There's a question that I really think is

powerful that is so great to ask yourself, and it's, what advice?

If you're struggling with anything, what advice would I give to somebody else here?

And the reason that's so powerful is because you're forced to like,

step back from the situation and, and, and be like,

am I, am I a hypocrite or not? Like, you know, you're stressed about something

and then you're like, what advice would I give someone else to handle the situation?

And then you're like, doing the exact opposite of the advice you give to somebody

else. That's a problem. So today we're going to talk about handling

stress over the holidays because, you know, we always got

time with family and friends in more, you know,

stressful situations. So I got a great guest on today

who's going to talk to me about this, who has a family. He has four

kids and he has stress. Oh, he has five kids. Yes. I forgot

he had five kids. Forgot about that last one. Most people.

This is Troy Trestle and he, this is his podcast studio. The podcast room.

Yeah. And he's going to actually chime in and talk to me about holiday

stress. Yeah. So let's go ahead and we got three tips for you

that we're going to give to you to deal with the tension

that you are potentially going to face today

during the holidays. During the holidays and every day.

Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy podcast. I'm your host, Adam

Gragg. I am a coach and I'm a family therapist. And I'm a family

therapist who does have stressful family situations. I became

a family therapist to deal with my own family and, you

know, as I am. How's that worked out for you? Well, I'm

kind of stressed right now because I'm stepping onto a plane. It's

2:55. My flight takes off at 5:15 and I'm

flying to California to see all my siblings. Everyone in the same house.

And is everyone staying at the same house? Oh yeah, the same house. We're all

staying with my mom and dad. Is this like a home alone mansion type house?

I mean, it's a big house. Or are you all like a

sized house? I mean, it's got enough room for. Everybody that you can spread

out, that. We can spread out. But it's still like,

you know, it's still. There's three bathrooms in this house. There's a

big family room, big kitchen. I mean, it's got enough space. You gotta, you gotta

know where you're going. I mean, you gotta be able to like, find

your little nook and stay there. Yeah. And so, and you, you can, you

know, you got to be strategic about it. Okay. But I'm going out there

and I will tell you that even right now, I am

six days nicotine free. And I feel so much of a

temptation to want to use nicotine because it calms me and slows me down because

I'm going out to see my family. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. Did

you read that article that I sent you? I read that article and I think

a lot of that's bs. Really? Yeah. I don't, I don't think it

is. I think a low level of nicotine might be okay. Yeah. For some

people. And I can get that. Like a really low level. But the people that

use nicotine use so much more than what they're talking about.

Yeah. On average. Well, they, they say it's a binder that can release toxins

in your body and naturally flush it out. Yeah. I mean, a very

low level. But like I, I was using a can of Zen

a day, and I have, I mean, over my five year battle, I've

used this crap. I stopped for a full freaking year, you

know, and then I started again. And then now I've stopped again. It's the

longest I've been without it and it's only six days. No, I think I had,

I had two weeks. I take that back. But I had the patch, which I

feel like is cheating. Like now it's not cheating. It's better than using it. But

I feel like right now I'm really jonesing for it. But that's because I'm getting

ready to go out and see family. I'm not blaming them, I'm just saying. But

here's the deal. Makes you anxious. Yeah, it makes me anxious. And what I'm. What

I'm going to talk about today is stuff I want to make sure I keep

in mind as I go out there and spend time with my family. And I've

got to take my own advice. Like I give advice, but I don't take it

all the time. So here's the first deal is,

is that if I'm going to make the most of these situations, I have to

have an opportunity mindset rather than

a problem focused mindset. Okay, so opportunity. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, it's like, here's an opportunity to spend more time with people, to have

good things come out of the situation, to have good

interactions or to handle conflict in a healthy way

or to get to know people better in my family.

Not to get sucked into drama and problems and

defending my way and how I can get time for myself. And I

get into this mindset. Like this could be really fun. You know, I, I actually,

I bought this brio labyrinth to keep at my parents house. Like I have

one of those at my house that I play with.

It's amazing. Yeah, you brought it. You had it on. Yeah, yeah, I had it

on. Gratitude. Well, well,

I got one of those over Thanksgiving when I was visiting my parents. This is

all in Sacramento, Folsom, California where my mom and dad live. And I, I left

it there. And I'm excited about going out and playing that game with my family

and even bring in some games from my house to go out and play. And

I have that mentality right now, like this is going to be really fun. I

want to do something new, go on walks with people, do things, do some things

that are new. Is your family like sit down at the table and play a

board game type family or. They aren't really used to be that way,

but lately it feels like when we go and get together as a

family, there's more.

Well, you know, that's a good question. We just haven't done it in a long

time. Like I don't feel like there'd be a lot of resistance. I feel like

there's an opportunity. Right. Opportunity right there. Yeah. I mean play

Monopoly, play Settlers of Catan, play. Those things are so great because you

get to have natural, lighthearted conversations. We used to play hearts as a family.

That was a blast. I, I would totally need to totally

bring. Spades is a great game. Yeah. So what's the opportunity? So I have,

I have some goals to learn some recipes from my mom. One

of which is called struffoli, which is a Italian cookie that we used to

make. And my mom's Italian. I have Italians in my family. It's from Italy. I

think it's like a southern Italian cookie that you would probably never even

have had unless you have heard the name. I don't know if anybody has ever

heard of struffoli, but. Well, your mom's Italian. How far back or were

her, her parents immigrants to the States? Her mom's

parents. Okay, right. So you're like four.

Yeah. My mom would be half Italian and my, my, my mom's dad is actually

from London. He grew up in Great Britain. Not, not, not London. He grew up

in the, in the. About three hours north of London. Oh, okay. Yeah. So.

So yeah, I got some immigrants in my. On my mom's side. Yeah, my dad's

been in the US for longer, so. Because he has like Civil War.

Heritage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They are from Scotland

originally. But so first thing, William Wallace. William

Wallace. That's interesting one. So, yeah, in fact, the last name Greg, it was

McGregor and it was changed upon

immigration. That's fact. Have you watched Outlander? Have not watched

the Outlander. Is that a McGregor deal? There's some McGregor's, there's some

McGregors. Okay, so second, I gave you one

tool is to have an opportunity mindset. How do you get an opportunity mindset? You

can go to gratitude. You can start listing out what has happened.

That is progress. Gives you an idea that you've already

made progress. And so there's going to be progress in the future. You focus on

the gains, not the gap. You focus on what actually is has

happened. And I was thinking about business progress this last year, and it was

easy for me to get negative because there have been some things that have been

discouraging that have happened. But then I look and I say, well, man, these are

a lot of really positive changes. And I started rattling them off and I was

kind of mad at myself because I was thinking, why is it so hard for

me to see the progress in my life and to be so. To lack

satisfaction with the progress that has actually been made? Really discouraging. I was

discouraged with myself. I was encouraged by the progress professionally. But

discouraged on how you looked at. The progress, how I looked at the progress. And

I think as a dad, because. You see all the negative. Yeah, I see all

the negative. I did the same thing kind of as a dad, and I was

thinking, yeah, I've made some progress and daughters made progress and really

situation is, had lots of. Lots of cool progress, but I had

been focusing on the gap even in that situation. So that's where we channel

in to the opportunity. So second thing is to focus on

what we can control. Like, there's a worksheet that I use with clients.

I want to basically link to a video in this episode, to this actual

worksheet. I'll put it up on YouTube and it's called

focus on what you can influence. And it's the serenity prayer in action. If you

don't know the serenity prayer, it's God, grant me the serenity to accept the things

I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the

wisdom to know the difference. There's so much in that, like if you are

focusing on things out of your control, you're going to get frustrated, you're going to

get discouraged. If you're channeling it into saying like this is what is in my

control that I can do something about, then I'm going to get encouraged because I

see I can take some action on those situations now. Something that has stressed

me out is my sister. I have a sister. She's been on this episode, she's

on this podcast. I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you

who brings it? No, lately it's really been my sister because

my sister has. And I love my sister. She's great. Her name's

Erica. She owns Escape Artist Travel, which actually has sponsored this show in the

past and still does as a commercial at the very end. She's an

excellent travel agent. She's been to like almost 100 countries. Her

husband is awesome. I mean, I think very highly of them and

they're supportive of me, I'm supportive of them. But my sister,

I will say it's easy for me to want to point a finger at her

and say she's just so difficult. And there are some things about her that, that

she has a very big temper and her temper, I would argue, is hard to

penetrate. It's a self protective function. And when she escalates

and gets really mad, it's like nothing can

penetrate that. Like it will just shut everybody down and she'll get her

way. And I have tried calmly to resist

that. And she'll do things that are extreme in my opinion, like,

you know, really extreme. Like just very loud, very, very

obnoxious kissing. Give us an example of something

that's happened at a holiday experience. Yeah. So over there. It

wasn't that long ago when we went and we all were together as a family

in July and we went to the beach as a family. We were

driving out to the. Go out to the beach and she wanted to get coffee

from Dutch brothers. And on the way to the coffee shop there was

a. Another on the way to the highway there was another coffee shop called.

What was it called? Anyway, it's something better than something.

It's a local coffee shop in Folsom. Would have been much better.

Yeah, well, I know actually it was just because of convenience. I just wanted to

go get to the highway as fast as possible. And so really calmly I said,

let's go to this place we can go. It's the same thing. But she just

had a meltdown. And it wasn't like just A normal meltdown is like she stormed

out of the car. She called me evil. Like

she, she said some things that were really hurtful. She ended up apologizing about it,

but it was so over the freaking top. It was like, what do you do

with this? And it was around other. My nieces and my nieces. It was around

my daughter. You know, it was like she apologized later, but it

was like she'll have. To handle in front of anyone.

In front of anyone. Yeah. Cussing, That's a problem. In front of kids.

Yeah. She's done it. And then she eventually apologizes for it. But I don't trust

she won't do it again if she doesn't get her way. That's the problem is

that's why I get like, I have to have better boundaries with her because I

have to be able to address things with her. But in some cases, and her

husband will even say like, no one can get through to her until she calms

down. But I have to be able to practice. Yeah. I can't let my fear

of her. I find myself being afraid of her and that's not going to benefit

my relationship with her. That was going to be a question of mine. Does her

husband even. Can he even get through to her? Her husband

can get through to her. I guess I, that'd be a good question to ask

him because I think when she's so set on her way, it's like everything shuts

down until she calms down and the whole world shuts down. Like the whole family

will shut down. And that's not okay. Yeah. And then it may take hours

until it gets back to normal, but I don't think that's okay. It should be

like it shouldn't get to that point. A to Z. Yeah. You know, I'm saying

so fast and so I have to be. But I can't be afraid because I

feel like a lot of times people are just afraid of her and that's not

okay. It's not benefiting her because it just leads to more of the same because

she won't change. So what I have to do and what I thought about is

like with, with my sister, I, what I can do to influence this is I

can get some one on one time with her. I can encourage her. I could

try to get to know her. And when these situations come about, I can

practice having a courageous conversation. Like instead of just getting real mad about

the situation, I've even thought about saying, hey, Erica, you know, this situation happened

back then and this Is something I want to commit to doing. Like tomorrow or

the next day, say, Erica, I'd like to talk to you. I have a.

That situation that happened over the coffee, you know, I am

feeling a little anxious that that kind of thing could happen again. And

I don't want that to impact my interactions with you where I'm afraid that there

could be a blow up like that again. How do we resolve this and what's

your perspective on that, Erica? And then just go into it that way and see

how it goes, like preempting it. Do you think that. Do you think

bringing up the past like that would. I think. I think.

You think it'll be good? I think it could. Okay. Yeah. Holy cow. I

gotta be. I gotta leave here in five minutes. Go to the airport. It's 305.

I think it could be. Gets a new approach, though, is what it is. It's

actually a very new approach with my sister because usually I don't do that. I

just avoid it and Because I don't want to experience that again because I don't

want to experience the rejection potentially again, you know? Yeah, it's hard to experience that.

So where do you think that. That deep. What do you think it is in

her that that brings that out? I have no idea. But I mean, I could

suspect it's something from her past to where she has to be guarded.

And if I could really get to know her better. And then my family goes

to this thing. Don't be a therapist with me because I've been a freaking family

therapist for so long, right? So they're like, don't use your Jedi knives.

It's so crazy because I'm just. I'm human like anybody else. You know, I. I

will tell my clients these stories and they'll tell me. They're encouraged by it because

they know that I have the same challenge everybody else have. So it's like, it's

a very real thing. So the third. Well, before you do that, I got number

one is have an opportunity mindset. Number two, focus on the

what you can influence. List it out and focus on and

make put plan those things that you can influence into your day, into

your interactions with these people. You can go ahead, hit the link to get this

worksheet called Focus on influences. Be a little video. And you can download the worksheet

given that to you. And then the third is to really focus on your

own taking care of yourself. So as I go and I'm around family more,

I have to be ultra disciplined. To get up and read and have my bible

time and my prayer time and my exercise and focus on talking

to my friends. And I'm sharing all this stuff with you because I know I'm

going to kind of be in the lion's den and I got to make sure

I call Ben and I call Alan and I call Dave and I engage Brent.

And these are the buddies that I talk to when I'm dealing with. They're my

monkeys, you know, they help me deal with stress in life, everything. But then I

can forget to call them because I get discouraged. So I got to make sure

again, I'm away. I'll call Troy, man. I mean, Troy's my friend. I'll call him.

He'll give me some feedback. So self care is stepping away

and doing some stuff for yourself. Reading, going to bed on time,

you know, getting up on time for me, drinking enough water, making sure I'm not

eating a bunch of crap, and even challenging myself. That's. I'm

competitive person, so I know that I can overreact and get sucked into my old

ways. But if I make it a game to say I'm going to practice what

I preach and I'm not going to be a hypocrite with all my clients, I'm

going to make sure I practice it. And let's make it a game that I

can say, you know, over the next week when I'm gone, there's

only like five times that I mess up, which would be really good for me,

actually. Or not perfection. We're making it a seven on a scale one to ten.

You know, make it a seven. Seven up, dude. That's. You got to be not

perfection, but to make it a game that I'm going to engage in, the kind

of self care that I know I need to engage in to be happy and

healthy with my family and even make it a game that I'm not going to

stuff things like I have in the past. I'm going to address things. Even if

my sister can be scary or my brother is very similar to. He can scare

the hell out of me too. They have these. My mom can scare the hell

out of me. They have these. They have these anger, rage things. It's like you

can't get to through them. And I got stories. I mean,

there's been so. And I'm not saying I'm not responsible for some of this stuff

because I am, in a sense. Have you ever haven't had. Have you ever had

a rage moment? Oh, I've had rage moments, too. So all of you have.

I have, yeah. I like to say it where I'm pointing the finger at them,

not myself. But the figure that gets pointed at me is I've stuffed things

and then I have not communicated it and not gone back and addressed it,

and then I've just let it sink, sit, and linger. So

that's what you got. So you know this will change your holidays. Apply these

three tools. If you found this helpful as well, hit the link to Shadow

Proof yourself. Seven small steps to a giant leap in your confidence. Because you

got a worksheet you can go through over the holidays any time of the year,

and you can list out your answers to give yourself seven tools

that you can apply right away. Troy better do this himself right away to

the holidays and the stressful stuff you're going to be dealing with and at any

point in your life. So it'll make a difference if you apply it.

I want to go ahead and share a little story that can

encourage you. And it's like we have these

stressful situations that happen and we can go back to the ones that went bad

in the past, but how often do we go to the ones that actually have

been very surprisingly encouraging in your life? And I can think

of a time fishing with my uncle and these funny

things with my uncle and my dad and family where we were just having fun

over holiday periods of time. And even

the fact that I can visualize reproducing those experiences is very encouraging to

me. And it kind of sums everything up. How can I go back and try

to reproduce? So we've actually talked about reproducing one of these funny fishing

trips, and I'm going to make sure to try and try to make it happen

on Folsom Lake. Should do it. Kind of fun. Yeah. So. And some of the

funny fishing trips relate to some really silly

jokes that probably aren't appropriate to make, but we still joke about them. You know,

it's like kind of funny stuff. So I want to go ahead and challenge you

as well to like and subscribe to the Decided Legacy

podcast. Help it grow organically. Really important to

decide means that you're eliminating other options. And your legacy is

the impact your life has on other people. You know, there's no positive change unless

you decide to change. Your legacy depends on it. One thing,

one action, will change your life. What's the one thing you can commit to from

today? Because action changes things. Insight does not.

Insight is great. You got some ideas today, but unless you take action it's not

going to have an impact. I want to close the day today the way I

always do. Make it your mission to live the life today. You want to be

remembered for 10 years after you're gone. You decide your legacy,

nobody else. I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.