In this episode of the #8 ranked stress podcast we explore the power of gratitude when it comes to reducing stress. My guest, Phil Barth is a hilarious stress reducing author and keynote speaker. After suffering a "small" heart attack, he realized stress relief had to come first in order for him to keep his quality of life. In his playful and entertaining way, Phil shares a variety of tried and true ways to help you keep your stress levels in check.
More about Phil Barth...Following his recovery Phil started a daily gratitude practice on social media. He listed a few of the small great things that happened in his life each day. The practice has gone on for over six years now. In 2018 Phil took what he had learned and wrote the International best SORT OF selling book “Great Things Happen Every Day” – a book about stress management, recovery from a heart attack, banana milkshakes and rummage sales. He delivers keynote speeches on the topic of stress management as well. You can learn more about Phil @ www.philbarth.com and www.philbarthbooks.com.
Lindsay Miller is a kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To download Lindsay’s Mindfulness At Any Age Guide click here. To rate the podcast click here.
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.
In this episode of the #8 ranked stress podcast we explore the power of gratitude when it comes to reducing stress. My guest, Phil Barth is a hilarious stress reducing author and keynote speaker. After suffering a "small" heart attack, he realized stress relief had to come first in order for him to keep his quality of life. In his playful and entertaining way, Phil shares a variety of tried and true ways to help you keep your stress levels in check.
More about Phil Barth...Following his recovery Phil started a daily gratitude practice on social media. He listed a few of the small great things that happened in his life each day. The practice has gone on for over six years now. In 2018 Phil took what he had learned and wrote the International best SORT OF selling book “Great Things Happen Every Day” – a book about stress management, recovery from a heart attack, banana milkshakes and rummage sales. He delivers keynote speeches on the topic of stress management as well. You can learn more about Phil @ www.philbarth.com and www.philbarthbooks.com.
Lindsay Miller is a kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To download Lindsay’s Mindfulness At Any Age Guide click here. To rate the podcast click here.
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.
Lindsay Miller 0:07
You're listening to The Stress Nanny podcast, and I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family stress levels. In our fast paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults. When it comes to stress, we have two choices, we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it. Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both. When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life. I'm so glad you're here.
Hey there! Welcome to the podcast. I have some amazing guests on this podcast, but none have made me laugh quite like Phil Barth does. In this episode, I talked with him about stress management, he had a really rough experience where he had a heart attack and had to learn to manage stress in order to keep his life going. And so he takes a really fun and playful approach. And I think that the tips that he shares are applicable for all of us. I know I picked up a ton of tools from from this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Enjoy the episode.
Welcome to The Stress Nanny podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. And I'm delighted that you're here today to join my conversation with Phil Barth. Phil, thanks so much for joining me,
Phil Barth 1:29
Lindsay. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
Lindsay Miller 1:32
Yeah, me too. I'm just gonna share a little bit about Phil in August 2015. He suffered what the doctor called a small air quotes heart attack. Following his recovery, Phil started a daily gratitude practice on social media, he listed a few of the small, great things that happened in his life each day. The practice has gone on for over six years now. In 2018, Phil took what he had learned and wrote the international best sort of selling book, great things happen every day. A book about stress management, recovery from a heart attack, banana milkshakes and rummage sales. We're gonna get into all of that. He delivers keynote speeches on the topic of stress management as well. I'm so excited to just dive in Phil, let's do it. So talk to me about first of all the banana milkshakes, how did those factor into the book and why are they important?
Phil Barth 2:23
So after as you mentioned, after the heart attack, there was that whole recovery, and then it was just almost on a whim. We went on a staycation in, in March of the next year. And we went to the first day we went to the Cincinnati Zoo. And so at the end of the day, I got on social media. I said, Hey, here were the great things that happened today. I didn't think much about it. But everybody liked it. You know, if you get likes on Facebook, it's like, whoop, right? It's It's the greatest. So the next day, we did a little trip to the art museum. Same deal I wrote, here are the great things that happened each day. And this went on for the week that we were on vacation, I thought, well, you know, it's easy on vacation. How long can I find great things that are happening in my life? How many days in a row? Could I do it? And I haven't done it every single day. But I've been doing it for seven years now. Yeah, they're out there. They are out there. And so one of the one of the things I did when I wrote the international best sort of selling book, we'll get to why I call it that, but but the international best sort of selling book, I took all of these posts that I had accumulated for years. And I started, I started them. And I looked for the common items. And one of the common items was banana milkshakes. What a banana milkshake is, it's just like what it sounds like. It's you take bananas, either already frozen bananas, or bananas. And you add some vanilla, frozen yogurt, and some milk you put in a blender. And it's banana milkshake. And the reason it's a great thing is because I would make one for my wife and one for my son, one for myself. And we would just sit there enjoy the banana milkshakes, maybe watching a little comedy on TV or something like that. But it's so simple. And and that's kind of the message of the book is you don't have to climb Mount Everest to say that was a great thing. It it can be little things. It can be a a 10 minute milkshake, anything like that. And so that was one of the little things that I kept finding again and again. And I put the recipe such as it is in the book, along with a few other things. But it was just that that's the message that look for the great things. And what happens is, the more you look, the easier they are to find. You train your mind. And that lowered my stress because I don't know all the names of all the hormones but when your positivity generates low stress lowering hormones in your brains, and the opposite is true for negativity. So that's where the banana milkshakes came from.
Lindsay Miller 4:58
I love that Don't matter, my dad used to make banana milkshakes all the time. So I'm like tasting them and appreciating that it's a small, great thing every day for sure. But I love that idea of just finding something. Right. And I think it's easy in the social media saturated world that we live in. To think it needs to be the big thing, like you said, like, I did this amazing thing, I went on this incredible trip, I, you know, talk to this super famous person, whatever it is like that we have this tendency to look for those things and only want to kind of report back if it's grandiose, and I love the emphasis on the small things being kind of the just the staple when it comes to gratitude every day.
Phil Barth 5:40
Yes. If you if you're setting yourself up that it has to be bigger, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna appreciate you're setting yourself up for failure to appreciate. appreciate the little things. There may be big things along the way, but appreciate the little things.
Lindsay Miller 5:53
Yeah, yeah. And then just taking note, and like we've talked about here on the podcast before this idea of priming your brain, right, like you just described, you prime your brain to, like, your brain tells what you tell your brain to look for, it will look for. So if you tell your brain, you want to look for the good stuff, it's gonna find it for you, right? And then if you tell it to look for the stuff that's wrong and awful, and, you know, going to lead you to frustration and angst, you'll find that too. And it's not to say those things can't coexist. But where we focus, like you said,
Phil Barth 6:26
that's the key. Exactly, exactly.
Lindsay Miller 6:30
Okay, so were rummage sales, the same was that just like a small thing that turned up again and again on your list?
Phil Barth 6:36
Yeah, our town has the semi annual garage sales. So we always go there and try to find the bargains. Or it might be going to an antique mall or a thrift store. Whatever. Just just silly little things. I don't know that I have anything right around here. Oh, yeah. Here we go. My Charlie Brown.
Lindsay Miller 6:57
Charlie Brown luck. Yeah.
Phil Barth 6:59
AppStore. Fine. Yeah. And then when you look at it, you're like, Oh, I remember when we took that trip, I remember when we were at that thrift store or whatever. So yeah, just a little thing. It doesn't doesn't even have to be a whole day. Although the whole time garage sales are points up being that way. Right. But just something a little stop in and, and find something you can't live without for $1.
Lindsay Miller 7:21
Well, in one of the things I love about that is like, when we can look at the things we're grateful for, and kind of know what is going to give us that little spark of joy consistently, then we we know like, if we're kind of in a funk, to look for those kinds of experiences, or those kinds of things, right to, to kind of pull us out. And that's one of the things I focus on with the kids that I work with is like, let's figure out at the young age that you are, what are the things that light you up? You know, what are the things that you're consistently loving, and are consistently bringing you joy? And then how can we, you know, leverage that information? When you have a moment when you're feeling kind of down? Or you're frustrated? or lonely? You know, what what can we do to you know, bring in the rummage sale? Or can we make a banana milkshake in that moment? It's really powerful, right?
Phil Barth 8:09
Oh, very much. So yeah. You kind of reverse the the downward slide start going positive again.
Lindsay Miller 8:16
Yeah, yeah, you change the trajectory. Exactly. Okay, so how do you write an international best sort of selling book, that's what I want to because I mean, I think I might add that to my bucket list.
Phil Barth 8:28
So so this is the paperback copy. Okay. On the beach in Charleston, great things happen. I love it. We put it all together. It with help from my wife, we put it all together. And I formatted it and released it as a Kindle book. The first five days it was free. And we put some stuff out on social media and out on Reddit and so on. And in those five days, the 1000s of copies were sold. So it went to number one on the Kindle free books about stress management list. So that's, I said, but is that a best seller? Because Kindle says it's a best seller. But my bank says it's not a sale. The joke is I sold 1000s of copies and made zeros of dollars. And so I call it a best sort of seller because I don't know where to draw the line. I don't know how you snap the line there. And in a couple of people from Canada took the free book too. So it's international best sort of selling.
Lindsay Miller 9:34
That's great. Yeah, I mean, that's a common strategy, right? putting it out there like that. So you can get you know the download. So I love that. I love that you made it happen. But I also love the authenticity and honesty around like, what that actually looks like from a financial perspective.
Phil Barth 9:49
Exactly. I mean, a lot of people say I'm a best selling author and I don't know that you're Stephen King or John Grisham, but okay, that's fine. If you want to say I just, I'm going to, I'm going to make it funny, right? Because it is one of the things that really helps your stress. And the other point about the book is I never set out to get a Pulitzer or a million dollars would have taken either one, don't get me wrong, but I set out to get a book in the hands of people who needed it. And that's the feedback I'm getting is this book helped me it lowered my stress. And that's what I wanted was a tool for people to kind of learn what I've learned without having a heart attack.
Lindsay Miller 10:31
Thank you, you know that it really is a gift. Because let's get into that small heart attack, because I've read what you've written about that is that like, if you if that's small, you don't want to know what big is right?
Phil Barth 10:44
I have a feeling I know what big is I wouldn't be here on the interview, right?
Lindsay Miller 10:50
So it's like those. Go ahead, go ahead. Oh, well,
Phil Barth 10:53
the small heart attack. The the backstory is my youngest son and I were at summer camp for scout. Fortunately, it was about a mile from the hospital. But I started having chest pains. And I had talked with a friend of mine who was about same age about the same size. I felt way too young for heart attacks, about three months before that, and he was telling me about his heart attack. And so everything that was happening, checking off time, so that but I also said, Okay, I'm gonna get checked out by a doctor after the trip to Las Vegas and after the trip, right? Because I'm a guy, right, you know, let's push that off. It's what we do. I mean, at any rate, we played this game called Hungry human hippos, you know, the, you know, the game hungry, hungry? Well, your plate, you do it in a large room. And the human that would be me becomes the hippo. So another guy swinging me around, I've got this wheels going on. And I'm catching, oh, my gosh, you know, milk carton. Most wins. Well, I got done with that. I said, I really feel bad. It wasn't a classic trend, you know, hurt. So I went to the, I went to the nurse, and she took my blood pressure my blood pressure tank, and that's a sign of a possible heart attack. So I, they call the ambulance went over to there, my wife met me there. And so they do all kinds of scans and this and that, nothing came back. But then they also take some of your blood. And there's a chemical that your heart gives out only if you had a heart attack. And that's how they measure if there's a little bit of it, it's small. If there's a whole lot of it, it's large. Well, I just had a little bit of it. And I thought, okay, so this is a little, it's, I don't know, nine months of recovery, I got two stents, because I had arteries blocked it, I felt stuck going into it. And in all of the symptoms, and and I'm gonna tell you right now, you can tell I kind of move and I'm a little upset, upscale in terms of movement, the thing you have to do after they put a stent did is you have to hold still completely still. And that, for me, that was as bad as anything, it's like, I don't ever want to go through this again, you know, I don't want to have but that's a small heart attack. And, and you know, afterwards when I met the doctor, and he's the one that got me started on stress management, he said, You know, there's an artery called the Widowmaker. You know what that means? I'm like, Yeah, I kind of kind of can use my context clues there. So you need to do things like improve your diet, improve your exercise, I was okay on those. And you have to manage stress. And that's what got me started on the you have to take time off from work, you have to stop taking your life. So seriously, et cetera, et cetera. And that was the key. As much as anything that has made my heart health good now for seven years.
Lindsay Miller 14:00
That's so great. Yeah, I mean, not great that you had a heart attack. I mean, I never have heard of someone having a heart attack after playing Hungry, Hungry Hippo human version. I mean, I've actually never heard of that game. So but if anything's gonna give you a heart attack, it sounds like that could you know, so? I can appreciate that. Like, you're already feeling a little bit worn out after the game anyway, and you're trying to gauge like, is this? More than that? I don't know. And then I'm so glad you went and got got checked out. But I, I love what you're saying in terms of like, recognizing that stress management has like a very literal translation into physiology. Right?
Phil Barth 14:37
Yes, absolutely. It does. And, and, you know, and you know, when you hear it from a doctor, and he says, You have to manage your stress, and, and you hear it with your wife sitting next to you, you know, you're gonna have to manage your stress.
Lindsay Miller 14:50
Yeah, I mean, you hear from a stress nanny, you're kind of like me, I don't know, but you're from a doctor and you're like, Well, I mean, I guess it's legit, right? Yeah.
Phil Barth 14:58
Right and your wife If we listen so I
Lindsay Miller 15:01
mean we in there with your family seeing like, okay the ramifications of this if I do not are dire literally,
Phil Barth 15:08
literally. Absolutely. Yeah, it true story. They have never played hungry human hippos at that camp since that day
Lindsay Miller 15:19
they were. I mean, I yeah, I couldn't imagine that it threw them for a bit of a loop after then, you know, sent you to the hospital. We almost lost the hippo. What are we? Oh my gosh. So okay, so you're on the other side of the heart attack, you have your stints, you can finally move around again. And you're like, Okay, I'm gonna start looking for ways to be grateful was that the first thing you did when it came to stress management? You're like, I'm just gonna do this little thing, or were there other things that were in place before you started the the gratitude practice,
Phil Barth 15:51
but I totally fell into the gratitude practice. And that was the first thing. And I'll be honest, I spent some time after the heart attack, you know, being a whiny baby, why me why I don't smoke. I see people who smoke that don't have heart attacks. I see people older than me who are eating worse than me, but the level? And the answer is because I had heart attack. It had nothing to do with family history, that why did I have a heart attack? Because I had clogged arteries? What are we going to do about it? And I had to pull myself out of that. And so then the first thing was that here's what's great, what's going on in my life? And then I started investigating, what are other ways to manage stress? What else can I do that I can then share with others, to help them manage stress and get all the benefits of the heart attack without the pain?
Lindsay Miller 16:36
Yes, yes. And I can so relate to your intent to like, learn and share. Because when I had an autoimmune condition that was really taking me under, and I spent a couple of years putting it in remission. And at the end, I was like, Okay, I if I can help someone else not have to do this, that is what I want to do. And you know, in the podcast, and distressing and he was born, because I was like, at the end of the day, if we can learn to manage our stress levels, the number of health crises or struggles that we have to face, it drastically reduces, right. And there's so many great ways we can manage stress, and I'm so excited to get into I know we're gonna have, we have limited time. But the you have not you have the nines of stress management. And I want to hear him because I know this is going to be fun and really informative.
Phil Barth 17:29
And I already did like it's the nine S's for successful stress management. The first one, we kind of talked about sequence good in your life, I call it the Green, right? If you close your eyes for a period of time, and then open them and you think about the color green, green, green, green, when you open your eyes, you're going to be drawn to something green, it just it, it's on my monitor. Same deal with red, right? Oh, that'd be easy, because I'm wearing a red hockey jersey today. But but the first one is, seek the green seek for good seek it, save it, like take pictures of it, right so that you can go back into bad times and go through your phone and see. And I'm marking his favorites, and they rotate on my computer monitors just put that out there. That's part one. Part two is subtract the bad or I call it the red, I love the color red, obviously. But if green stands for good, red has to stand for bad. And that is what I call eliminating optional negativity. And, you know, I like to put good things out on social media, because the market is so wide open compared to the people who like to put bad things out on social media. And that's a very crowded space. So what you do and what you do in that, and I talked to people about how do you manage your social media, that negativity, and there's things you can do, you can get off social media, but my niece lives in Florida, and she put some baby pictures of her kids out there. I don't want to get I don't want to miss that. You can and you can block people and you just don't want to see that person's post and, and I only wish there was and they don't know, right? They don't know their blog. I wish there was a way to do that in real life. You know, somebody starts talking and complaining. They think they're still talking to you, but you're not getting the bad hormones from that. See, I've been able to figure that out. Step out of your comfort zone just a little bit. Just a little bit. I've done silly things like I wrote a roller coaster when I was 50 years old. That was not a real that was that was way out of my comfort zone. Had fun doing it after I took the Dramamine and stuff so but but little ones in the example I give is I love to plan. I plan and I plan and a plan and a plan and a plan. And things don't get done when all you do is plan and comfortable planning. But you actually have to take that first step and do things. That's when you're a little bit out of your comfort zone. But the stress goes way down because you're making progress. That's three share the love so phone a friend right someone to thank you know, whatever it send them send them an email, something you know, send it send a picture. Hey, I was thinking of you when I snapped this picture. You just share the love with somebody else. My favorite start the day off positively. So, I started out now with ABC, the ABC ds of starting your day. So A is affirmations. I have rotating private, private, rotating positive are not private, I'll tell you what they are. But, but rotating so you know, I'm one day I'm gonna make somebody laugh today and one day, I'm gonna send somebody you know, today, whatever, whatever those affirmations are, you know, I am funny. I'm a good speaker, etc. That's affirmations. B is a book if I don't read something first thing in the morning. It's not happening. I'm gonna get into other stuff. I like to read the Bible. If you don't like the Bible, you know, something positive. Something that uplifts you, you're, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. So something by somebody who's really somebody who's up there where you want to be. Just read a book, see is coffee. I only get one to two cups per day post heart attack, so I make good and I enjoy it. And then for me D is dogs. Yeah, dogs are like the most grateful happy creatures.
Lindsay Miller 21:09
As if on cue. Did you hear that?
Phil Barth 21:12
No, no. What's your dog barking? That's awesome. I love it.
Lindsay Miller 21:15
Oh my gosh, go ahead. Dogs are the most grateful happy people happy.
Phil Barth 21:21
You feed them dog food. They're like, Oh, my favorite. My son and I on a on a dare eat a little piece of dog food. It's awful. But yeah,
Lindsay Miller 21:31
wasn't it that Scout camp? Was it? No, no.
Phil Barth 21:36
But, right. They haven't seen you for what six hours. They're like, Oh, I love you. You're the most fabulous person in the world. Yeah. And so their gratitude rubs off on you. Now. I will tell you that it's not ABCD it's DCBA because the dogs will not wait. Start with the dogs. By that time the coffee's done. I have my coffee. And I can read and then with affirmations and I'm ready to go. Okay, let's start today. I've positively your letters may vary, but just make it something. Just take. I mean, it's 15 minutes, right? 15 minutes. First thing in the morning to start your day off right? There real quickly, they did an experiment Harvard psychologist did an experiment with how people start their days, split the group in half the three people who for three minutes had a negative start to their day they showed them negative news. Were 27% more likely than the other group to report an entire bad day. Really critical that you start your day off on the right foot.
Lindsay Miller 22:36
It's like that liminal space right in our brain is like right before you go to sleep. And right when you wake up, it just kind of sets the tone. And it really is this like, malleable part of our neuro chemistry, right? Where we kind of like angle our attention in a certain way. And our brains like okay, I'll take it from here. And what we put in that space is so key. I love those the D dcpa.
Phil Barth 23:01
Yeah, all right. So the last one, I think we've talked about some one is just self love. If you can't see the good in yourself, you're not going to see the good in others. So see what's good in yourself. Seven is step back in time to a great memory, we talked about that a little bit. Music is the best way to do that. You can just you'll hear a song Oh, that reminds me of the time. And I could I could list 100 songs that remind me of something that a great time in my life every time I hear them. So you just make a playlist of you know, I'm going to this one's going to remind me of my spouse, this one's going to remind me of my dad, and so on. And you just step back in time using music. As I say, start something silly. Pick your as there, but we do. Yeah, as a family. We like to watch sitcoms, something funny something to laugh, it is really hard to be negative when you're laughing. That's true. And the last one is, I think we may have talked about this a little bit small things make a difference? Yeah, banana milkshakes, right? So do something small. Don't feel like you've got to boil the ocean, just something small can move you move you in that positive direction. Yeah,
Lindsay Miller 24:10
I love these. I've heard a lot of stress management lists, but this like packs a punch. There's so many great things in there. And it's like you said they're simple. And they're easy to remember these Ss right. And they also afforded us the opportunity to really reflect on the smaller things that make a huge difference in terms of like the overall tenor of our day. Absolutely. Yeah. What do you see? Like what did you notice as you started to practice these as you know, you know, you share these as a public speaker in your book, like what did you start to notice? What feedback did you get from people when they started to implement? They were like, Oh my gosh, Phil.
Phil Barth 24:52
Alright, yeah. So the one that sticks right with me was a guy came up to me and said, a friend of mine, he said He had to have a kidney out removed. And he said, I read your book beforehand, and it helped me so much. And I'm like, dang, you know, that's bringing tears to my eyes, you know, that helped him get through the removal of one of his kidneys. I'm hearing that I'm hearing a lot of the after, after keynotes. The thing about speaking is, I love to be humorous. But then you land the point right after that afterwards. And, and so so one of them is, you know, if you're ever one of my keynote, generika laugh, not because he told you to, but but I'll probably
Lindsay Miller 25:33
still laugh. Okay, good. Good.
Phil Barth 25:36
By all means, I'll tell you. So. So one of the quotes I have for achieving stuff and Derek Severs, who's an author came up with it first, he said, when I look at doing something, it's either Hell yeah, or it's no. So so a lot of times were stressed. And boy, was I ever by saying yes to everything, I can do it all. And he says, If I can't say hell, yeah, yeah. to it, I say no. And I said, it's so that that could be your mantra. And people will say, Well, you know, he's, he's, he's a rich author. I can, of course, he can say that. Well, the question is, is he a rich author? That's now saying it, or was it because he said that along that made him the rich author? I think it's the latter. So anyway, that the joke is, it doesn't work. 100% Because I cannot come up with a way that I would say, oh, colonoscopy prep today. Hell yeah. You pause for as a say, but if I rephrase the question, and say, given my family history, do I want to avoid cancer? It comes back as a hell yeah. And so that lands the point. So any of those any time where you can just put a joke out there, everybody's? Everybody's laughing? They've dropped their phones are paying attention now. Then you can land the point of, hey, you reframe it. It a lot of times that lowers stress, right? Because yes. Oh, I hate the prep. And I do or you could think about, I'm doing something to keep my health. Yes, absolutely critical. So you reframe your thinking. And when you when you get that point, people like, oh, yeah, no, come up to you afterwards. I really never thought of it like that. So
Lindsay Miller 27:17
yes. No, that's so powerful. I love that, like, make it funny. And I think that would work great for kids to like, if we can be playful, and we were trying to make a point, you know, whether it's about teaching them stress management tools, or just about everyday living, like getting your homework done, or getting out the door on time, or whatever it is, if we can be playful and funny, and then land the point, I think that that's a that's another strategy that super helpful.
Phil Barth 27:43
Yeah, yeah, I love doing that. I love laughing, though.
Lindsay Miller 27:48
For sure I was there a long time
Phil Barth 27:50
in detention as a kid? Because I loved laughing? Or making people laugh?
Lindsay Miller 27:56
And if they could, if they could only see you now.
Phil Barth 28:01
Some of them do one on Facebook.
Lindsay Miller 28:04
Um, let's revisit this idea of reframing because I think that, like the nine S's that you shared, there are so many opportunities for reframing, if you're practicing those consistently, right, like, in my mind, what you just shared was nine ways to reframe moments, you know, and if we are looking for those things, and practicing them, it's going to be easier and easier for our brain to be like, Okay, I'm feeling lonely. I'm not sure nobody, you know, my friend didn't talk to me at school today. I didn't get invited to this party. And then if we reframe that, to sharing the love, and you know, it's an acknowledge, like, Okay, I'm not, I'm not feeling like I'm receiving a ton of love right now. And I can always share the love. And I know that helps me feel connected, right? Like, if we're feeling disconnected, you shared a way for us to feel immediately connected and get that hit of oxytocin. Right. So, so I love the the framework, and then also, just like you added the invitation to reframe, because I think in each of these, there's just so much of an opportunity, like stepping out of our comfort zone, if we find ourselves, like my daughter got invited to a special training her school was doing, and she was like, a little bit nervous, and she wasn't sure. And it was, it was a cool thing that she got invited to do with this team from the school and like students and administrators, and she was like, like, I don't know what, you know, just, you know, she's just a teenager, she she doesn't know necessarily what she's in in for with it. And she was hesitant. And then, you know, but saying like, Oh, have you have you been stepping out of your comfort zone lately? If that's something you've been practicing, this is just another way you're doing that, right? Like you can focus on the nervousness around it, or you can focus on the opportunity around it. And in these nine essays, you give us so many just great ways to reef reframe and like create opportunity out of what could be a stressful moment.
Phil Barth 29:58
Yes, yeah, absolutely. I
Lindsay Miller 30:01
mean, in addition to just being great practices, I feel like those two. Yeah,
Phil Barth 30:05
I really liked the way you put it. Yeah, just reframe it.
Lindsay Miller 30:09
sit together. Um, what do you think I want to know, what is one of your favorite step back in time, playlist hit.
Phil Barth 30:18
Okay, so this, this is gonna start out sad, but it'll it'll, it'll turn around. In 2019, my father passed away after a long, long illness. And so it was, it was one of those things where I had to go to the funeral, and then drive home and the very next morning, fly three flights to get to the western end of Alberta, Canada. And so that was the whole day, right whole day. And now we're out in the mountain or Pacific timezone, and I just crash and burn in the bed. And then the next morning, it's like four or five in the morning, I wake up because it's, you know, eight o'clock back in Ohio, and just suddenly thought, you know, you know, I have problems with timezone, right, because
Lindsay Miller 31:04
those are gonna bring it up. We're here
Phil Barth 31:06
before I joined the call one hour early.
Lindsay Miller 31:09
At least you were early that I'm new.
Phil Barth 31:12
So at any rate, right, I'm up at five in the morning, and it suddenly hits me. It's like, oh, man, you know, Dad's gone. And, and he struggled for 10 years with his illness, etc. And now he's gone. And what do I do? And so what I did was, I went down to the hotel fitness center, and I put in my earbuds, and I told my digital assistant who shall be nameless, because I don't want to have it happen. I said, play Waylon Jennings. And, and what happened was, I started listening, I started running, and I am no longer with with my father who passed away. I am no longer at hospice with my dad. I am now in the backseat of the car of our station wagon with my brother, mom and dad are in the front and we're driving to Disney. We're driving to Disney World, because he played Waylon Jennings, and as soon as I heard it, it was like, that's where it transported me to. And so Waylon Jennings is a good one. Rem was the song that REM camera, it's a kind of a deep cut, but that was the song that played for my wife and his first dance at our wedding. That was one of the first songs we listened to when we were dating. So so it takes you back to that memory. And, and there are a bunch of them, you know, things that take you back to high school will take you back forever. But But Waylon Jennings, you know, your actual mileage of Waylon may vary, right. But Waylon Jennings, it takes me back to see dad was a big country. He liked two types of music, country and western. I like Waylon Jennings and maybe Johnny Cash. So that's where we could meet. Right. So I hear Waylon and I'm in the car and, and, you know, I know I'm not really in the car, right? But your brain sends a scene for to chemicals as it would have back in the day when we're driving to Disneyworld.
Lindsay Miller 33:06
Yeah, yeah. Because our brain files, high emotion memories differently. Right? And so if there's a high emotion memory connected to a song like that, we can draw it up quickly. Just with revisiting the song and I that's so powerful. I, when I work with kids, I help them make like their feel good playlist, like songs they love and like songs that help them feel settled or steady if they're feeling kind of a wash and a lot of emotion. But I've never done a memory based one and I really love that.
Phil Barth 33:39
Another one Chuck Berry never can tell. We had the CD for the pulp fiction soundtrack. And for whatever reason we had our our oldest was colicky. Okay. When we put that song on it and kind of rocking like this. Yeah, I'll get out. So I hear that song now and I think about you know, sure we retired parents, but there it is our first baby. And we're walking around the living room, my wife dancing with them, and then I take a turn, and it's a good memory. So that song comes on. I just go right right there.
Lindsay Miller 34:10
I love that. i Yeah, I'm gonna go make mine. I am my daughter, my daughter will my daughter's team her soccer team plays a a mom's versus daughter's turn, tournament style or, you know, scrimmage game as part of their, you know, the fun activities that we do. And I put on our playlist I made a mom's playlist because the girls have their like pregame playlist, right? And I was like, you didn't know I'm taking over the speaker today. And we're doing the 90s version, right like I'm and I put on there one of the songs that they played in my like high school Stadium as we were warming up. And I mean, we did not win the game at all. I mean, we got creamed, for sure. So it didn't bring back the skills for me, but it did bring back the joy.
Phil Barth 34:56
I love it. That's awesome.
Lindsay Miller 34:59
But I really don't know just I can relate. That's like one of the songs I have on a playlist where I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember exactly where I was like this song is meaningful to me in this way and it does take me back to that like pumped up. I can do anything which you know in afford material buddy is a little bit dicey sometimes because I actually can't but the illusion that I can, it's nice to put that on every once in a while right.
Phil Barth 35:29
Now, my son and I went to a playoff baseball playoff game in Cleveland. I'm originally from Cleveland this year, and one of the hitters all hitters when they go up, they have their walk up song. Yeah, yeah. Well, the guys for Cleveland young kid, it's the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. And so, so first off that when he comes up, are you ready kids and the host, Captain, right. So bottom of the ninth they came back and won the game and the guy who got the game winning hit was a SpongeBob SquarePants. And so 40 some 1000 people are at the top of their lungs. Grieving the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song. i Two days later, I'm in Boston trying to do a keynote with no voice. That's another story. But the thing of it is, every time from now on that we hear that song, we will go back to that moment victory. Yeah, it was a victory. It was two guys on the road, going up to the stadium and then and then hitting the Hampton Inn having breakfast, and that will bring it back every single time.
Lindsay Miller 36:34
Yes. Oh, my gosh, I love that. I love it. Okay, this is flown by I have loved this conversation more than I can tell you, Phil, what are some of the ways people can connect with you?
Phil Barth 36:47
Well, I will send you the PDF of the stress management. I'll put in the show notes. www.childbirth.com. I, a had a an ugly website. And I thought I could develop a good looking website. But it turns out I can write a check. Not that much. I can really developed a nice website is a nice website for sure.
Lindsay Miller 37:09
Yeah,
Phil Barth 37:10
I get no credit for that other than I assigned minimum. Right? Well, no, that's not true. I also told them, here's what I would like to like it to look like they made it even better. Okay, so Phil barth.com. On LinkedIn, Phil Barth, just I think Bill Barr, Cincinnati, Ohio, I'll send you the link. And on Facebook Phil Barth that Phil that birth that seven I think it is. So any, those are the most common. I have a YouTube channel to actually if you go to Phil barth.com, it will link you there are links to everything, whatever you whatever you prefer. So I will send you those links.
Lindsay Miller 37:42
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Again, this has been so helpful in both a great time laughing and also a very practical tools way.
Phil Barth 37:53
He was it was enjoyable. This was a blast. I knew by the title stress nanny, I said, we're gonna have some fun. Have some fun and kill some stress. And I love it.
Lindsay Miller 38:03
Yes, me too. Thank you again, Bill. You know, one of the things about being able to manage stress is being able to hold two seemingly conflicting emotions, like being able to hold stress and joy, or to be able to hold sadness and laughter. And one of the things I really appreciate about Phil is how the tools that he shared, they're simultaneously deep and super simple, right? There were things that really, really were therapeutic and helpful for managing stress on a daily basis, but they are conveyed and you know, the invitation to practice has made in really playful, light hearted way. So it doesn't have to feel heavy, it doesn't have to feel hard, it can just feel like a fun way that you're taking good care of yourself. So I'd love to know which of the ways Phil shared Do you want to incorporate into your routine to lower your stress levels.
You've just finished an episode of The Stress Nanny podcast. So hopefully you feel a little more empowered when it comes to dealing with stress. Feel free to take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you go back to your day. I'm so glad you're here. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support. It really means the world to me. If you're new, I'd love to have you follow the podcast and join me each week. And no matter how long you've been listening, please share this episode with someone who is stressed out. If you enjoyed the show, would you please do me a favor and go to ratethispodcast.com/thestressnanny and leave a review. The link is in the show notes. I'm so grateful for all my listeners. Thank you again for being here. Until next time!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai