were going to valet the car. And as they

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:20

got out the friend with her said, Oh my gosh. Are you really

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:23

going to trust this, you know, $200,000 car, whatever it was to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:27

the valet. Don't you think they're going to, you know,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:30

scratch it up or bump a another door or something? And she said,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:35

Oh, I just assume that anybody who sees this car is going to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:41

appreciate it enough to treat it as well as I do. What I'm going

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:47

to assume they're going to treat it as well as I do, versus

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:51

somebody's going to scratch my car. This is going to be a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:15:55

problem. Are you assuming the best, assuming the worst? Where

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:00

is your focus? What if you assume the best out of people?

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:05

Yes, there are times when it's not going to work out. Yeah, I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:07

get it blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could make up your own

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:10

story about that. My story is things work out for me. I go to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:15

Toby Keith's before almost every single Oklahoma City NBA home

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:20

basketball game. And in all the years I've been going since

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:25

like, 2009 2010 I can't remember. Maybe it was 2011 but

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:32

a long time now, because 2024 is when I'm recording this, I bet

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:38

there aren't five times and there are 40 games a year, I bet

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:42

there aren't five times that I didn't get to park right in

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:45

front of Toby Keith's and then walk to the game at work, we'd

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:53

all go to lunch. And if we ever went out to lunch, everybody

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:56

wanted to ride in my car. Why? Because I just assume I'm going

Jennifer Takagi: 00:16:59

to get a great parking spot, and I typically do, there are rare

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:04

occasions I just chalk that up to somebody else needed it more

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:08

than I did that day, or I needed to get a few steps in so you

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:13

have the choice on how much anxiety you experience and if

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:19

you want to hang on to it, or if you want to let it go, I have a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:26

free gift for you. I keep telling you about it that you

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:29

need to get it and you need to implement it. 12 minute

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:32

gift.com. I'm Jennifer Takagi. I look forward to connecting with

Jennifer Takagi: 00:17:37

you soon. You.