"How I Learned From An Ancient Culture To NEVER Allow Pressure 
To Become Overwhelm And Stress…"
John English
Executive Coach and Contributing Author
Founder Ancient Wisdom for Modern Business
When I was in 6th grade I fainted in class and was hospitalized with stomach issues…

After successfully launching my first business…at one of the happiest times in my life, I developed irritable bowel syndrome and colitis…

I moved my company and family from the cold nasty weather of the Chicago area to sunny Arizona. Again, I was successful and happy, but I developed chronic migraines…

Each time after extensive tests, my doctors concluded it was unconscious stress that was causing these physical symptoms. Twice the symptoms went away as soon as I knew they were caused by stress. With the chronic migraines, muscle relaxers did the trick.

Clearly, there was something going on here. The pressure I put on myself to be successful was becoming stress that was harmful to my health. Is a little stress good as they say? Does it help us perform at our best? 

If so, how do we prevent a little stress from becoming the full blown stress response and a huge health issue?

Once I set my mind to finding the answers to these questions, my journey would take 9 years. It would eventually lead me to unusual places like learning from an ancient culture of shaman in Peru and...
This journey would take me into a collective belief system that is costing American business from 300 billion to 500 billion per year! 

The ridiculous nature of this belief system is that it will not survive the light of your logic. 

So be prepared…because in this blog post you’re going to release what you’ve just accepted to be true and you’ll see how it’s costing you a lot of money and destroying your health in the process.

I know from my own experience, and from the experience of the leaders I taught my Instant Mindfulness Method to, that pressure does NOT have to lead to overwhelm and then become stress. 

We’ve found that accepting the status quo of “A little stress is good. It helps you perform at your best.” Is deadly, very costly, and quite frankly…bullshit.
“I use this method everyday to control my mind and stop my stress. I don't know where I'd be today without it. I run a business with over 20 employees, create all marketing campaigns and supervise all operations. It's a lot, but now I no longer waste my time being stressed!”
Rick Cibik
Owner Cibik's Dairy Island
Breaking down the path that leads to stress.
I’m not going to waste your time going into all of the health risks of stress. If you’ve landed at this article you most likely know they range from fatal heart disease to stomach problems and everything in between.

Instead, we’re going to look at what stress is and how to stop it’s response in your body. 

First let’s look at what “stress” actually is and then break down how it occurs.

According to medicine.net…
Putting aside the physical factors that can lead to stress the most common cause of stress is a mental or emotional reaction to the pressure you have at work and in your everyday life.

Meaning, it’s how you think and feel about the pressure to perform…to meet life’s challenges.

We’ll be coming back to your mental and emotional reaction in a minute…

Next, if you don’t quickly change your mental or emotional state pertaining to your environment then your brain will launch the stress response.
The “fight or flight’ response is a survival mechanism your brain and body uses to protect your life. But here’s the big problem… 

According to neuroscience, your brain doesn’t know the difference between a real threat to your life or a perceived threat!

Meaning…

Your brain doesn’t know if you need to run from a bear in the woods or if you’re mentally and emotionally reacting to a challenge at work. And, as long as you remain in this mental or emotional state your brain will keep pumping cortisol and adrenaline into your system until the perceived threat has been removed.

Let’s break this down…
  • An abundance of challenges, or a challenge you perceive as a threat, leads to feeling overwhelmed.
  • You have a mental and or emotional reaction to your overwhelm.
  • Your muscles tighten and your heart rate elevates and you launch the stress response.
  • An abundance of challenges, or a challenge you perceive as a threat, leads to feeling overwhelmed.
  • You have a mental and or emotional reaction to your overwhelm.
  • Your muscles tighten and your heart rate elevates and you launch the stress response.
So logically, the first step to controlling your stress is to stop the stress response by controlling how you think and feel about the pressure you have at work…How you think and feel about anything.

But, how do you do that? 

This might be easier than think...
Pressure does NOT have to become Overwhelm and Stress: Mindfulness.
As I mentioned earlier, it would take me 9 years but eventually I would learn this from the shaman in Peru of all places. After studying with them for awhile I remember thinking…

“These are the happiest most well connected people I’ve ever been with. I must be missing something!”

They taught me how to be mindful and stay centered in my physical body in a specific way. When you do this your body will signal your brain that your physical life is not in danger and your brain won’t launch the stress response.

When you mindfully stay centered in your physical body you will gain control over your mental and emotional states. You’ll have control over how you mentally and emotionally react to any situation.

It’s so simple! If you don’t think negatively about something and emotionally react to it then you can’t launch the stress response… 

This is a way for anyone to increase their emotional intelligence and purposely use the brains ability to capitalize on critical thinking in the moment. 

Sometimes revolutionary breakthroughs…breakthroughs that save businesses a lot of money and increase productivity, are very simple and obvious, when we look back at them. Like the assembly line created by Henry Ford.

The explosive growth of yoga for mindful exercise is evidence that people are learning that a focus in their physical bodies naturally leads to a relaxed mental and emotional state. 

The difference between yoga and what I learned, is that I don’t have to stop what I’m doing. I can do it in the moment.

The average person believes they have zero, or very little control, over their mental and emotional engagement with work and life. They’ve been programmed to believe that their minds just chatter away constantly and that’s “just the way that it is.”

They’ve also been programmed to believe and have accepted that life is stressful and that a small amount of stress is good. 

The following is from an article on Mayo Clinic’s website!
And, check out this quote from a professor of leadership development…

“Of course, stress can sometimes be a positive force, focusing a person’s attention, boosting determination, and energizing action. It can help us buckle down and hold fast. It encourages clear-headed prioritization and resolve. But it can also hobble us. The question is when and why it does so, and what to do about it.”—James R. Bailey is the Hochberg Professor of Leadership Development at George Washington University’s School of Business.

Well, here’s what I have to say about that. We once believed the world was flat and that inhaling smoke from cigarettes into our lungs wasn’t harmful to us.

Pressure to perform at our best does not have to become stress. I propose we stop with the harmful belief that a little stress is good…that we stop accepting that work has to be stressful.

Because…

Most people don’t know how to control their mental and emotional states. 

Most people don’t know how to stop worry and it’s costing us an enormous amount of money in healthcare costs, in lost productivity and employee engagement.

Unless you’re a weak helpless human being, you have the power to control how you think and feel about anything...

Despite what your programming, or anyone else for that matter, tells you…you can’t escape that truth! 

If your life is not in danger you don’t need to launch the stress response. And, all you need to stop it is the right tool to end overwhelm by controlling how you think and feel about what you now call your stressors.
Return on Investment
“Nearly half of all workers suffer from moderate to severe stress while on the job, according to a recent survey. And 66 percent of employees report that they have difficulty focusing on tasks at work because of stress. Stress has been called the “health epidemic of the 21st century” by the World Health Organization and is estimated to cost American businesses up to $300 billion a year.” —Fox Business News

And according to Benefits Pro workplace stress is costing businesses 500 billion. Damn! That’s half a trillion dollars!

Despite these studies and one done by the American Psychological Association showing that 75 percent of employees consider their jobs to be a major source of stress, collectively we’ve done very little to address it.

This is the duty of leadership…

“Overall, 43 percent of working adults told us their job negatively affects their stress levels…The takeaway here is that job No. 1 for U.S. employers is to reduce stress in the workplace.”—The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

And as you can see while exercise and meditation rooms are helpful, and a beneficial gesture, they’re not going to teach the workforce how to stop their stress response.

This has to start with you.

So…not only will you be taking better care of your health and increasing your personal productivity and happiness…

You’ll be leading the way for others to follow. You’ll be leading the way for your company to save a lot of money and take better care of it’s employees.

I’ve made a complimentary video training for you to learn and begin using my Instant Mindfulness Method to begin stopping your stress response.

It also includes 3 massive mistakes leaders make today that keep them overwhelmed, stressed out and wasting time and how to avoid them with Ancient Wisdom Leadership Skills.


Every day you wait is another day where you’re allowing the stress response to waste your time, your resources and destroy your health.

Every moment you spend with large amounts of cortisol and adrenaline pumping through your system, is another moment your brain functions in survival mode, as opposed to purposely using emotional intelligence and the power of critical thinking.
"Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.” - Richard Carlson

"Pressure and stress is the common cold of the psyche.” - Andrew Denton

"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” - William James

"The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.” - Dr. Wayne Dyer

From the movie Slow West, "In a short time this will be a long time ago.”
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