The Small Business Saturdays Podcast with Aaron Montgomery · Aaron Montgomery

Dealing with Stress

·51 min·2 clips

"Stress simply occurs when something you care about is at risk" — then fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

1. The Small Business Saturdays Podcast with Aaron Montgomery covers dealing with stress, opening with a survey in which 42% of small business owners reported burnout in the past month and 24% reported current burnout. 2. Aaron Montgomery hosts the show and leads the OSG success group (rsuccessgroup.com), and says he draws on "40 years of experience" and his own fourth-quarter reading on how the brain works. 3. His thesis is that "stress simply occurs when something you care about is at risk," so stress can be managed at its root and used as a tool instead of treated with "band-aids." 4. He says the right amount of stress improves performance and flow, but constant stress keeps people in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and he lists inflation and supply chain issues as current pressures. 5. His first tool is an abundance mindset, supported by a roughly nine-minute "Visualizing Abundance" meditation from John Gabriel, a former stockbroker he describes as severely overweight and stressed before changing his mindset. 6. His second tool is self-care and movement, including setting an alarm two or three times a day to get up, and he promotes Kylene's RiseShine.Yoga at $15 or less for a 30-minute session, or a free first class. 7. His third tool is priority management: he says "none of us actually have a time management problem," and he tracks tasks in Asana, including his unfulfilled wish for a drumroll at the 10th annual Two Regular Guys Podcast Reggie Awards. 8. His fourth tool is to "let stuff go that you cannot control," such as supplier inventory or shipping delays, using his formula E plus R equals O to focus on responses instead of events. 9. He describes holding a friend who is also a vendor accountable and then buying from a competitor, as an example of responding firmly without losing the relationship. 10. Best for small business owners dealing with burnout, holiday-season pressure, and supply chain frustration.

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