Angst and anxiety can be overwhelming, but how can you deal with those things? How can individuals embrace the process of letting go when the trauma they experienced seems so engraved within them? Greg Zlevor, the President of Westwoodintl.com, talks about how we retrain ourselves when dealing with the pain and trauma we experience. He expounds on the topic of how we remember the things that matter during his Ted Talk. Another of Greg’s techniques is “coming to your physical senses,” which will help you deal with angst and anxiety. Greg brings so much wisdom in this insightful episode, so take a pause and think, “What will you lose if you miss this episode?” Tune the volume up and learn to tune out that pain and trauma.
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BEST SELLING AUTHOR, LEADERSHIP EXPERT – GREG ZLEVOR
In this episode, I have Mr. Greg with us. He’s an amazing person so far. I have been able to talk to him and I’m very blessed to have him here. A little bit about Mr. Greg, he is a bestselling author and is also the President of Westwood International, which is a leadership and development company, which is amazing. I did see your TEDx Talk and was blown away by that. I am excited to get to know you better. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
The fun thing is I’m a big Green Bay Packers fan. I grew up in Wisconsin. By law, I have to eat cheese every day coming from the state of Wisconsin even though I live in Vermont. I do that. I went to undergraduate school. I have played football in college. I got my degree in Biology. I taught in high school for several years in Appleton, Wisconsin before moving out to Boston and getting my graduate degree at Boston College where I got my Master’s in Spirituality. The university asked me to stay on as a chaplain.
My next job was being a chaplain at Boston College for seven years. From there, I worked with a gentleman who was quite a famous author at the time. M. Scott Peck wrote The Road Less Traveled and The Different Drum. I started working with him while I was at the university and doing workshops. That led to the beginning of my consulting company.
Westwood International was born in the ’90s and I have essentially been doing it ever since, designing and running leadership programs for companies, groups, and teams. It’s been mostly for large corporations from an executive experience perspective. That’s a little bit about myself. I live in Stowe, Vermont, right next to the coffee shop. I made my life very convenient.
I’m in Iowa. I did know you were from Wisconsin because of your TEDx Talk. I eat cheese too and I’m not from Wisconsin so that’s okay.
We appreciate that. Thank you.
I was listening to your TEDx Talk. I loved it. You are a good storyteller story. You bring your points across very well. There was a portion in there where you were talking about how we remember the things that matter. Can you expound on that a little bit about what you were talking about that talk?
In the TEDx Talk, I share some stories about when I started with the experience, I had one goal in mind. Something happened that triggered me in the midst of that experience or goal. The triggering emotion pulled me off course. I forgot what mattered because I got triggered by the emotion. Part of the insight for me after all of that was when I started putting things together. “I’m only getting triggered because something mattered to me.”
If I can use the emotion as a reminder to wait for what matters to me, I can figure out what matters, let the emotion go, and stay wisely focused on what matters instead of getting pulled off track by the emotion. I found something in the situations and the stories I tell about in the TED Talk and I will take one example of being with my son.
We didn’t have much time together and I appreciated the moments that we had. When we were down, I was excited to take him to Boston. I had a great experience with him. I then had this confrontation over a parking spot. I got so wrapped up, emotional, and upset that these people were going to take these three young kids from Boston. We are going to take the spot that I had been saving and working on trying to get. I got so emotional about it that I forgot that my original goal was to have a great night with my son.
In the midst of getting triggered and being in this confrontation, I practically ruined the whole night because he was so traumatized by this fight and exchange that he didn’t even want to be in Boston after he had witnessed it. He was physically in between me and the other party. It took me away from what mattered.
One of my teachers and mentors said, “Your angst is your liberation. As soon as you have angst in whatever way, shape, or form, it shows up. Note it. Find out what matters and be liberated. Otherwise, you are going to get triggered by it and be caught and trapped.” When I got that lesson, I went back to that moment with Daniel. I was like, “That’s what happened.” That was the deal.
In part, it’s why I have realized as I have gotten older that the measure of my wisdom is how I handle these moments when I get triggered or when difficult emotions show up. The more I can handle them in a healthy way, the wiser I get with where I put my attention, time, and effort, and what I get distracted by. That’s the whole background of it.
During the TED Talk, I used an analogy. I asked people to put their fists up. I say, “Every time you can think of a moment in your life, when you got angry, frustrated, anxious, or upset about something that didn’t matter to you whatsoever, you didn’t have any care about it at all, and you had some angst around it, put up a finger.” People can’t do it because they only get angst when things matter or something matters.
The big piece for me was when I get triggered, how I say to the emotion, “You are showing me something that matters.” I then can extract what matters and say, “Thank you for the emotion,” and then let the emotion go. The irony is it’s a very powerful messenger. Angst gets our attention right away but it is not a very healthy springboard. If I not only have it be the messenger but then have it be my springboard, I get into unhealthy pieces.
The fraction of a second split is between developing the ability that once I’m triggered, I notice it right away, create a pause, and then let the emotion be simply a messenger and not a springboard. In that pause, getting what matters and then saying, “What’s the wisest way for me to approach what matters?” Most of the time, it will be from a place of curiosity, openness, calmness, or questions, which don’t naturally springboard out of an angst emotion. I have to catch that moment and make the transition.
Part of what I have found is sometimes I’m so foolish. I will be like, “I don’t care if it’s a better way to do it. I deserve this. I deserve to be angry and upset. They don’t deserve my forgiveness.” All these kinds of things show up and I barrel ahead anyway. When it’s over, I’m like, “Why didn’t I stop? I have created more pain and angst for myself.” There’s this maybe ego justification like, “I have a right to be this thing.” “You have a right to do it forever if you want but you are going to be a mess if you do it, Greg.”
That’s the whole gist of the talk. How to find that moment to pause, let the emotion be a messenger, and then get a healthier springboard out of that pause in that choice to then move forward in a way that makes sense for you and the people around you, whom you love, who you care about, and who you want to nurture, support, and serve. Thank you for bringing it up. That was a powerful evening for me with a lot of lessons.
Watching the YouTube video was very powerful. The full quote that you said on YouTube, which I want to read, was, “The true measure of our maturity and wisdom is how we handle our emotions during difficult times.” Before we started this conversation, we had talked about a point in my life where I was on that precipice of suicide. I wish that I had someone like you to have this message back then. Maybe you did but I didn’t hear it back then.
It’s so true. It has to do with every single area of our lives because people are triggered by the littlest things and the big things. Anything can set you up but take that pause, which is what I have learned. Before you react, pause. Is it going to make a difference? Is it going to change your life in five years? If it’s not, pause and let it go but I used to be triggered all the time by things that had happened. That is an awesome teaching that you have out there for people to be able to learn.If it’s not making a difference or changing your life, pause and let it go.Share on X
There are some that I can catch in the moment, get right away, and say, “I’m going to let that go.” I can catch it right away, it’s gone, and I’m moving on. I found a few that have taken me years that have been very gradual where it’s almost like I feel like a rock in a river where it keeps coming. I don’t feel the water stopping at all. I’m pausing or making those super mistakes and then catching myself and then maybe pausing the next time and then making the mistake a couple more times and then pausing it. Constant.
There are a couple of places in my life where I’m like, “I’m good enough now. Here comes the craziness again. Here’s the stupid thing you are going to do.” You did it again. That’s about as good as I can be. It’s amazing to me in a couple of areas how one of them is around food where it keeps coming. It’s fascinating. This journey of wisdom and healing in some areas of my life is going to go on forever.
The other part, to add something more to this conversation, is it’s not just intellectually knowing all the pauses or techniques. It’s practicing it so it’s in my bones and muscles. The real insight isn’t knowing about it. It’s feeling it, embodying it, and staying with it. Some people use the word warriorship but that’s where the real warriorship, persistence, or excellence comes in, and staying with it so that it gets further in the bones and the muscles.
I appreciate you saying that because I do feel like when you go through things in your life that change you, your personality, or your mindset, it’s not like you start healing and you are healed. It’s a process that you may never be fully healed. There’s always going to be something that you need to continually strive to not just get over. I don’t like the words, “Just get over it,” because you don’t get over it but you learn to take that pause and do those things consistently. It’s not just words. They are actions. You have to put those thoughts that changed your mindset into actions.
You need to do it when you are incongruent. You feel one thing but you have to do another. It’s incongruent, especially at the beginning. There’s dissonance. There’s more angst over the incongruency. You have interference on top of interference. For me, those beginning moments or rounds are particularly troubling. As it moves further, it’s getting over the routine of it because it’s constantly coming.
There comes a moment where in my best times, I embrace the journey just as it is. In the middle at some point, I begin to expect a particular outcome and I’m doing it to get a result. That leads to another type of frustration and angst. In the moments where I have gone through difficulties in the beginning, the frustration of not having a result, and getting to a point of embracing a journey somatically like in my body, my bones, and my being or identity, I’m starting to get liberation.
That has been such in a couple of places where I feel like I have been treated unfairly. People are close to my family members in a couple of situations. In some difficult things in my life, it didn’t even come to me to find out what happened, which was ironic because I was the only person who knew what happened. Everyone else was making up stories about me or what happened. They believed people were making up the stories or their narratives about what happened when they didn’t even know what happened.
I was the only one who was there when that happened. That hurt me a lot. That’s taken me years to forgive, move on, and accept that that’s the way it is, and to not be dragged down or anchored by it. As best I can, it’s almost like being a horse in front of a plow, like not being able to move because I’m being dragged by that thing.
I let it go to the point where I embraced the letting go. Not getting frustrated by the result is still there. It’s still showing up. It’s ironic that as soon as I embraced letting go of it and the process, it seemed to lift a lot more quickly. When I was looking for the result, it could drag me even more. It’s a bit ironic how that happened but that’s it.
Everything that you are talking about is what I have been through the last few years. I have found that the one thing that I had to do was create my meditation technique which I do religiously every morning. That’s my way of letting things go before I even start my day and then letting them go at night before I sleep. The one thing that I found is that I use the phrase from victim to victorious a lot. You can be a victim in many facets and categories but that doesn’t mean that you can’t become victorious in one category and still be a victim in another. It doesn’t mean you have to release all of that and become victorious right away.
I like how you said that. It’s a continual process. I am not on this episode saying, “I’m fully healed. Look at me.” I’m here healing with people. I’m still healing every single day. I know how great it is when you find those blessings in you are healing and those solutions to your struggles. Those are the things that I’m hoping, the guests like you that I have on and I can share with people.
The irony for me is that when I got tired, I wanted to say, “I’m healed, done, or finished.” That was the moment when I wasn’t done and finished and was going to get hit again. I fall back on that a lot looking for a result, a piece, or an endpoint. In another way, looking for the noun instead of embracing the journey of being a part of the process and accepting whatever shows up.
I find I’m victorious when I embrace the process because if I embrace the process, I’m never going to stop. No matter what goes up, I’m never going to stop. I have won. As soon as I want a particular result, I stop. I’m trying to put a stake in the ground, things are static, and I have lost. It’s subtle but it was an important difference and distinction for me. It’s one I try to help people see and understand.
The other piece is I ask people to list out the 5 or 10 most difficult, painful, and awful things that have happened to them in their lives. They list them all out. I say, “To each one of those, list the lessons that you have learned from them.” They list out the lessons. I say, “Look at the ones that you are through it like they are in your rearview mirror. Are there any now you wish you hadn’t gone through?” Most of the time, people say, “No. I’m so glad I went through those.”
It is fascinating because we can’t be victorious unless we are a victim. None of us would wish any of the traumas that we have had to face on each other. When they show up in whatever way, shape, or form for you, me, or someone else, if I can approach it in a way to grow through it, it will be a gift to me later in life. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this because this was part of our conversation before we started. You said I was changed. My brain changed and my thinking changed. It affected me.We can’t be victorious unless we’re a victim.Share on X
It doesn’t only affect you psychologically. The psychological impact is so great that it affects you physically in the way your brain and mind are wired, and what happens to your physical body. We have to retrain ourselves to the point where our physical body changes. This is scientifically proven at this point. The medications that you are doing in the morning or the evening are changing your psyche and being but it’s also physically changing your body. That’s a constant practice.
Before we started, I was telling you, “Those three days where I was on that precipice of ending my life, my body physically hurt. I felt like I could not get out of bed.” That was the first time in my life when I had known what depression was. I had never had depression. I always had anxiety or PTSD but I have never had severe depression. I look back on it and I can take that and be like, “I can relate to someone who suffers from depression and know that it affects not only your brain but your mind and your body.” When I’m stressed out, my body physically hurts. That’s how my body works. That’s so true.
When you physically hurt, there is a certain chemical-hormonal reaction going on in your body that creates that pain and state. It’s not just mental. It’s also physical. People begin to realize that this is bi-directional. The way we move affects the way we think and the way we think affects the way we move. The way our body is constituted is constantly changed by either thinking or moving. How do we continually choose to think and move in a way that propels us in a process that leads us to better health and more impact? To me, that is complete maturity and wisdom.
I love that quote. I’m going to quote you all the time. You have mentioned a few of them but are there certain things that you would say to people? Do you have coping mechanisms that you rely on when you are going through some angst and anxiety? What would those look like?
I have a few and a couple of my favorites are I meditate in the morning. If I get caught, a lot of times I will meditate during the day. Sitting with it and observing it is a big one for me. Second, comparing is big. Oftentimes, I will create pain for myself because I compare in a way that takes me out of my power or resourcefulness so I can always shift that and create a comparison that puts me in my resource. Instead of saying, “Why is this happening to me?”
Comparing myself to other people who seem to be quite calm, have got it together, or given whatever they were given, I could say, “Let’s look back at your past. This is still better than that big pain you had a few years ago.” “Greg, you made it through that. What lessons can you take to this moment? How can you be your best self even though it’s not easy?” That’s a different comparison.
I’m finding proper and healthy comparisons that are all true so that I can be more resourceful. That’s a big one. The understanding that, “Greg, there have been times in your life where you wouldn’t give up the pain because of the lessons it taught you. What if this is one of those two? Why not start and treat this challenge as if it’s going to be one of those moments that’s going to give you a lesson you wouldn’t trade?”Find proper and healthy comparisons that are all true to be more resourceful.Share on X
Here’s another technique I use a lot. It’s funny because my grandma used to say, “Come to your senses.” I realized she was right. If I came to my physical senses, what would I see? What do I smell? What do I taste? What’s the physical feeling? If I came to my physical senses, which would bring me into the moment, it would take me out of the past or the future, which is usually where I’m hurt or anxious, and make me more resourceful.
Sometimes during a difficult moment, I will say, “Come to your senses. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you taste? What do you smell? What can you touch?” Coming to the moment through my senses and fully observing is another way that can help me. Those are a few of the techniques or things I do to help me.
I didn’t know you in 2019. I wish I would have but I feel very blessed to know you now. Quite a few of those I do use. I learned them from soul scrubbing and realizing who I was as a person and where I needed to go but it’s so nice to hear someone say them out loud because it makes them more real. It’s not just you knowing that you are doing it right but you saying them out loud. It makes me like, “I am doing it right.” It gives my healing validation. I appreciate that. As we end, how would people reach out to you if they wanted to get to know you better or find you on LinkedIn?
The easiest place is to find me on LinkedIn. I’m the only Greg Zlevor on the whole planet. If you can put the last six letters of my name together in the right order, you will find me on LinkedIn. I am that guy. That’s the easiest place to reach me. The TED Talk would be great as well. People can find me through that. Those are probably the two best places to reach me.
I appreciate your wisdom, knowledge, and compassion. I feel an amazing energy from talking to you. It still amazes me that when you start healing, you do realize that people’s energies change, the people you used to be around compared to the people that come into your life and you notice this through your healing process. I appreciate the person you are and for you being here. I hope that you will come back and be a guest again.
My pleasure. It was wonderful. I will look forward to that invite sometime in the future.
Thank you. You have a wonderful rest of your day.
You are welcome. Thank you.
Important Links
- Westwood International
- TEDx Talk – How The Wise Live Wisely | Greg Zlevor | TEDxWilmington
- The Road Less Traveled
- The Different Drum
- LinkedIn – Greg Zlevor
About Greg Zlevor
Greg Zlevor, a distinguished authority in executive leadership development and education, has honed his expertise over a remarkable career spanning 25+ years. As the President and Founder of Westwood International, Greg has guided numerous companies across Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Australia, empowering their leaders to achieve unparalleled success.
With a portfolio of seven Amazon best-selling books to his name, Greg’s insights and strategies have garnered widespread acclaim and recognition in the industry. His thought leadership and extensive experience make him the go-to expert for organizations seeking transformative leadership development.
Beyond his professional achievements, Greg’s visionary approach extends to philanthropy. Through Westwood International, he leads a noble mission to support not-for-profit organizations dedicated to uplifting homeless children and at-risk youth across the United States, Mexico, Thailand, India, and South America.
Join Greg on a transformative journey, where you will unlock your leadership potential, create a lasting impact on a global scale, and become a driving force in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.
