Setbacks: Getting up when life gets you down

Like everything else, handling life like a boss is a skill that can be cultivated or that can wither on the vine. First step to being a setback badass? Learn the difference between an inconvenience, a setback, a crisis, and a catastrophe. (Hint: it has nothing to do with how you feel.) Step two: ask the right questions in the right order. Step three, four, and beyond? Plan, act, repeat.

So, grab a frosty glass of something cool, kick back, and get ready to get up and get on with it. 

Stasha’s Mocktail:

 ·         Muddled frozen berries (Publix Greenwise Whole Mixed Berries)

·         Kambucha (Publix Greenwise Organic Berry Blend)

·         Sparkling water (La Croix Limonchello) 

·         Twist of lemon

 Pour over ice. Add twist of lemon or lime. Enjoy!

Cheryl's beverage du jour:

Iced tea 
Pour over ice in a tall glass
DONE!

Transcript

 Stasha Boyd  00:01

Hi there. I'm Stasha.

Cheryl Stuller  00:03

I'm Cheryl.

Stasha Boyd  00:05

And between us we

Cheryl Stuller  00:05

have four kids,

Stasha Boyd  00:07

three businesses,

Cheryl Stuller  00:08

two husbands and one goal:

Stasha Boyd  00:10

To get to The Point of the Matter.

Cheryl Stuller  00:11

Well, and let's define what a setback is, in terms of how we gauge it versus a crisis or just a hiccup. It's a little bit more than a hiccup, and it shouldn't be a crisis because you're supposed to be able to move through that.

Stasha Boyd  00:30

But other times people will start like running this story in their head, this narrative, and it becomes this grand thing. And it's like, this is a setback, but it's not a catastrophe. You know, to quote my girl, Corinne Crabtree, you didn't die and you didn't get pregnant. So you're okay. Hello, Cheryl.

Cheryl Stuller  00:54

Hello, sweet Stasha. How are things going?

Stasha Boyd  00:57

Overall? For me? It's going good. I will. I will tell you I am in a bit of a state. We'll have to see how this recording this topic goes. I'm a little bit frustrated with a few folks today. More than one. So don't anybody listening think I'm talking about you. Oh my god. But, but no a few things have kind of like, you know, set me wrong a little bit this week about people dealing with crises and setbacks.

Cheryl Stuller  01:24

And I'm kind of in that perpetual state right now. I'm still working on getting out of that. And I'm working hard girl. That's all you need to know.

Stasha Boyd  01:31

Go back to our goals and our values, and we'll listen to goals and values. Also, for the folks to let them know. I did have a great weekend getaway, though, I got away with a couple of great girlfriends for a couple of nights over at the beach. And I'm still kind of continuing my alcohol free into September, but decided that it's like, okay, it's girls at the beach. We're gonna have a great time. Holy crap. I mean, I think the first night there were three of us and we drank four bottles of wine, and I swear to God, half a bottle of vodka. I'm like, wait, what the hell. And then we got up at 8:30 in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning. So we can be out there at 9:30 to do a stand up paddleboard yoga class.

Cheryl Stuller  02:12

It's amazing how fast we can recover when we want to.

Stasha Boyd  02:16

Even at the ripe old age of 54. Yeah, I got my ass out there. So, anyway I'm, I'm doing a nice little light kombucha and Lacroix tonight. So that's, it's very refreshing. And I always recommend it. It's a great go to.

Cheryl Stuller  02:29

Yeah, Kyle just got some of that today and was passing it out to the two girls at the office. They didn't even know the name of it or anything.

Stasha Boyd  02:37

I'm gonna pause you for one second. Did you hear that humming? 

Cheryl Stuller  02:40

Yeah, I know what that is. That's my garage door. This is why I don't do this here. I'm sitting. I'm on top of the garage. So sorry, guys.

Stasha Boyd  02:51

Sorry, everybody. And sorry, Mike. We're not going to worry about taking out the garage sound. We're just gonna let that go. It's like our mystery sound.

Cheryl Stuller  02:57

 It's not a B-2 bomber. It's the garage door. Although it felt like it.

Stasha Boyd  03:03

Today's topic today we are talking about setbacks. Talking about when people have setbacks when things that happen and occur to them. And we picked this topic fairly recently, and part of it's because of some things that have happened in our lives and happened in our friends lives and things like that. And I think Cheryl, I think it's important for women in our 50s to to really kind of have a thought process around setbacks. Because I know way too many women in, of our age that are still not handling setbacks, like a setback. They're handling it like it's a catastrophe, or they're handling like it's no big deal. Or they're handling it. They're blaming others or they're not. They're not meeting these problems head on. And for me, you know, one of the things that when people sit there and say it's like, oh, my God, you know, you have you got everything together, everything is so wonderful for you every you're so lucky, you know, you've had all of these lucky breaks, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, not necessarily. I've had just as many setbacks and difficulties as other people. I just worked really hard to learn to have as few of them as possible, and then to correct them as quickly as possible. And so I think that's something that I've learned over time, and that I do pretty well. And so that's why I think it's important to me, it's like if there's something that I can help somebody with about, here's how I get over a setback pretty quickly. I'd want to share that. What about you?

Cheryl Stuller  04:32

Well, and let's define what a setback is in terms of how we gauge it versus a crisis or just a hiccup. It's a little bit more than a hiccup and it shouldn't be a crisis because you're supposed to be able to move through that and past it, not easily, but you are supposed to be able to move through it. So a setback is is an event that delays your progress, or reverses some of the progress that you're trying to make. So if you're trying to go out for that promotion at your job and and it's given to somebody else, that's a good example of a setback, you still have your job, you didn't get the promotion that you wanted, you were counting on that extra money. What are you going to do going forward? That's one example. There's a lot more, but.

Stasha Boyd  05:18

Yeah, and I kind of define them as, a setback is something that that cost you or affects one of the three primary resources. It's either costing you or affecting your money. It's either costing or affecting your time, or it's a cost, it's costing or affecting you knowledge, which I always equate that as another person, you've you've like, for example, I'm working on a team right now for a project, that's been a little bit of a heavy lift, trying to get this, it's a volunteer thing, trying to get it moving forward. And I hadn't heard from the team for a little while. So I sent them an email updating, got the instant responder back, oh, yeah, she quit September 1, one of the primary people on our group quit. So now we've lost that knowledge. Nobody's lost any money. But we've lost time. And we're gonna have to start again. But, you know, all the meetings that she was in, all the ideas she had, you know, that's gonna set us back a little bit.

Cheryl Stuller  06:13

And even more so because they didn't let you know, in a timely manner. I mean, it's September 20, something, 21st. Good lord how bout communication? 

Stasha Boyd  06:23

Exactly. And I guess I understand, you know, you got these, these people are coordinating a lot of folks. So maybe it's not everybody's, top of everbody's head. But I did get an email today that it was kind of like a very last minute short notice kind of leaving. And that of course, means always means that okay, something happened somewhere.

Cheryl Stuller  06:41

Somebody pissed somebody else off, and I can't take it anymore, and I'm gone.

Stasha Boyd  06:47

Or something along those lines. We talked about like that the thing about like that setback, an inconvenience, like you were saying in your, if you were looking at the the job, you're you're going after a job or in the case of somebody who's going after business, it's like if I was following up on a sales lead or something, and I had been working progressively towards closing a business deal or closing a client. And okay, at the last minute, a competitor came in and scoops them up. Well, if that was my only client I was working on, then yeah, that might be a setback. But if it was one of 10, and it just freed up time to work on another one. If I focus on that one that I lost, I'm now taking time away from the ones that are still out there. So it's a mistake, I think a lot of a lot of folks have a tendency to, they look at this one little thing that they lost. But if they really examine it, they're not suffering. It's not hurting you that bad. It's not costing you anything in the real world. You're just focusing on the negative because you didn't get what you wanted.

Cheryl Stuller  07:50

Yeah, so I'm going to talk about, you know, Square that you can process credit cards with? 

Stasha Boyd  07:55

Yeah, yeah. 

Cheryl Stuller  07:56

Okay. So we switched over to them for our credit card processing. And when I initially talked to somebody, oh, you're gonna love it, we just have simple pricing. We have straightforward, no other fees, you get what you get, and you know what you're gonna get, and there's nothing to the setup. I'm like, okay, that's great. I'm all aboard with that. Let's do that. So we did, the setup was easy. We've been processing with them for about two months. And then all of a sudden, I get an email saying, your account's been frozen, because we need more paperwork from you. And I'm like, Okay, what do you mean, frozen? And what do you mean more paperwork? And so they're holding our money and have been since last Tuesday, mind you. So we're into today's Tuesday, a week, a week, they've been holding our money, they're letting us keep processing, but they're holding our money. And now all of a sudden, it's not so easy anymore. They need all of this paperwork from me. Bank statements, copies of invoices, tell me about your business. And I'm like, why do you need all of that? Why? And because we have to follow up and just make sure the people that we're doing business with are legit, and that we can trust them, and they can trust us and other businesses can trust them. And I said, Well, I really don't have time for this. And I don't want to do this. And she goes, Well, that's fine, then we'll just cancel your account. And I said, Well, what about all the credit cards we've just processed? Oh, well, I'm not sure about that. But the only way to continue forward is for you to give us this paperwork. So I spent all day on Thursday, trying to get all of this together. And as you know, if you have a Mac, it is not easy to get documents from one place to another where it can be read with somebody else's programming. So I finally got it in there and then I get an email yesterday, yesterday Monday yeah yesterday saying we couldn't read all of your documents you're going to have to do it all over again. So that's what I spent today doing. So it's cost me time, it has cost me knowledge because I think my brain is fried, and it's cost me money. I freaking hate these people so much and I told her that. I said I hate you so much. I'm sorry to say that to your face but what you're doing is wrong you should have been upfront with me that you would need this two months into what we're doing. Now that you've got us hooked now you need all of this information that should have been straight up front what you needed.

Stasha Boyd  10:39

And it all sounds very suspect to me because it's like, you know, if they have your your business number if they have your like your TIN number, then they know you're a legitimate business. So what do they think you're like laundering money? 

Cheryl Stuller  10:51

I don't know. I, I am so incensed by this. I can't even tell you, so.

Stasha Boyd  10:58

Well, so let's talk then about Okay, how do we, how do we deal with this setback Cheryl? Right now it's like you're doing your best, I can tell, very best to maintain some sense of calm and forward motion. You only told her that you did not like her. Okay. You said you hated her. But you didn't threaten her in any way. I think that's growth. That's total growth.

Cheryl Stuller  11:22

I really want to throat punch you right now. But I can't reach you through the phone. 

Stasha Boyd  11:25

I know, I know. Violence. Oh, Cheryl violence, violence.

Cheryl Stuller  11:28

I know it's just words, I would never do it really.

Stasha Boyd  11:34

But actually, but that is the thing. You know, you're talking about the dealing with setbacks. Kind of like, since you're in the midst of that one we'll kind of like let that one go a little bit. But the idea of you know, something happens, and then it becomes Okay, my first question is always Okay, what did I do to get us here? What, what did I mess something up? What, what was within my control that I could have done differently to have produced a different outcome in this setback? That's almost always my first, well, actually, it's my second question. My first question is always What the fuck, but my second question is going to be okay, of the things I can control or that I have influence over, was there something that I didn't see, something that I messed up, somehow, you know, I think that's always the number one question, because I think a lot of times we have that natural inclination that we really do want to blame the other entity 100%. And it's like, it might be their fault. Absolutely might be. But in a lot of times, if we start with ourselves, and we start with what, you know, what what our control our part part of it was, then we can kind of see that situation in more clarity. Because if you're like going, Okay, there was nothing I could have done differently. I did my due diligence, I reviewed the documentation. I set everything up correctly. I, we were processing things were working fine. And then this thing came out of the blue, I would not have changed a single thing in my setup, in choosing this company. I've had that situation happen to us when we've had client problems that have gone on, I'm like, Okay, what did I miss? Did I miss something when this client was starting to kind of go off the rails? And sometimes the answer's yes. Sometimes it'll be something like, okay, I didn't respond to an email fast enough. And they got, they got frustrated, they went made a wrong decision. I'm like, okay, I can see, I can see how I had some influence in the problem that's in front of me. But it also helps you avoid taking on unnecessary blame. It starts kind of going down an analytical road, not a blame road.

Cheryl Stuller  13:39

Yeah, there was nothing else that I could have done. They didn't even notify me that they were going to do this. They just did it. So yeah, there were there were bad reviews on customer service for them. But it was not about this particular subject. So I didn't even know it was coming down the pike. So yeah, you trust people. And then you know, things happen. And that's where you, that's where I get so upset, you know, we're rolling along, this was a big deal to get this switched over. It took a lot of time to do that. And then here we are with another roadblock. You know.

Stasha Boyd  14:22

The thing about trusting people, and that has been kind of a bit of a theme that we've noticed lately. And I try to be cautious about, you know, Oh, my gosh, the world today. You know, but no, I think, I think service is getting worse. I think that when you call into a service center, and you're having a problem with something, like right now it's like, you know, we just we were having an issue with our, our this year's tax filing. And that's kind of a big deal. Nothing huge. It's like we were just waiting for our refund, tax refund that hadn't arrived yet. And so we're trying to go online. Mike's trying to take care of this, you know, where where is it? You know, is it online? Well, you can't get ahold of anybody online. There's no chat feature, you can't even go to an IRS office right now. Trying to contact our accountants. It's like, we weren't getting the answers we needed there. I mean, all of these things were going on. And it became the situation, okay, there's no way to solve this problem that we could find. So, um, that I think that it is kind of making dealing with setbacks a little bit harder, because it's harder to deal with them there. And oh, my God, I'm about to sound like the little cranky old lady. And I'm so sorry. But there was a time when you could just get on the phone and call somebody. And they would answer the question, and they would try to help you, kids today. Um, but no, I do think that there is something to be said about that. And I think part of what it is in some of these larger organizations, is two things. Number one, they are reducing the amount of staff that can assist people. And then they're going with these more automated here are your four responses to this one problem. The person has to pick one, they're not free to solve a problem.

Cheryl Stuller  16:03

And like with you, the guy who originally signed me up that I was trying to contact about all this was no longer there. So that made it take longer, because nobody reached out and said, Hey, your guy's no longer here, so I'm taking over your account, here's my contact information, that would have been the professional thing, but that never happened. So I'm having to track down who it is that I'm supposed to be talking to when I had a contact person. That was the other piece of this too.

Stasha Boyd  16:32

So on your list, on your setbacks list that you found, what was the next what was the thing on the list that would have been that would help you in this situation? What else did they say on the list?

Cheryl Stuller  16:41

Well, number one is give yourself time. So I gave myself time to be upset and angry, and I let her know, I hate this process. I hate that you're making me do this. I don't have time to do this. I'm so upset with you right now. Not you personally, but your company. You know, that's kind of what I said to her. And she goes, I understand. I understand. I understand. I said, but really do yah, cause I'm still having to do it.

Stasha Boyd  17:07

I just want to tweak that one a little bit. I think what they mean is to be, give yourself time to experience your feelings without telling somebody else what they are. 

Cheryl Stuller  17:18

No, see, I have to do that. Or else I don't feel like I've gotten my feelings out all the way. I feel like I'm pushing them down. And I'm carrying them around with them with me. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that person. 

Stasha Boyd  17:31

And we'll come back to that. Because that's an important one that we need to talk about in a minute. Go ahead.

Cheryl Stuller  17:36

I tried to do it respectfully, like I was not mean, I was talking to her like I'm talking to you right now. I wasn't threatening or anything. But you know, I was like, I hate this process. I hate that you're making me do it. I don't have time for this in my day. And it took a really long time to get this done the amount the amount of paperwork that they needed. Yeah. So um.

Stasha Boyd  17:58

I guess it's important for the listeners to, for our listeners to understand, you know, one of the things about about you and I, when when it's just you and me talking. So when we're chit chatting the same way everybody else does. We love to add a little bit of drama, you know, and the inflection I told her. But at the same time, I think it is important for both me and you to feel like we're able to just say what's on our mind in any situation. And I think that that is part of what causes a lot of stress and tension with people because they don't know how to express something negative in the moment, in a way that's clear and frank, without being, you know, upset, you know, you talked before about you know, how you're removing the emotion from a situation, when you're dealing with a problem. You're able to sit there and get on the phone and go, Okay, let me tell you how angry I am right now. I'm really annoyed by this situation. This should not be happening, the service that I'm experiencing is not good. And you can have that conversation so you can still speak your truth. I think a lot of times folks feel like they can't say anything. And I just did the scare quotes the airy scary quotes around that. They feel like they can't say anything. So then you're trying to deal with a setback and feel like you're hobbling yourself. 

Cheryl Stuller  19:12

Exactly. I cannot do that. I will not do that. And I don't like it when people say, well, it is what it is. Or you know, it's not that bad, or people make mistakes, or whatever it is it's minimizing it. You know, I think it's also important to acknowledge, you know, that really sucks. I'm sorry that you went through that, is more what I'm going to say. Rather than pushing it down and minimizing it, acknowledge it. And that gives you that time that you need to start processing through your emotions so you can get to your actions to get through that setback.

Stasha Boyd  19:52

And that's actually one of the things where you can tell somebody had some good training on like an on call customer service. Sometimes you can tell the person is just saying something for wrote because it's on their screen, they're being told to say this. But other times if somebody will just acknowledge, it's like, no, you're absolutely right, this should not be happening. And I'm going to do what I can to see if I can help you. If they just say that to me, it will take a lot of the, the the heat down, because you want to be seen, you know, I think the problem occurs if you require it, if you say they must make me feel better before I'm going to get a hold of myself, then again, you've just given all, you're entirely dependent upon how they act. And you can't get anything done that way. If you're if how you're going to behave is dependent upon them saying the right thing in the right moment. You're not in a position to deal with the problem. If you're, if they can say whatever they want, and you can still plow forward. I think, to me, that's a better way. Or at least rather, let me say, it's a better way for me.

Cheryl Stuller  20:54

It's a better way for me too because if you're relying on somebody else, you can't you can't give your power and control away like that emotionally or otherwise, you know, you still have to own what's happening with you and not base it on what somebody else is going to say back to you. Because then that a lot of times shuts you down. And a lot of failures not only come from actions, but inactions. So another reason why it's important too, you can speak your truth and be respectful and get that thought feeling emotion out. I think that's so, so important. And then that's, for me, that's easier for me to move forward. Once I've got once I get to push the emotion aside, then I can move forward, you know, more rationally, hopefully. 

Stasha Boyd  21:47

And does that lead into your, the next thing on the list, which was, you know, so set up some actions.

Cheryl Stuller  21:53

Set up some action steps. So my action step was to Okay, I'm going to have to do this again, but in a different way, so they can see it more clearly. You know, we had to work all of that out. Go ahead.

Stasha Boyd  22:08

Go ahead. Okay. Well, that was the individual part, that's an individual action to take in an immediate thing. Sometimes, you know, setbacks are more long term. They might be something's like, you know, I think you said earlier, somebody, their car breaks down at the same, and they have a car repair at the same time, they have an important but not urgent Home Repair, they have to do and now you've got to choose one or the other. It's like, okay, now you've got to set about, okay, how am I going to work this money back out and get back to where I was. And so that might take a little longer. But still, the idea is, you sit down, you think about it, and you create an action plan, and you start working that plan.

Cheryl Stuller  22:44

Well, and it goes back to our goals episode. That gives you a clear and concise path that you need to take to go forward. And that focuses your attention more on a positive way, instead of a negative way. You're not reacting, you are taking action steps to move forward. So that's always a positive thing.

Stasha Boyd  23:04

Yeah. And I think, you know, the taking action. Again, going back to that whole thing that was driving me crazy with a couple of people this past week, is that they had hit this huge setback, they the person had a setback, and then they were upset in the moment, I get that. People, that happens to folks. But when it came to that, okay, action steps, they were planning to take the same actions they took before. And they were using the same excuses they used before as to why this setback occurred. And it's like, okay, here's the thing, if you want a different result, you've got to do something different. And I think that's one of the big things about setbacks is that no matter what it was, however you got there, you're probably going to need to do something different to get out of it, or to move forward through it or to get to get goals. And if you look at a setback, or you look at a problem, and you say well, man, you know what I really needed to do right now is double down on every stupid thing I did to get me here without giving it serious reflection and saying, okay, I've looked at this, I can't do this thing over here differently. Because, you know, life maybe it's like, I can't, I can't not fix my car, because I have to get to work. But I can take a different approach to repairing my roof in the example that I used a minute ago, rather than doing a full reroof. I think that's part of the the thing that we have to be able to do to ourselves say, Okay, what can I do differently? What am I willing to do differently? And sometimes what do I need to do differently? Whether you want to or not, sometimes you need to take a different step. And you might not want to, it might be inconvenient. It might mean you're, you're suffering a little bit in some way, but it has to be done.

Cheryl Stuller  24:50

Well, and the person who wrote this article also wrote a book called Body Mind Mastery, and he says speaking to your first point about the person who had a setback and then is potentially potentially going to repeat their steps, he says "make peace with failure so it doesn't keep you from reaching your potential." So in other words, acknowledge what went wrong, your part in that, and make a different path, a different set of goals to reach what you want that was a setback in a different way, that's going to give you that sense of accomplishment and achievement that you need to go forward. And, and you might have to change what the setback created for you. It might not be the same goal that you had before, like with the job promotion. So if that job is no longer there, but you still want to make more money, you might have to look at changing jobs. So your goal might be different at that point. And you've got to be okay with that and be flexible with that.

Stasha Boyd  25:52

I also think that one of the things people, again going back to that idea of people who are looking on the outside, they're looking to the outside reason why something's changed, something's gone wrong, or the outside reason that they have to do something outside of themselves differently. I always go back that one thing too about know yourself. For example, I know me, I know me pretty well, I know I'm hard headed. I know it's hard to tell me anything. You know, if I'm in the middle of doing something, and somebody comes in and tries to give me a correction, my first response is going to be Yeah, I don't fucking think so. Um, but because I know that about myself, I can get through, if I've given the time, I give myself the time and if the person who's who's who I'm dealing with knows me a little bit, then I can get the time to come back and think that through and go, Okay, I can see the merit in this. Otherwise, if you don't know that's how you are, if you don't know that about yourself, then you will instantly dismiss any suggestion or any help that somebody can give you. Or if you know you're the type of person who has a tendency to resist change, I really just don't like change. Okay, then now you know, the reason you're not doing this is not because it won't work, it's because you don't like change, you don't like the discomfort of change. So, and you were saying a minute ago about you know yourself, you know, that you have to be able to express yourself, otherwise, you're going to get caught in that moment, you can't get, you're not gonna get past it. So a big thing to understand about setbacks is understanding how you individually react to setbacks.

Cheryl Stuller  27:19

And like you said, what is your role in it, not digging in your heels, so that you can't hear that, see that, feel that. And that and that's something I'm working on, too, you know, is being able to hear what my role is in something. And then, you know, and, and to be honest, there wasn't anything different, I could have done with that, you know, so I'm gonna have to deal with the time and task that that cost me at the job that I do that put other things behind that I needed to do, deal with that. And the way I dealt with that was by speaking that to her in a respectful way, and then I was able to move forward and get what she needed. But she needed to hear that before I could do that. And that, and that was one of the steps is regain your control. And that's a part in how you can do that. So you're not feeling hopeless, or helpless, or that agitated feeling that you get from not knowing what to do forward, sometimes just speaking about it. And then that other person gets to say, like you said, with a customer service. I'm really sorry to hear that. Let me help you, let's do something different to help us get forward. What can I do to help you with that, and then that opens up that Okay, now I could see a different way past this. Whereas I was so upset, I couldn't see how I was going to get out of this.

Stasha Boyd  28:39

And that's actually kind of a win win thing from Seven Habits. It's like when somebody like throws you that lifeline of going, okay, I'm here to help you, you and I can work on this together, you know, don't bat the lifeline away, you know, if you have a little bit of awareness and you're like, Okay, I just heard a little bit of an offer of help, I think that you, this person and I can work together to try and solve this problem. I'm still at a loss, I'm still dealing with a setback, but I can work with this person to move it forward. The other thing too, I'm going to mention, and we'll talk about this probably a lot more next week. But one thing is that it's important to listen to people's advice and their input on what they think that you did wrong. But you don't have to agree with all of it. What you have to do was hear it, listen to it, listen to what they're saying. And then go away the next day or that night and think about it and say, Okay, is there something in there? Are they saying something that I'm missing? Are they seeing something, or maybe they're giving me an observation that from their perspective, was either very positive or very negative or whatever it might be. But again, I know my heart, I know my mind. They're off a little bit, but they kind of got close to this. So that way, you're not um, again to not when you're alone. You don't have to mentally defend yourself to anybody. You can listen to advice, you can listen to criticism all by yourself and go, Okay, this person just said, you know, Stasha, you know what your problem is? You know, you just won't listen to anybody. And I'm like, okay, I hear you, you know, the irony of that statement. I know it's not true. I know that I do listen to people, I just don't agree with some of them.

Cheryl Stuller  30:15

Mm hmm, isn't it, you know, and a setback can be a personal setback, like a relationship. And it's really hard sometimes to hear somebody else's perspective of you, that you really don't agree with that, when they tell you that it really, really hurts all the way down to your soul. And it's hard to sometimes defend yourself in that. Um, but it's important to do, and that's a conversation that needs to get started and happen so that you can move forward. You know?

Stasha Boyd  30:51

And I think sometimes that the person is actually, they're just thinking the worst of you, they're projecting their, their worst onto you. But other times, they're holding up a mirror and showing you your worst. You know, they saw it, it flashed up, and there it was, and they saw it, and this person is telling you that they saw it. I think that that is where again, you got to work on some of these, like self awareness skills that, you know, that's like gray, you know, eight level work right there. You if you're not accustomed to to knowing your own mind, and knowing what your thoughts are, you might want to hold off on trying to, you know, analyze those kinds of comments until you get better at it. But you can, you can recognize them because they're instant pain. You can recognize when somebody says something like that you're like, Okay, are they just attacking me? Do I feel like I'm being attacked? That's awful. Okay, I need to go and talk to somebody about this. As you get a little bit better at it, you'll be able to say, Okay, I can hear that. I recognize that attack. I'm not having it. And then you can choose how you respond. Are you going to ignore or are you gonna confront. What are you going to do? And then other times it might be it's like, ouch, truth hurts. That hurt. But yeah, I can, I can see how they saw that. I can see how that was an accurate, a mostly accurate commentate commentary on what I just did. My contribution.

Cheryl Stuller  32:18

Those are the hard ones. The personal ones. 

Stasha Boyd  32:21

Well, here's one. So we had a, we had hired a marketing person for our company, several years back. And this was a big hire. I mean, it was probably one of the most expensive people that we ever hired, we did a full on search for her. It was salary and commission, we had all these things it was it was at one point, she was going to be completely making more money than we were I swear to God, things were going great, I thought. But one day, I'm driving back from a client's and I get a phone call from Mike going, Hey, she just left and took her picture off the desk and pulled the stuff out of her drawer and left. I'm like, What? And so I called her and come to find out. She's like, been totally upset with us for like, a week and a half. And it was because she was, um, she and her husband were moving from one house to the other. And she kept taking all these calls and texts and calls and texts. But she never told us she was moving. She never told us all this was going on. She just kept taking all of these things. And at one point, she's in a meeting with with Mike and she's like taking a call in the middle of a conversation. And he's like, put that down, we're having, what are you doing? And she was so offended. Off she went. And, you know, we we had to have some real hard conversations, because the the part of that is like, okay, we need to look at how we are, as you know, employers and as leaders of a team, there was some real criticism that she had there that we can say that's legitimate. But at the end of the day, and the end of the conversation, we call up some friends of ours, who are also small business owners, and the first things out of their mouth was she's got to go.

Cheryl Stuller  34:00

Well, yeah, it creates a toxic environment, when you've got employees that work for you that are disgruntled and not willing to say anything to the people that can change that. And that's where that communication and personal responsibility comes in that that is one. Those are some of my highest values. You know, you cannot bitch about something going wrong in a company or with an employer, if you are not willing to sit down with that person and say, This is what the situation is, this is how I'm feeling about it. What can we do about this and give them the opportunity to know where your heart is, what's going on, and if they can fix it? If you don't do that, then that creates that everybody's talking behind your back and and you know, everybody's getting disgruntled and the morale goes down. It's a slippery slope. So I agree, she has to go.

Stasha Boyd  34:58

And everybody's thinking the worst. Yeah. everybody's thinking the worst. They're thinking the worst of you, the worst of each other, the worst of themselves. If there's no communication, then everybody's going to put the most negative spin on that story they possibly can. Because nobody just sits around and thinks about how wonderful everybody is, and how much we all just get along. Nobody does that. So I think that's one of the important things. So we are getting close to our time. What on this one do we, was there anything else on our list? Or?

Cheryl Stuller  35:24

Well, I really like this quote from Henry Ford, who he is an example of somebody who had a lot of setbacks to create the assembly line and the first automobile. But he says "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."  I really like that. Even if it's intelligent, because you've heard that other person and how they're viewing the situation, even if it's wrong, you at least have that information to go forward with and to make sure that's not going to happen again. 

Stasha Boyd  35:59

And even when it's not your failure, even when it was just something went wrong. You know, I think that's that's the thing, too, is like part of that we need to watch our words, you know, what is and isn't actual failure. Was it really a setback? Was it a miscommunication? Was it just, you know, a good idea that didn't work out? Was it just, you know, something else. Part of watching our language is not catastrophizing things. I think I mentioned in the front end how some people have a tendency to elevate an inconvenience, you were a little inconvenienced, nothing needs to be said, you don't need to have a big meeting about this thing was an inconvenience. But other times people will start, like running the story in their head, this narrative, and it becomes this grand thing. And it's like, this is a setback, but it's not a catastrophe, you know, to quote my girl, Corinne Crabtree: "You didn't die and you didn't get pregnant." So you're okay. Those are probably the two worst things can be happening in your mid life. So just so you know, those two things didn't happen, you can probably recover. Um, I think that that is a lot of it is to just to really take a clear eye and a kindly heart and look at a situation. What was my role first, then what could I have done about the circumstances around me? So I think though, and that's probably like, I would say, kind of doing our wrap up that we normally do. What's the number one takeaway, for me, it's like, always know yourself, take a look, take a breath, and then figure out what your what your role was first, then try and figure out what you could have done differently.

Cheryl Stuller  37:29

And try to do that when you're not on the phone with somebody and in a more calm state. If you have to, you have to, and I and I would say life is never going to get easier. It's there's always going to be something that you're going to have to deal with, whether it's on a day to day basis, little things, or whether it's on a life basis. And it's a major thing. Use that opportunity to become stronger and more resilient, and learn from those opportunities that you've given that you've been given. And also use that as a time to communicate what you need, what they need, can that work out? Can you help me move forward? What did I do wrong? What did I do right? I think that's a great way to move forward and, and kind of silver lining the setback.

Stasha Boyd  38:24

I and I think that what you just said was probably the most important thing for everything, quit waiting for life to get easier, it's not going to. Work on getting better. You know, work on getting more capable at dealing with setbacks, more, more able to roll with things, whatever, whatever it is, because life, you're right, life doesn't get easier. It's just, it's just, it's a series of things that kind of go wrong in different ways.

Cheryl Stuller  38:51

And let me add to that too, because I say stronger and more resilient. But also give yourself some slack.

Stasha Boyd  39:00

Yes.

Cheryl Stuller  39:02

Don't let go of the rope. But give yourself some slack. And say, it's okay that I'm having a hard time getting through this setback, I'm going to give myself some grace, to be able to give myself time to get through that. Because you also don't want to push through it so quickly that you're, that you're not, you're skipping over the processing of it, you're skipping over the grief of it or the anger or whatever that emotion is that you're feeling at the time connected to that setback. If you don't allow yourself time to work through that, then it's going to be unresolved. And you might repeat that same mistake, behavior, whatever it is.

Stasha Boyd  39:44

And I actually gave that to my one of my girlfriends that was having one of her setbacks last week. It's like I had a card, I had two cards, one if things went really well. And one if things didn't go really well. And so when we found out the answer and it didn't go well, card came out. But the card was basically it's okay to to not feel okay today, you know. Because sometimes setbacks occur and no, it feels like shit and I don't care how much positive thinking and self awareness and you know, Happy Happy joy joy or candles you light or whatever, you are not going to feel good. And even your friends around you are gonna be telling you how much they love you. You still don't feel good. And even when you start taking a look at it, it's you know, okay I can I can I can recover from this. You still don't feel good. You don't have to feel good. That's not that's not a litmus test. You don't have to.

Cheryl Stuller  40:33

Right. Be your true self. Feel your feelings, spill your emotions. Help, that's part of the process that you need to get through. Yeah, definitely. And don't push your shit down. Get it out. 

Stasha Boyd  40:46

Right move forward with it, you know not out of it. So that's so that's our topic then today on setbacks. So Cheryl, talk to me about next week. What are we talking about next week.

Cheryl Stuller  40:55

So next week because of the Gabby Petito situation that we have been following. And that's something you follow politics, I follow stuff like this. This is in my wheelhouse. And I was very connected to that story and did a lot of research on that. We're going to talk about gaslighting and what that is and how it contributes to an abusive relationship.

Stasha Boyd  41:19

Yeah. And I think it's going to be in addition to like, the very large and dramatic and tragic situations like with Gabby, but also how it occurs on everyday interactions. How it can, you can you can start seeing it in work situations, friend situations, friends of friends situations. And so because it's it is something that has a very specific actually, way of being and manifesting itself. And a lot of times I think, women especially especially women of our age, because we did grow up in that era, where we were taught, oh, you know, if he's pulling your hair, it's because he likes you. If I do if some negative thing is happening, it's your fault. You dressed you did this, you talked back you sassed. So I think it's an important topic. I'm very grateful to the women and especially young women today, who kind of really bring this forward. And I'm looking forward to having that conversation.

Cheryl Stuller  42:13

Awesome. Yes, I am too, very important.

Stasha Boyd  42:17

We hope everyone will see us back there. And once again, guys, thank you all for joining us. We are so appreciative. We have been getting feedback from from our friends and listeners, and we are listening to it and hoping to incorporate it. And so thank you all so very much. Cheryl, I'll see you next week.

Cheryl Stuller  42:36

See you next week everybody. Have a good one.

Stasha Boyd  42:39

Bye.