Episode 101: Pursuing a Less Stressful Life with Prof. Pete Alexander

Melissa: 0:25

Welcome back to Pursuing Uncomfortable. In today's episode, professor Pete Alexander joins us. Get ready to be inspired as professor Pete shares his journey of overcoming stress and finding joy through the power of laughter. From owning an interior landscaping business, to motivating marketing students, and even spreading laughter as a certified laughter yoga teacher, Professor Pete brings a wealth of knowledge and experience that will leave you feeling energized and motivated. Join us as we dive into the importance of laughter, stress relief techniques, and the life changing moment that led Professor Pete to prioritize his health over his career. Get ready to laugh, learn and step outside your comfort zone with professor Pete, on this exciting episode of pursuing uncomfortable Professor Pete, welcome to the Pursuing Uncomfortable podcast. How are you today?

Prof. Pete: 1:22

Melissa, I'm so glad to be here. I really appreciate you having me on the show and your listeners time as well.

Melissa: 1:29

Well, thank you. I think we're in for a treat today. You have so much energy, so much good stuff to share. And I know it's going to be a great episode. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Prof. Pete: 1:42

That's a big ask to have a really good episode, but yeah, I'll try and reach that bar. Um, Yeah. So, um, uh, I've, I've got a lot of things that I'm grateful to, to keep me busy. Um, I have an interior landscaping business that I've owned since, uh, 2005. Uh, I get to, uh, motivate, uh, marketing students, uh, at a university, Antioch University, where I, I really love to, uh, help them develop their marketing plans for a topic that they have, uh, a strong interest in. And, uh, I also get to bring laughter into my community as a certified laughter yoga teacher as well as a traveling improv comedy performer.

Melissa: 2:30

I love it. In fact, one of the jobs in our family that I've tasked to my 13 year old is to find a belly laugh for our family every night because I think it's important to laugh and it's healthy to laugh.

Prof. Pete: 2:43

Absolutely. And especially when we look at how we used to laugh, at least most of us used to laugh as kids. And, you know, some stats say that it could be as much as several hundred times a day. And as adults, if we're lucky to get maybe five laughs a day, that would be a lot. And so it really, so being able to, to, to, to talk to your kid about coming up and making a laughter, a habit. Can be hugely beneficial from a health perspective for them. Well,

Melissa: 3:19

that's good to know, that's been instinct confirmed. All right, this is going amazingly well. What else do we have for us today?

Prof. Pete: 3:28

Well, you know, it, it, it, one of the things that I've found since we're talking about laughter is, it is one of my top stress relief, uh, you know, techniques that I like to use because The interesting thing, um, that a lot of people don't realize, and especially when they first walk into one of my laughter, uh, yoga workshops is, um, they think, okay, people are laughing, but there isn't anything funny. And that's, that's really what's, what's completely different about this. Um, you know how you feel really good when you do a good belly laugh? Well, oh yeah. Yeah. So what happens is when we laugh out loud, our body excretes these positive endorphins that help us feel better and long term it's better for our health. You know, because things, you know, there's clinical research that, uh, clearly defines that laughter. Not only does it reduce our stress hormone, our stress response, it, uh, improves our mood and it increases our personal satisfaction. And so the. The secret sauce behind laughter yoga, though, is as, you know, smart and intelligent as our bodies are. They don't know the difference between a real belly laugh and a forced laugh. It just knows that you're laughing. And when you laugh for at least five to 10 seconds, those positive endorphins go into your body. So that's what we do in the, in the laughter yoga activities is. Um, we try and connect with our inner child and start laughing about the most ridiculous things that normally you would think, that's not really funny. But because laughter is contagious, when other people around you are laughing, you're going to laugh as well.

Melissa: 5:35

Yeah. And, you know, when it comes to stress relief, you know a thing or two about that, don't you?

Prof. Pete: 5:41

I do. I do. Um, yeah. Stress and I have a lifetime to, uh, to, to be able to say our relationship has, uh, lasted. Uh, and it started with my, uh, childhood growing up in an extremely dysfunctional family. And what happened was, um, I tried to, you know, adapt based on what was going on in my, my family to try and ignore some of the stress that was going on. But what I ended up doing was becoming a perfectionist and this perfectionist tendency and, and actually I would call myself a toxic perfectionist is what I was taught. Um, and. I was taught that because I never felt good enough as a kid. Um, a lot of it had to do with, um, the fact that I couldn't get my dad's approval. And so, or at least I never sensed that. And fortunately, when he was in, uh, hospice back in 2008, uh, we made peace about that. So I'm really good about, uh, about that now, but, you know, looking back, um, and in 2008, because I wasn't handling my stress well. And, you know, the feelings of rejection, et cetera. What ended up happening is I had this perfect storm of stressful things going on in my life, including my dad passing away and within he didn't have his affairs in order. My mom, they had been divorced already for the second time. Um, and. She had, uh, a major procedure she had to have done and she didn't have the insurance for the, for the, the physical therapy that she needed and, um, I was running my business with several employees. My kids were small and they wanted my attention and, uh, oh, and yeah, I was heading for a divorce with my, uh, first wife. So needless to say, there was a little bit on my shoulders and all of a sudden I lost 30 pounds. In 30 days. And at first I thought to myself, wow, this is fantastic. I haven't lost weight since my twenties and I was in my mid forties. And then the weight kept coming off. And I was thinking, uh, this isn't right. And so I went and I had my, uh, blood work and guess what? Uh, diagnosed with stress induced diabetes. Yet, you would think that I would have listened to my body about what stress was doing to it? No. Instead, what I did was I continued to burn the candle at both ends like I was doing for my entire career. Until, uh, for, you know, I ended up in the emergency room 10 years later with a severe case of diabetic ketoacidosis. And basically for your listeners who might not know, my body was eating itself alive because of my stress. And that was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. It's interesting on my, I got transferred to an extended stay in ICU after my, uh, first day in the ER. And on my second day in ICU, I had gone back to the corporate world, even though I still had my, my landscaping business. And I had a micromanager as a boss. And on the second day. In I C U, I get a text at about 6:00 AM and it says, if you have a webinar you need to run at eight o'clock. What are you going to do about it? And you know, surprisingly, I did not have my work laptop in the I C U. I just had my phone. And mind you, my boss did know I was in the I C U and what, oh yeah. So what I started doing was, um, I'm pushing the envelope of what my phone could do to try and reschedule this webinar. And the nurse that was assigned to me at that time comes over to me and when I was first admitted to the hospital. My blood sugars were so high that the medical grade glucometers could not read it. They just said high. So the lab had to manually estimate it, and they estimated that my numbers were eight to 10 times higher than they were supposed to be. So yeah, my, my body was burning up, that's like 800, 800 to thousand to 1,800. Wow. To a thousand. That's what they estimated I was burning up and it was all because of this particular. Uh, project that I was working on that was high profile. So as she comes over and she takes my blood, my, my numbers had come back down roughly since you know, uh, uh, glucose numbers. I was around 200 to 20. So it came down into more reasonable ranges of still high, but more reasonable, very high. Yes. And. As she takes this number, as I'm trying to sit there and reschedule this webinar, my number, like a 90 degree angle skyrocketed back up. And she says to me, as a matter of fact, you realize that's what put you in this hospital bed in the first place. And you know, I had heard from my family and friends that I was burning myself out. But it went in one ear and out the other, a complete stranger who had nothing to gain by telling me this. Had the impact and I sat there and went, Oh my gosh, I'm trading my health for my career. And that's a very bad trade. So I spent the next couple of days in, uh, in ICU, just really contemplating that. And the day after I got out, I decided to resign from my job. And then I started, for the first time in my life, working on different techniques that I could use to reduce my stress. And hang

Melissa: 12:24

on, I got to interrupt you here. So what happened with the webinar? Did you just let it go? Did you just?

Prof. Pete: 12:57

No, no. I rescheduled it. I was able to reschedule it. You know, and what I did was, um, as I, you know, and I still didn't trust myself after I rescheduled it on a phone. So one of the guys that was reporting to me, I asked him, I said, can you double check to tell me if you're seeing this correctly? So you know, I made sure once again that things were taken care of with work before focusing on what was going on with me. So, you know, and that's just what happens with a perfectionist, you know, it's just everything has to be perfect. If it's not perfect, it creates us enormous stress. So, um, yeah, so I, I ended up, uh, going ahead and, and applying all these different stress relief tools and techniques. And a lot of them work, some of them didn't. And then, uh, my former co workers and a lot of friends and family said, you know, you, you ought to write a book about this. So I did. And, um, grateful that it became an Amazon bestseller. But what was really amazing is you see what I look like now. And if you were to see a picture of me back in 2008, 15 years ago, other than a little bit more gray hair, I look younger today than I did 15 years ago. That is amazing because when you start applying at least one or two stress relief tools or techniques that can work for you, at least for me. What I noticed is that not only did my stress go down, my glucose numbers as a diabetic went down, my weight went down and my energy went way, way up. It was sort of like getting, finding a fountain of youth. So I highly recommend it. Tell us about the name of your book. Oh, it's called Lighten Your Day, Fast, Easy, and Effective Stress Relief for When You Know What Happens. Uh, and the LIGHTEN is, uh, an acronym, a seven letter acronym, and, uh, what it stands for, the L is for your livelihood or your career, uh, the I stands for your imagination or basically your conscious mind where your inner critic lives. Uh, the G is for your genius or your unconscious mind, which is where all real change happens, uh, on the unconscious level, like your habits, et cetera, your beliefs. And then the H stands for your health, you know, which is something that, um, I'm lucky to have regained. Uh, P is for time, you know, you gotta be able to manage your time because you can't get it back once it's gone. Is your environment. Because, uh, you know, being able to make sure that where you work. You know, it should be, um, supportive of your stress relief efforts and N is your network of relationships, both personal and professional. You have to be able to manage those. So all seven of those are areas where it allows us, you know, my research showed that the, um, stress can come from any number of those. And what we should be striving for is some balance, uh, you know, at the end of our day, you know, hopefully. You know, we have some balance along all of those and, you know, the reality is something, one of those at least is going to be, uh, off kilter and we need to focus more attention on it. We should be striving to, to keep those as much in balance as we can.

Melissa: 16:57

The book looks phenomenal and I love it's available on Kindle, audio book and paperback. So whichever format works best for you or at works best for you at a particular time. You have options there. There's a link to that in the show notes, as well as to your website, which has links to your YouTube reels and her YouTube channel, I guess, is the more appropriate designator there where you have a lot of phenomenal videos and, and good

Prof. Pete: 17:28

stuff. Thank you for that. Yes. It, you know, I try and, uh, provides this information because, you know, it's interesting. Um, I was asked. About, you know, what kind of impact are you trying to make? And the reality is if I can help one person at a time, I'm making an impact. And that that's really it. And it's interesting because, um, a lot of people say, Oh, I want to, you know, have this wonderful, you know, position or, uh, you know, I want to make. All this money and blah ba dee blah, and the reality is, at the end of the day, how important is that? But if you can say that you've positively influenced somebody and made a positive difference, that's really what I'm hoping to do.

Melissa: 18:21

And is it important enough to change those unconscious daily habits? Because that's really where things happen, isn't

Prof. Pete: 18:28

it? It is, um, and changing an unconscious habit does take time. So, it will be... A bare minimum from the research, bare minimum of 21 days, but more likely 60 days. And so one of the reasons why I included in the book, probably 95% of them are five minutes or less, is because as we said, you know, talked about time, time is so critical to our busy lives. And if we can try something for just a minute or two, if it works. Awesome. Use it every day, because if you use it every day, it's going to become a habit. And if it becomes a habit, it's going to give you that long term benefit, but you have to start today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, today. And if you try something and it doesn't work for you, try something else. Cause that's the, you know, the thing that I found. Um, was most important, Melissa's something that might work for me, may not work for you and vice versa. So you have to find something that works for you in particularly, and it doesn't take much time. You just have to make the effort. And a lot

Melissa: 19:56

of your videos, at least at the top of your YouTube page are less than a minute and they're beautiful. You love

Prof. Pete: 20:02

nature. Oh, thank you. Yeah. That was a feedback that I got from a lot of my followers that they, you know, cause I live just outside the Olympic National Park and, uh, so I, you know, one of the reasons I moved up here is because, um, my favorite hobby is actually to, to, to go hiking and I love being out in nature. And, um, so my, my followers start saying. Why don't you just share your, uh, your, your nature videos? And so I thought, okay. And so, yeah, anyone who goes to the channel, probably the first, I don't know, 15, 20 might be nature videos. And then as you go down farther, you'll see all the, uh, very specific technique ones as well. So, uh, uh, but. You know, if, if you have the opportunity, you being whoever's listening, if you have the opportunity, even at that, like, let's, let's say lunchtime at work to go for a quick walk, even if it's around the block, it's amazing what that does to be able to clear your mind. It really is. And, um, and if you're lucky enough to have a park or some grass or a tree that you can come and connect with, by all means do that, because we are drawn to nature, you know. Our bodies are made up mostly of water, so, and the reason we're attracted to nature is because nature is primarily water as well.

Melissa: 21:32

So Professor Pete, who should connect with you?

Prof. Pete: 21:35

Oh, anybody who, uh, is looking to reduce their stress very simply, you know, with a minute or so a day, that, you know, I'm, I'm a good, uh, resource for that. And anybody that, uh, is, is looking to, um. Maybe laugh and, uh, you know, and once, once some fun stuff as well that, uh, you know, I've, I've, I like to say that I've got a good sense of humor. I have an even better sense of humor now that I spread laughter. Yeah. So absolutely. Um, most of my followers are on LinkedIn, but I also have a lot on, uh, on Facebook and then Instagram would be third.

Melissa: 22:13

And all of those links are in the show notes. So make sure you check it out. Uh, especially the YouTube channel. If you're a visual person, there's so much beautiful scenery there and the techniques are spot on. So make sure you check that out. The author link on Amazon, again, different formats for whatever works best for you. So, Professor Pete, thank you for coming today and sharing all this with us. What would you like to leave the listener with today?

Prof. Pete: 22:40

Melissa, thank you so much for having me on the show and, uh, again, for your listeners time, I greatly appreciate that as well. The one thing that I would just leave it to everyone to think about is don't try and trade your health for your career or any other responsibility, because if you think about it, the last time that you might've been very sick, let's say with the flu, with COVID, whatever, whatever it is, think about whether or not you had any energy, most of us, when we were really sick, yeah. All we wanted to do was lie in bed, and when all you can do is lie in bed, you're no good to your company, your career, to your loved ones, etc. Your health is paramount, so don't trade it. Take care of it.

Melissa: 23:36

Profound words. Thank you.