780. In Stressful Situations, Are You a Reactor or a Responder? | The Marsh Buice Podcast

When you're facing stressful situations, do you consider yourself a reactor or a responder?How do you handle the adversity?Adversity is one of the reasons why I created the Marsh Buice Podcast because it's all about learning how to handle the adversity, embrace uncertainty, and vowing never sudden and vowing to never settle again.These are all three things that we go through, but not all of us know how to work through.The uncertainty, the adversity, and the complacency.And today we're gonna talk about how to handle the adversity.And one of the reasons why you may not be successful is because you're not prepared to compete with adversity.And notice, I didn't say compete against adversity.I said, compete with adversity.And there's a big distinction, my friend.The inspiration for this episode came from reading Dr.Brett McCabe's book,break Free from Suckville.And in it, McCabe writes that your response determines your future.And in it McKay writes that your response determines your future.There is a distinct difference between reacting and responding to life, and it's in this difference lies the secret to your future.McCabe distinguishes between reactors and responders in stressful situations for reactors.It's all about avoidance and self preservation.You're trying to avoid the pain.You're trying to get away from any situation by any means necessary,whether it be running away or partial avoidance by skirting around situations or blaming someone else.He did it.Put the blame, put the heat on someone else, and they're always trying to find the edges to get around there and avoid as much as possible.That's what reactors do.Reactors have this stopwatch mentality, man.So everything they see and do is with this fractional mindset because see,everything is running at 'em all at once.So everything seems to be closing in on'em quickly and they end up making even costlier mistakes because their minds are so cluttered and rushed and overwhelmed,and then make the situation worse.Responders.On the other hand, they still feel the rush of emotions.They still feel the weight of the adversity.And even though, man, they're fearful, they embrace the uncertainty and they work through the situations, it's not about survival.Notice I said work through the situations.They're not just trying to,trying to get out of this thing.No.They're willing to just plod along, man.They have a minute to minute mentality.Understanding that the timeline to find a resolution maybe in a span of hours, months.Or even years.Responders work through situations for ultimate success in the long run while reactors are trying to get through and survive in the short run.See the difference?McCabe's words state that for responders,they understand what they're getting into.They know it's gonna be hard, it's gonna be painful, it's gonna be a long process.But the challenge is not bigger than them.Basically, responders say, you know what?If it's gonna be painful, I might as well profit from this pain.I might as well get something from this pain, which leads to experience and familiarity.And because you're familiar and you keep subjecting yourself to these stressful situations and working through 'em, that's exactly how you earn your confidence.You can't get your confidence from one of these books behind me.You can't get confidence by hearing someone else's story or watching a YouTube video.Damn, dude.You gotta earn it.And the only way that you're gonna earn it is you gotta work through it.You gotta be a responder instead of reacting.Stop avoiding the struggle.Made a tweet the other day.Stop looking for a hero.Be your own hero, but you'll never be the hero in your own story.If all you do is you avoid the journey, you gotta take the journey on.You gotta embrace the uncertainty, handle the adversity, and deal with complacency.All those things are shrouding you.Yes, shrouding you Another medieval term.I said one last week, cloak was the word this week is shroud.But they're cloaking you.They're shrouding you, man.The adversity, the uncertainty and the complacency, man, they're, you're never gonna, you're never gonna get away from those things, never.So you gotta learn how to handle it,how to embrace it, how to deal with it.Responding to stressful situations,reactors try to avoid the liability and the mistakes.Responders take ownership and discover an ultimate purpose.Responders understand that there are reasons for working through stressful situations, though the reasons may not be evident immediately, but they'll appreciate it ultimately.So, which are you?And don't be so quick to check a box, man.If you're a reactor, it's pretty easy to notice.Do you avoid making mistakes?Do you try to protect your ego?Do you take the path of least resistance?Understand the avoidance not only infects you, but it infects others around you because they're gonna do what you do and you're in injecting.You're infecting all of those around you and they're infecting you.But if you'll shift your mindset and begin becoming a responder instead,dude, this is gonna be gradual, man.It's not a, it's not a switch, it's a dial.So it's, it's just something first,it's an awareness that, you know what, dude, I was a runner for years,and I don't mean a runner on the road, I mean a runner from life.I ran, I was a reactor all the way.I would hang in there as little as possible and get the hell out of there and jump to something else.Try to switch the game up.And ultimately you'll lose in the end.I almost lost my life in the end.That was the ultimate loss.I was right there at the doorstep, and it wasn't until I said, dude, I gotta work through these situations in my life.And I began to respond inch by inch, yard by yard, mile by mile.It was long but in retrospect,it wasn't as long as it felt.It always feels longer than it actually is, and I gained so much.In the long run.So you may slow down right now when you're shifting from becoming a reactor to a responder, it's gonna be a long one.But when you look back at it in retrospect, it's not gonna be that long at all.And you're gonna be so grateful.I'm grateful for everything that I've gone through.Would I've changed situations and done things differently.Absolutely.But what I've gained from those things, So grateful, grateful, God spared me to see you another day.So as you begin to shift your mindset and bring the awareness that, oh, I'm trying to avoid this thing, okay, let me deep breath, I'm gonna get through it.Dude, you're gonna be fine.Work through it.Plant your feet, it's gonna be worth it.May not, maybe not today, maybe not a month from now, a few years from now, maybe understand.So what responders do, they don't put a timeline on it, they don't put a consequence on it.They just say, Hey, fuck man, I gotta deal with it.Let's go.And they figure it out along the way.As you shift from being a reactor to a responder, You're going to not only affect with a affect your life instead of infecting negatively others around you, you're begin to affect changes in your life and also affect those who are around you.And lemme tell you what, some of the effect of those around you,some of 'em are gonna bail on you.Cool.That's a pruning.Some people aren't gonna be able to ride with you for the whole journey.Understand that they may have been riding with you since kindergarten,and now you're 42 years old.Ride's over for them.They're welcome to get on as long as you're going on the same journey as me.If you're so consistent and you're just banging away, Becoming a responder day by day, laying that brick.People are just gonna, they're just gonna stop coming around.Don't chase it.Don't run after it.It's no longer for you.You've outgrown it.This is becoming a responder is what's going to develop.Strength and grit.Dude, this is what makes you unstoppable.But understand this too, those high and mighty who are saying, oh, I'm not a reactor, I'm a responder.Do, do, do you?Hold up there, homie.You don't stay a responder.It's not like you get a responder badge and you're forever done.No, dude, you gotta stay certified.And the way that you get certified is to continue to plod along.Understanding this is an infinite game that you're playing.So as a responder dude, you gotta pay attention to the subtle shifts and how you're handling stressful situations.Are you starting to pull back a little bit?Are you taking the path of least resistance?Starting to avoid a little bit.You're trying to minimize the pain.You're skirting some of that blame,pushing that blame off on someone else.Are you trying to shorten the timeframe?You shortcut things better pay attention because it doesn't seem like much in the moment.But remember, this is an ultimate game.You're playing in that one degree.Shift can eventually take you off course and in due time you end up being a reactor and never even realize it.You just wake up one day all of a sudden,and you're reacting to everything.You're blaming other people.You're in total avoidance.You've torched everything around you, and you're in full reactor mode.So as you get off course, see that one degree shift day by day.As you get off course day one,one degree, can't even notice it.Remember, the baseline always moves.Go back and look at some of your old pictures.Me and my wife were doing this the other day and my, it was a picture from a few years ago and a few years ago, ma'am, my wife was fine.She's fine as hell now,but she was fine back then.Compared to she's chiseled now, like rocked up in shape.And we looked at the two, it was like two or three years difference between the two and we looked at the two and she was outta shape pudgy.And I'm like, damn, the difference.Look at me, look at my timeline on um, Instagram.I have one that's pinned up there shirtless.October 16th.October 17th.Had old flabby body and then 90 days later,the transformation.That's the baseline man.See, the baseline kept moving.It was a gradualness of it all.That's how the all the sudden's kick in.So that one degree shift every day, man,not only does your direction change, but your narrative changes along with it.And your narrative always matches your direction.So pay close attention to your narrative.And the direction that you're heading.All right, let's get outta here.But before we do, let me leave you with a few self-reflective questions.I have a whole list of them.If you want the full list of self-reflective questions that you can work on, little homework until we meet next week, then send me an email.I'll be glad to send you the full questions.You can answer 'em if you need help answering them.Need me to help you kind walk through 'em.I'd be glad to.It's thesaleslife1@gmail.com that's the sales life number one gmail.com.Hit me up.Be glad to send you the full list, or you can DM me on any of the socials.I'm active on Twitter and Instagram.Not so active on LinkedIn and Facebook.So if you hit me there and I get back to you a month later, no shade, I just, I don't really hang out in that neighborhood too much.I got 'em.But, um, you may want to jump over to one of the other socials on Twitter or Instagram.Be glad to hit you up on that.Uh, speaking of that, before we go in, the self-reflective, uh, questions, Instagram has a new thread, um, uh, edition.And so you'll start to see some threads of my ideas.These are longer form ideas instead of just a quote.It's more the long form.Uh, so check that out on Instagram and then also on the Twitter threads as well.I love, I love the Twitter aspect of it.It's, I like having conversations and so I get to meet some really cool people on there and really have some good conversations on that.That's what I, you know, the difference is Instagram to me is, uh,this is what's going on in my life.Yay.Or hang in there.And, uh, on Twitter it's more so of, Hey, I'm thinking about this.And a lot of times, man, I'll post some different ideas as far as ideas that for future episodes, I'll, I'll throw something out there to see what kind of response that it gets.Maybe have a dialogue with it, have a conversation with it, and they spark, they come up, you know, the people who chime in, they come up with something I didn't even think about.Another perspective is like, man,I'm gonna cobble all that together.Make it an episode.So hook up with me there, man.Let's have a conversation on Twitter.If you just want to pose in front of a camera, then hit me up on Instagram.I'll be glad to, uh, to hit you some, uh, some fire buttons and applaud you on your journey.So let's rock out with a few self-reflective questions.Again, if you want the full list, the sales life, the number one gmail.com,the sales life, the number one gmail.com.The first question I wanna leave you with in your homework time is, how do I typically respond to stressful situations?Do, I tend to react immediately?Or do I respond thoughtfully?And when I say thoughtfully, it doesn't mean that you just sit back and really analyze, cuz that's another way of procrastination.It's more so the thoughtful part of it is wrapping your mind that this is going to be a painful, likely, long-term situation that I just gotta work through.But I'm not in survival mode.I'm not trying to do as little as possible.I'm gonna take this thing on, dude.This is what develops courage.This is what develops strength, grit.You're never gonna get good at handling situations if you avoid them all together.Second question, what are some examples from my past where I acted as a reactor?What were the outcomes?And dude, we can probably come up with a pretty quick list on this.What are some situations where you just reacted and it did not come out very well?There's very few times you can sit there and say, I reacted to something, and it turned out well.Now there are situations where you do have to react in the sense of a safety issue, that is different.Okay?Or you may have had to react to something,um, on your job and ended up, whew.Thank God for you cuz you reacted to it.But the reason why you're able to react to situations and really save.Situations become a champion of situations is because in the long run run, you've been willing to respond to the situations.Understand it's going to be a slow burn.This is going be a slow climb.This is gonna be long painful, see the difference, that response.Develops that core strength and that core strength is what equips you to be able to react in situations and win the moment.Think of an athlete.This is super key, man.Just thinking about this off the cuff, think of athletes.Athletes are able to react.To fractional moments, and they do it without even thinking because in the offline hours they responded and worked through with mental and physical training.Last one I wanna leave you with,and I got many others, so hit me up.I'll send you the rest.What are some examples from a past where I acted as a responder, and how did those situations turn out?And I bring this one up specifically because I want you to see the difference.How did you act as a reactor and what were the outcomes, what were the consequences?And then in a separate situation,When I was a responder, you maybe only have a couple of these.You got way more reactions than you got responses.But when I was a responder,what was the outcome of that?Did you handle it well or did you respond?You worked through it and you felt like you got burned.In the end, you're like,I the hell with this.I ain't doing this no more.Don't do that.This is an ultimate game you're playing.You're not looking at it through ultimate lenses.You're just looking at it from a moment.But moments do change.Moments do compound, and you can capitalize on those moments if you have the awareness to work through and push yourself to respond.And no longer react.I am living proof.I am the before and after picture of reacting versus responding.And don't think for a minute that I don't slide to the left and try to be a reactor.In many cases, it happens all the time.And I gotta check myself and be like, Nope, go back.Go be a responder.So, Not gonna happen.Cuz if you do it once, it's that one degree you can get away with it.It's gonna catch me in the end.It's like Jason Vorhees off Friday the 13th.It's people he always chased.He walked, they ran, but they always tripped on a route and he always chop their heads off.Right?That's the same thing, man.That's what life does.Life says, yeah, go ahead and run.You can get way out there in front of me.You're gonna trip on a root and when you do, I'm gonna bust you up.And you don't have to.Not all the time.Some of it you're willing to,and when you're willing to,you will ultimately succeed.So thankful that you're here.Thank you so many.Hey, recent, um, recent reviews.Check 'em out, man.I really appreciate that.You can go to marshbuice.com that's my name.M A R S H B U I C e.com.I'm so thankful.For, uh, those of you who, have left recent reviews, Mr.Wiseman, So thankful for the review from you.Mr.Shields.Appreciate your, , review.Ms.Ogea . Thank you.Good old Louisiana name, o g e A.Ogea.Ogea.Thank you for leaving a,uh, awesome review as well.The reviews are, Hey, they, those are the things, man, that just keep me going.It's like, okay, man.Those are those reviews, man.They just, they, they just light a fire.Cuz dude, sometimes, man, you can lay out 800 episodes and you're like, man, is any of this even.Resonating with anybody and those reviews come in, it's like, all right, cool.I'm glad one person got something from it.And I know reviews are kind of a pain,but I, I try to make a conscious effort to leave reviews on other podcasts that I list listen to, because I appreciate their work and I appreciate what they do and the insight that they provide and the guests that they bring on.And so if you would take a few minutes and.Share what the sales life and the Marsh Buice Podcast how it's helped you, what it means to you, what episode most resonated with you.Because there are millions of podcasts out there, and it's your review that causes them to stop and say, Hmm,lemme check out a recent episode.See what it's even about.And it could be your words that begin to initiate the change.In their lives.See, it was the words that you put down and wrote that caused them to check out the episode.And the episode created the spark of change.And they say, who I needed to hear this message today.Here's what I'm gonna do.But they would've never listened to that episode had it not been for you.That's why dude, we're we're linked at the hip.That's why we're in this thing together.It's the Marsh B podcast and us we're in this thing together.And so I really do appreciate the,uh, the reviews on, on, uh, on both the website or if you prefer,some of you rock out on Spotify.Most of you rock out on Apple podcasts.Leave a review there wherever you'd like to leave a review.You wanna leave it on the website.Great.If you want to, um, Leave it on Apple Podcast.Please do so.And last, uh, right there at the Marsh Buice Podcast.It, it's a bank of all of the videos and all of the, uh,podcast episodes that I've done.But also, if you notice in the far right hand corner is a microphone and it's a microphone.That you can leave me a message or ask me a question if you don't wanna type it out.Sometimes it's a lot quicker.Just leave a message, leave a message, ask me a question, and I'll get back to you on that.So maybe you read some of these self-reflective questions, or you hear this episode and you're like, Hey, I had a question about.Certain situ, would this be considered a reactor or responder situation or how should I have responded to this situation?Cuz I sure as hell reacted from it.It didn't come out quite right.I don't have all the answers, man.But I can share some insight.Maybe I've been in a similar situation like that before.So with that, we'll roll out and get up outta here.I'll see you next week.Thanks for being a part of the Marsh Buice podcast.Keep it simple, keep it moving.Never settle.I have cotton mouth.Stay amazing.Peace.