The Science of Bravery With Jill Schulman

In this LMScast episode, Chris Badgett and Jill Schulman discuss leadership, bravery, and overcoming fear in both personal and professional growth.

Her next book, “The Science of Bravery”, which will be published in the summer of 2025, examines how courage is acting in spite of fear rather than avoiding it. She offers research-backed techniques to help people overcome their fears, especially those related to self-doubt and impostor syndrome.

Jill stresses the significance of mentality, which includes cultivating optimism, controlling self-talk, redefining stress as a tool for progress, and adopting a growth mindset. She uses studies from positive psychology to assist leaders who have experienced defeats rethink their challenges and restore confidence.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badget. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMSCast. I’m joined by a special guest. Her name is Jill Schulman. You can find her online@jillschulman.com. Check out her newsletter. We’re gonna dive deep today into bravery, into leadership and Jill story. She’s a US Marine Corps veteran, she’s a corporate leader.

And she’s been involved in academia, she’s done a lot of things, and she’s out there to help a lot of people. But first, welcome to the show, Jill. 

Jill Schulman: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Chris Badgett: What lit the bug for you for leadership? Like where did that, there’s always a seed for that story. Yeah. Where was that seed for you?

Jill Schulman: It. I think it started as a Marine, ’cause I was a Marine Corps officer, so they teach us a lot about how to be an effective leader in the military. And then when I got outta the Marine Corps and I went into corporate America I got promoted pretty quickly into a leadership position. But you know what my biggest aha was?

How? I didn’t know crap about leadership. I thought I knew it all. And I was with a large pharmaceutical company that invested a lot in leadership development and they had us go through classes and I kept having these moments where I’m like. Whoa. I’m doing it wrong. So what I learned about leadership is just that L like leadership just isn’t something you’re naturally born with.

It’s a skill that’s learnable and practicable and you gotta be like open. You gotta work on your craft. Like your job as a leader is to not. Do the thing not to deliver results. Your job is to now take care of the people or lead the people who are driving results. So it’s about leading human beings who are complex with emotions and skills and all that stuff.

And so as I was going through a lot of those leadership classes for myself, I had these, oh. I always call ’em, oh crap moments, oh crap. Like I’m doing it wrong. It made such a profound impact on my development. And then I thought I was a good leader, but then I realized I wasn’t a great leader. Then I learned all these things and I think I became a much better leader.

Or, I don’t, I wouldn’t say great leader, but I kept learning and getting better and better as a leader. And that ended up leading to my decision to dedicate my career to like leadership development, to create these aha moments. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Yeah. Leadership is really a, it’s like a lifelong journey.

You never arrive. It just keeps going. It’s a skill with no bottom. You have a book coming out in the summer of 2025. The Science of Bravery. 

Jill Schulman: Yeah. And I 

Chris Badgett: know it takes bravery to be in the Marine Corps. It takes bravery to be a leader. But tell us about. The big ideas and inspiration for the book.

Jill Schulman: Yeah. So the inspiration from the book really came when I went back to school to study the science of happiness and wellbeing. So positive psychology is the study of how can you elevate happiness and wellbeing to live your best life. And believe it or not, there’s a scientific study of it.

There’s all the science behind that. I went back to school because I was really curious about. How positive psychology can really help organizations. Because I was in the organizational space and what I discovered as I learned, and then I decided what I was gonna do my capstone on, which is like your own little research project at the end of a master’s program, is I was really interested in how bravery, which is defined as.

Not eliminating fear, it’s not becoming fearless. That’s not what bravery is. And people think that oh, to be brave, you’re just fearless. You’re just, you’re not afraid of anything. Like actually that would be the opposite. If you’re not afraid of anything, then you’re not brave. ’cause bravery is taking action despite fear, toward things that align with your values or things that you really want intrinsically, right?

And so I started taking a deep dive into that research and found that so many people, they end up living sometimes a life of regret or they don’t accomplish what they want because fear holds them back. So this is something that is so common out there and I’m like, whoa. Like if people are letting fear hold ’em back and they wanna be braver.

And there is research that says that bravery is one of the top two strengths that people wanna increase based on the research from Ryan Anemic from the from the Via strengths organization. But people just don’t know how. I just, I wanted, so I took a dive, a deep dive into, the science of it and what emerged is there are evidence-based things that you can do to build bravery.

And a lot of people think like either you’re bravery or not, but you can build. The skill of bravery, just like you can build any other skill or I like, I call it like a muscle, right? And when you do, here’s the exciting thing. This is what I get really excited about, is when you do like your self-confidence increases your self-belief and you feel like, wow, I did that.

So it has a profound impact not only on people’s success in business. Which is important, but what’s really even more important is your overall happiness and wellbeing. And there’s all the evidence to back it up. And there’s not a lot, there’s not a lot out there on teaching people how to be brave.

So I feel like there’s a gap. There’s kind of a gap in what people are teaching to organizations are out there. There’s a lot of people that. Are out there, they’re motivational speakers. Look at me. I was really brave. And just go out there and do it rr, and it’s really inspiring and it’s really entertaining.

But then you leave there and you’re like you don’t do anything differently because we don’t have the evidence-based strategy. So I’m like part like. I’m part academic geek, ’cause everything I do is scientific based. So I’ve got all the research behind it, but then I find that my message is very motivating for people because I help them realize what’s holding ’em back from getting what they really want.

I’m on now a mission. So the book is gonna be on that written as a parable. It’s like entertaining and I feel like stories make things stick. But I feel like this is what I’m called to do, is to help people understand the science and apply it so they can, they can. Avoid a life of regret.

Chris Badgett: One of the big challenges in the education entrepreneur space, people teaching online and starting coaching companies and things is imposter syndrome. How would you apply? This science of bravery to that fear of being, fear of failure. Fear of being on stage, even fear of success. 

Jill Schulman: Yeah. Yeah. Great question.

So one of the three dimensions that, that are in my book, in my research is on what I call brave mindset. But let’s dive into that. ’cause what you’re talking about in terms of imposter syndrome is that people feel like, I’m not good enough. I’m in this position, but maybe I’m not someone people should be listening to.

They don’t feel like. They deserve to be there. So I wanna just expand instead of just imposter syndrome. What happens when people just don’t believe that they can do hard things or that they’re gonna be successful? What if their mindset isn’t supporting their success?

Under brave mindset, there’s four different skills that I teach. Everything I do is very practical. I’m not gonna just be up in the clouds talking about, just believe that you can, that doesn’t work. That doesn’t work. We need to give people like tangible evidence-based strategies to do this. So the four that I teach the first one is growth mindset, which everyone’s heard about.

It’s Carol Dweck’s work, but it absolutely makes an impact. So I teach the power of yet, like no one is going to come to my online program to listen to me teach yet. So just using that word like, ugh, I’m just not a runner. Yet I could never speak in front of 500 people on a stage yet. So using that power of yet, it really what it does, it opens the door of possibility and it makes people recognize that our skills and abilities are not fixed.

They can grow with hard work and effort. Now it’s not gonna be easy. Wthin growth mindset too the journey to get there won’t be easy, but it’s possible. Just helping people understand it’s possible. So I always start there. That’s the first step. And then we build on that and go, okay, so if you believe it’s possible and the journey isn’t gonna be easy, then we get into the second mindset, which is stress is enhancing the mindset.

So there’s a lot of work that’s newer in the world of psychology on the psychology of stress, right? Kelly McGonigal, Aaliyah Crumb and others, they’ve done research on this, and what they found is if you believe that challenges and stress are bad, then they will be bad and they will hold you back.

But if you believe that challenges and stress. Challenges make you stronger and stress is your body responding to perform at its best. You’re literally what, how you appraise challenges and stress predicts your response to them psychologically and physiologically. And there’s so much science.

I could go on for probably three hours on just that so things are possible through the power of, yet it’s not gonna be easy. There’s gonna be ups and downs, but when there’s downs and challenges, it’s learning. So now we’re getting somewhere and then we layer on top of that. And I won’t go into these in much detail, but we get into optimism versus pessimism and how you can move from being pessimistic to optimistic.

This is Dr. Marty Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania. All of his research on learned optimism and that just in general. Our emotions don’t necessarily just happen to us. We have the power to generate the emotions that will best serve us, our families, our customers, our communities, the world.

Like it just drives me crazy. Everyone’s I’m just a victim. Like I just feel sad today. So I’m just gonna go sit in the corner and have a pity party. That’s a choice, but you have the power to change your emotional state. You wanna recognize the emotions you’re feeling, be curious, name them, and then decide what type of emotion do I wanna be experiencing today to support, that comes from Barbara f Fredrickson and her book on positivity that she wrote.

And then the last one is we talk about the voices in their heads. So if you have imposter syndrome, you’re saying horrible things to yourself, you’re saying you’re a loser, you shouldn’t be here. All these, if you’re saying these things to yourself. That are not helping you, we should probably try to change that.

So then we get into how can you change the self-talk and it’s possible. And I always cite Ethan Cross’s work on his book on Shatter. He’s got a brand new one called Shift. But his book on shatter really something that I teach a couple of those strategies. So tho all those things together, if we can just change like our.

Our mindset in those four ways you are gonna be like off to the races. It starts with mindset. If you believe that you can’t, then you’re right. If you believe that you can, you’re right. So those are some evidence-based strategies that I use with my clients to help them with that 

Chris Badgett: word. Specific context of where, let’s say somebody’s not becoming a new leader, but let’s say they were leading strongly in their career or whatever, but then they had some setbacks.

Maybe they got a divorce, maybe they had a business partnership breakup. Maybe their business isn’t growing like it used to. How do you like, get somebody back on track? And I’m guessing it’s the same strategies, but any particular nuanced advice for the leader who lost their way? 

Jill Schulman: So in that case, I would go to, that’s more of a when adversity strikes.

Sometimes our natural reaction is everything is ruined. I’m not gonna be able to change it, and it’s all me. So what you’re describing is a pessimistic, explanatory style. When things happen to us, we explain it to ourselves, and this is happening in our head. So if we just say the sky is falling, everything is ruined, it’s never gonna change, that is pessimism.

And that is not helpful. So we need to get into a optimistic mindset. Optimism does not mean Pollyanna. If I just pretend everything’s okay, it’s gonna be okay. No, that is not it. We need to be, we need to be realists. This really sucks. I. This divorce, I never saw it coming or this partnership breaking up.

So we need to be real and go what is going on? Let’s recognize the adversity that strikes, or the thing that’s going on. That’s really hard. But then we need to look to the future and be optimistic about our ability to overcome it, to be able to have a better future. And Marty Seligman has this like a, B, C, d, E like model.

And I don’t remember it off the top of my head, which I should, ’cause I studied under Marty Seligman. But the way I simplify it is he just says, you basically almost have to argue with yourself and say if you say like everything is ruined, is everything really ruined? No, this is it. This isn’t everything.

It’s actually isolated. This is one thing and I have the skills. And abilities where I can overcome this. He’s got this formula this A, B, C, D, E. And if anyone were to Google it, like Marty Seligman, learned optimism like his A, B, C, D, E model, it’s these five steps to change your viewpoint in terms of everything’s ruined.

I’m not gonna be able to do anything to ever change it, to be to saying this really sucks, but. I am optimistic that I can overcome this in order to be able to, have a great life or get my business back on track. If you believe it’s possible, then what happens? Chris if you believe there’s nothing you can do and everything’s ruined, then what action are you gonna take?

Chris Badgett: Much. 

Jill Schulman: You’re not gonna take it. You’re gonna go sit in the corner and cry. You’re gonna go to the bar and drink or but you’re not gonna take any action that’s gonna help you. But if you believe that it’s possible that we can overcome this. And to have a better future that causes people to take action.

So the reason why pessimistic to optimistic from a psychology perspective is people who have optimism, even though it’s really hard, will take action. People who are pessimistic don’t do anything. So we just need to be able to get back in the optimism like again, it really sucks. This is not very good, but I’m optimistic.

There’s things I can do, and we, and then it allows us to start taking action.

Chris Badgett: Part of the education entrepreneur goal is to do what you’re doing, which is to take your life experience, your career, your things you learned in school, and put it all together into a body of work like you’ve done with this book. How do you what do you think? Came together for you to be able to create this body of work and stay focused and, lead the project, manage the project, get it done.

Jill Schulman: Yeah I’m just, now I’m speaking outside of my expertise ’cause I know a lot about leadership, psychology, science of bravery. Now I’m just telling you like my experience here. I know for me just was so interested in this. It was fascinating to me, and it seemed like there was a need.

So for me it was like my passion project. So I don’t know if it’s the same for your audience out there, but they’re probably super passionate about. Their coaching business and how they can help people, whatever they, they have on their platform to be able to help people with.

So for me, it was just finding the thing that I’m really passionate about, and this is supported by the literature, by Angela Duckworth. She writes, grit, how are we gonna have the grit to actually get this thing off the ground? And she says, then grit is the long-term passion and perseverance to achieve a long-term goal.

And. What she teaches is if it’s not really meaningful, if it, you don’t feel like it’s a passion project, that’s a calling, you’re probably not going to have long-term like, passion, perseverance to get through the rough stuff. So for me it was like, I’m like, this is it. This is maybe this.

Sounds a little bit like pie in the sky, but I’m like, this is the impact I wanna have on the world. I feel like I can, so I think I found that, and then and then as I started building it, Chris, I wrote the book. I wrote the first manuscript, and then I started realizing that there are so many other people.

That tell a similar message, and I’m like, oh, I thought it was all original, right? And I went through this little oh gosh, did I pick the wrong thing? But then I came to this aha moment, which is if I really believe in teaching the science of bravery so that people can really overcome their fears and get what they want, if there’s more people other than me sharing this, that’s good for the, that’s good for humanity in the world.

I like use the analogy of, if anyone you know goes to church and they have any type of faith, whatever, like there’s not just one pastor, like there’s lots of pastors preaching the same word, and that makes the world better. So I just have to realize like now I, I connect with and try to elevate their platform, they elevate me because like we all like.

I just feel, I believe in an abundance mindset. So I think I went from like kind of scarcity oh my gosh, I wanna be the only one of going. No, we need as many people as possible talking about this, because there’s a lot of people that let fear hold him back, so I can’t do it on my own. 

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Love that. I love that. Tell us something about that you learned about leadership that for somebody who wasn’t in the military, like what did you, what’s something that military uniquely teaches about leadership? That civilians may not. Know about or at least have as easy access to training on or something like that.

Jill Schulman: There’s two things that come to mind. Number one is the comradery that we feel in the Marine Corps. I. Is so unique. It’s like going through really hard things together makes you bond like nothing else. So I think sometimes when you can do how do you create that same experience sometimes in a corporate environment or with a team that you lead If you have a small business is, sometimes you gotta get outta the office and do something, that’s.

Maybe challenging or like physical or something like that. And it’s amazing how that can create some bonds. So I think that’s just you go through, I didn’t go through bootcamp. I was an officer, but I went through like officer candidate school. I went through the basic school just going on missions, deploying with other people like it, I think that’s one thing.

And then the other thing that comes to mind, I had it on my mind. This is this is the other thing is, the Marine Corps in all services, we are taught to always first share Commander’s intent. And it’s what is that? And Commander’s intent is really just making sure every single time you task someone or give a mission, you always talk about commander’s intent is the why of the mission.

That way it allows agility in execution with your Marines. So instead of my Marines just saying go attack the hill, I’d say the commander’s intent is we’re trying to secure this area to be safe for the local civilians, and to eliminate the threat. That is the whole intent, commander’s intent.

Right now your orders, your mission is to attack the hill, right? And get the enemy off of it. I need to give them the why, to give them agility and execution. Then you need to trust your, for me is to trust my Marines. If my Marines are moving over to the hilltop and the enemy moved off and a bunch of kids are flying a kite on top of the hill, do they still attack the hill?

So just, taking the time to. Communicate commander’s intent, which is just, it’s really the why, like why am I asking you to do the thing? Because when they understand the why, they’re more motivated intrinsically, and they’re gonna make better decisions. They’re gonna be more innovative and more agile.

And I don’t see that enough in corporate America. I think we just say just do this thing. But when you just take that extra moment to tell ’em the why, they feel like, Chris, if I was doing it to you, first of all, you’re gonna feel respected. I’m like, let me tell you the bigger picture on what we’re trying to accomplish here.

So this is really the intent behind what we’re doing. Your job is you’re this little piece, and this is what we’re asking you to do, but I want you to understand how it plugs into, so then you already feel like more respected and valued. ’cause you’re like, oh wow. So you’re motivated, you’re more informed.

And then when. Murphy’s Law happens or like something, they actually understand how to make the best decision to fulfill Commander’s intent. 

Chris Badgett: Cool. Very cool. Tell us more about the, the decision to do parable for the book. I love it. ’cause story is such a powerful teaching tool. But particularly when you’re coming from there’s all this science, right?

Yeah. And this study and this resource, and this long list of like sources for the book or whatever. But yeah. Tell us about the parable and story teaching through story. 

Jill Schulman: Yeah. I think stories make things stickier. And I think of some of the books I’ve read over the years on leadership. Like I love the One Minute Manager.

I think one of the best leadership books ever written was a one Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. I don’t know, have you read it? 

Chris Badgett: I have read it. You have read it? It’s been a while. Yeah, it’s 

Jill Schulman: been a while. But it like, it literally teaches you the basics of how to be a good leader and it’s a story.

And it just, it sticks. And so when I go to companies and especially when I have new leaders, I make that required reading. I should be getting a little commission or something from the Ken Blanchard company, because I’m selling so many of these books, but I love it. I just, I have them read that and then they come in and then we do some skill building on the things that he teaches in the book of setting expectations and, giving praise and feedback.

But and the other. Personal motivation. So I love the one minute manager who moved my cheese, the energy bus, like all these, like John Gordon is a master of of parables. And when I pick up a John Gordon book, when it’s a parable, guess what? I read the whole thing. Have you ever picked up a story and not read the end of it, but how about business books that have all the science in it?

Do you pick it up and read it cover to cover? I don’t, and I know that’s gonna happen. So I, so in my parable, I, I. I’m sharing all the evidence-based strategies and then I say in the beginning, author’s note, like all the sciences in the back. But I think if I present it as a story, more people are gonna read it.

They’re gonna read it to the end and it’s gonna stick. And hopefully you guys just trust and if there’s any nerds out there like me, ’cause I’m a nerd, like I, if someone tells me something, I’m like, I want the studies behind it. So I want it, but I actually, what I personally want is give me a story and then gimme all the science in the back.

But don’t make it boring. Don’t make it a boring book and, ’cause I’m not gonna read the whole thing. So I don’t know. I, so I followed, I followed the model, I followed the lead of Ken Blanchard and John Gordon. And I don’t know, fingers crossed, this is my first book. So I hope it’s successful.

Chris Badgett: Modeling’s a part of leadership, right? You gotta model the leaders you love and admire and respect. 

Jill Schulman: Exactly. Exactly. And you know what? The fact that you just said that when you look at the science of bravery, I’ve got three different dimensions that I teach in my book and my speaking and all that, and one of them is what I call brave relationships.

So find people who have done the thing that you wanna do that you’re a little bit scared of for me, like writing a book and then surround yourself with people that have done it successfully or get. Maybe, find two or three people that you can approach and ask for their help and their advice.

Don’t just feel like you’ve gotta do things on your own. And this might be the opposite of what you think. Bravery. Bravery. I could just figure it out on my own and I’m just like, oh, I’m gonna I’m like, that is. People being scared to be vulnerable. So a couple brave things is it takes a little bit of bravery to walk up to someone that you’re a little intimidated by because they wrote a book and it’s, but go up and ask, right?

I used to lead sales, so I’m like, you just gotta go up and ask, right? So go up and ask and you’ll be surprised at how many people will help. And then you need to also be vulnerable and say I don’t really know how to market a book like you did so well, can you give me some pointers? So being brave is.

Not is admitting when you have questions, you need advice, you need support and asking for help. It’s a lot of literature on the science of social support. If you have the right social support and you ask for help and you get the support, you’re more apt to achieve your goal. I’m telling people to do this, not.

Just because I found it successful. The literature, the science supports it that if you have people that can help you in the journey that have done it before, you’re gonna be more successful. 

Chris Badgett: It’s like the comradery and the military, but there’s also the community of elders and things like that.

Jill Schulman: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Totally Tell us 

Chris Badgett: sometimes, a point of view builds off of mistakes or outdated things. Perhaps. I’m trying to keep it positive, but what do you think of are some like common leadership or bravery ideas that are. Not quite functional, that don’t really work, but are accepted in society that, that your work perhaps challenges or path?

Jill Schulman: Yeah. The biggest one that comes to mind is the misnomer that we should desire a life of comfort to be the happiest and have the most fulfilled life. People think that the key to happiness is I don’t want any challenges in life. I don’t want any adversity and I just wanna be comfortable.

Wouldn’t it be great if I just won a million dollars and could go on vacation every week? And we think that’s, would make you happy. That is not what will make people happy. There’s even studies that people that win the lottery, and of course they’re elated for a while ’cause all that stuff they get to buy makes them, but within a year their level of happiness.

Measured as subjective, wellbeing is at the exact same level it was a year before. So getting things handed to you doesn’t so the misnomer that I wanna avoid adversity or I want to seek the comfortable path to make me happy, that is not true. And. And I’m on a mission to change that. I want people to realize that, ’cause there’s when adversity strikes or when we experience challenges, there’s, it can happen different ways.

Sometimes they happen to us and when they happen to us, we gotta deal with them. And a lot of people call that resilience, right? , I can help people with resilience. But I’m, I don’t wanna just help people like get back up when they’re knocked down. I want people to go after. I want you to seek discomfort.

Seek adversity and challenges, but the meaningful kind, right? What do you really wanna do? What do you want to achieve? And that’s, you’re a little bit, that you’re a little bit scared of. And for me it was writing a book, getting on all these live podcasts, right? Getting on big stages. These are the things that I’m like, it’s a little scary, right?

But, when it comes to this misnomer that, comfort leads to happiness, it is not true. And I can, prove it scientifically. And what I want people to realize is that seeking challenges that will have, sometimes a rocky road will lead to the highest levels of success, happiness, and wellbeing.

But it sounds counterintuitive, right? You’re like, wait, I’m supposed to do like the hard thing. Yeah. I want you to do the, I want you to be uncomfortable. Like in the Marine Corps we have a, so two little phrases from the military. You might have heard these. So in the Marine Corps we say pain is weakness, leaving the body.

We have it tattooed on our bodies that actually, I don’t know, have any tattoos, but a lot of my fellow Marines did, or we have it on t-shirts, that pain is weakening, was weakness leaving the body. So not necessarily physical pain, but discomfort in terms of doing things we haven’t done before. So discomfort is weakness, leaving the butt, making you stronger, more confident. And then in the, I have a lot of friends who are Navy Seals and they just say, embrace the suck. Embrace the suck. But it’s not just, like even if you look at the stoics ancient Greek philosophers, they knew this to be true, right?

They say the obstacle is the way, you know the reason why, you know things are. Difficult. What’s the quote? I’m not, I’m trying to think of the quote, but there’s a quote, but I believe by Marcus Aurelius that says, the reason why things are hard is not because things were easy, it’s because things were too easy.

Things are now difficult, so it just so I totally botched that one. You’ll have to figure, you’ll have to look it up and put it in the show notes, but. We have known these universal truths for a long time. Even in, in religious, text, and there’s stories about this over and over again.

But in today’s day and age in 2025, we’re getting a little soft. Technology’s advanced so much that everything is so easy. So I think the pendulum is swinging a little too more like comfort and just take more self-care days. If you take a self-care day, six days in a row, you are lazy. You are not doing the right thing for yourself.

You wanna take care of yourself, set a challenging goal and get the hell out of bed and get to work. That is the real self-care. So I just wanna write the ship here ’cause we’re getting a little too soft 

Chris Badgett: word for that. Set is fun, comfortable is one I’ve heard before. So comfortable. I have not 

Jill Schulman: heard that before.

I love that. 

Chris Badgett: Let’s double click a little bit more on stress. I love the analogy of there’s the comfort zone, the stretch zone, which is where you get fun, comfortable, but then there’s like the panic zone where, yeah, you can go there, but maybe don’t spend too much time up there. You might get some long-term negative impacts, but tell us about how to lead. Use bravery through stress, particularly leaders. Most of the ones I know, like they have higher than the average stress loads. And I know a lot of it’s self-inflicted and mindset, but how do we better manage stress? 

Jill Schulman: You started off talking about the three zones so I completely agree with that. Like we want the right amount of stress. I wanna cite the original researchers that looked at the relationship between performance and stress, and that’s Dr. Ys and Dotson, who originally published it in 1908. So let’s give credit to the original researchers. But what they found is that when there’s not enough stress, it leads to boredom and complacency.

So we don’t wanna stay in the comfort zone even though it feels very alluring to stay in there. So we if, unless you want a low level of performance and complacency, and actually that can lead to things like depression. Because you just don’t feel like if you wanna stay there, I don’t think anyone wants to stay there, right?

So too little stress is bad for you, bad for your professional wellbeing bad for your happiness and wellbeing. So we don’t wanna be in the comfort zone, too long. On the opposite end of the spectrum, what they found, if the level of stress was too high specifically, or if people feel like it’s impossible or there’s never a break.

Then that can lead to lowers a level of performance and wellbeing because that, that leads into to that chronic stress, which can lead to burnout. So we think of this as Goldilocks in the Three Bears, right? You don’t want too little, you don’t want too much. You gotta find the middle. And really the middle, and this is where bravery comes into, is you gotta figure out like what is a little scary for you?

But with hard work and effort using the power of yet, I can accomplish it really in the next six to nine months. So like for me, like getting on a stage of probably 500 people, that’s comfortable for me getting on the stage in terms of in, in front of 5,000 people. Now, that’s uncomfortable for me, right?

That would be a good challenge for me. But people who have never spoken before so for me. It’s in the comfort zone to be speaking to a, an audience of 500. But for people who’ve never spoken before, they might, that might be in their. Like panic, overwhelm area. They, maybe for them they would the top of their curve would be, I’m gonna speak in front of 20, people like to start off.

So it’s just realizing that everyone has their own curve, and that’s what bravery is. It’s your perception of how challenging it is for you and it’s different. And then I love that because I live in Southern California, like you gotta ride the wave. So if this is the. Curve, which looks like a wave, right?

When you get in that curve, right? Or when you’re at the top of that curve, which is kinda like the top of the wave, you can ride that wave moving forward and do more and more challenging things. And that’s really the research by Chiney High in his book called Flow. Have you ever heard of people say, get in the flow?

That’s flow. Flow is you’re right on the edge between you’re doing something where you’re challenged, but it’s engaging because it’s like you’re trying to get a little bit better, but it’s not too far where it feels impossible. So you wanna get in that flow state. That is a sweet spot.

So that would be my advice. Are you just think of that curve and go, maybe I need to like dial back a little bit, right? So I’m in that healthy curve, which leads to happiness, higher levels of wellbeing and physiological physiological health. If I’m too bored, should I challenge myself a little bit more?

Yeah, so hopefully that helps. 

Chris Badgett: Awesome. Last question for you, Jill. If you out there watching or listening is really inspired and there’s, they’re waiting on the book, but what’s one action or one project or one mindset shift to focus on like today, immediately, like after this episode ends to start moving in a Yeah.

More brave, leading direction. 

Jill Schulman: Yeah, I think the most foundational one is the power of yet, which I’ve talked about. But you can believe and dream and create a vision board and manifest in all this stuff. But if you don’t take any action, you’re not gonna be able to accomplish crap. So I want them to believe they can.

But then the second dimension in my model that I teach is called brave action. You’ve got to align your actions with. Your goals and your ambitions. So this comes down to ruthless planning, prioritization, and focus. And this is the real self-care. I want your audience to make a promise to themselves. I want them to make a promise to themselves that they will.

This is literally where I want you to get outta calendar, right? And go what is this thing that I wanna do that I’ve been a little bit shy of doing? And then I want you to add the word yet, and I want you to develop a plan. What can I do over this next week to start taking little steps in that direction to start exploring it?

And I want you to put it on your calendar. And then here’s the hint too. It has to be the first thing you attack first thing in the morning. A lot of the research by Baumeister who talks about motivation says that we only have so much, so many psychological resources, to keep us motivated, especially if something’s hard.

What we normally do is we like, we look at our to-do list and the thing that we’re like, oh gosh, that’s the scary thing. We put it till the end of the day and we do all the easy stuff, and then we wait until the end of the day, and then what happens at the end of the day? We push it back to the next day, and then we pro procrastinate.

So make a promise to yourself. And if this is just one tip that will change your life, is keep your word to yourself every day. Get out of bed and make the promise to yourself, and then you get a dopamine hit, you’re gonna feel so great, right? Keep the promises to yourself and I’m okay doing a day of rest, right?

One day a week, just veg out and do nothing and do your rest. The other six days, get after it, get it to work, and it’s for you. It’s a promise you to make yourself. So if they believe that they can do it with the power of yet, and they make promises to themselves and they follow through on those promises that can change them their lives.

Chris Badgett: Jill, this has been awesome. Tell everybody how to connect with you a little more about your book and where to find you online. 

Jill Schulman: Oh, thank you. If you’ve actually gotten to the end of the podcast, you’re already thinking like Jill is quite a nerd ’cause she cites all the evidence. However, I promise the book.

And my website, it’s I try to make it something that’s interesting to all. If people wanna go to my website, or if you wanna follow me on really any social media, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, I’m on YouTube. I’m trying to think of all the things of my I’m, I’ve got my website, which is jill schulman.com.

And what I try to do is I try to give little tiny messages that give you that little bit of motivation each day. You and I talked about that at the beginning. So if you do use social media to help you achieve your goals. And so make sure you subscribe to people like Chris, and what he’s doing. ’cause it helps you in your specific business. For me, if it helps you and you want me to, give you some tips and I kick you in the butt a little bit ’cause I do that a little bit. I if you follow different people and when you go to pick up your phone, if that is your feed, like that is a positive use of like social media, right?

So I would love if it helps them, if you wanna increase your bravery and you can. It’s like a muscle, but you gotta keep doing it day in and day out. So that’s why I try to, I make a commitment to my audience and my followers that, at least three days a week, I give a message always with a little bit of evidence, but something that’s gonna motivate you to be brave to move toward your goals.

So go to my website. You can sign up for my newsletter. There’s a free assessment on there too, to take a bravery assessment and free resources. But if you follow me and sign up for my newsletter I think you’ll get a lot of value.

Chris Badgett: You can find her@jillschulman.com. Thank for coming on the show, Jill. We really appreciate it. Thanks for the inspiring message and all the strategies and tactics there. It’s been amazing and I can’t wait to read your book. Thank you. All right. 

Jill Schulman: Thank you so much, Chris. Have a great day. Bye.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS Cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over@lifterlms.com slash gift. Go to lifter lms.com/gift. Keep learning. Keep taking action, and I’ll see you. In the next episode.

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