Episode 1 – Pressing Pause: Unlocking Life’s Greatest Patience Power

Todd Bertsch: 0:15

Welcome to the Bolt Podcast. I’m Todd B, your guide on this exciting journey of personal growth. Together, we’ll explore real-life examples of how small shifts can create massive results, through growth tips, life hacks and strategies to supercharge your mind, body and soul. So if you’re ready to unleash the inner bolt within you and become the best version of yourself, then let’s ignite your growth today. In today’s episode, I’m going to talk about pressing the pause button and unlocking life’s greatest patience power. I’m not talking about pausing to smell the roses and enjoying life, although that is certainly wonderful and something that we should do more of life, although that is certainly wonderful and something that we should do more of. I’m literally going to talk about stopping in your tracks during a situation or conversation, to pause, as they say.

Todd Bertsch: 1:16

Patience is a virtue, but it’s not always easy to put into practice. Trust me, been there done that. We all struggle with impatience at times, some worse than others, whether it’s waiting in line for something, dealing with a difficult situation or eagerly anticipating the next exciting event that’s happening soon in our life. Developing patience is a skill that takes time, effort and practice. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s a skill that’s worth cultivating and waiting for. I’m living proof. I’m excited to share this episode with you because it’s very personal to me. For those that have known me my entire life, they will probably be really surprised by this topic and to see or hear how much I’ve transformed over the years.

Todd Bertsch: 2:14

So I’d like to start off by just telling you a little bit about my story and how I struggled with patience and pausing. For many years I literally had no pause button. I went from one to ten. There was no two, three or four. One to ten in literally a split second, and this had a tremendous effect on my life from my childhood all the way up through most of my adult life. My childhood all the way up through most of my adult life. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back on it now, what I was essentially doing was creating this really crappy brand for myself. My initials TB, for Todd Bertsch, actually ended up representing tantrum boy. Um, I wasn’t called those by my friends, but that’s, looking back on it now, my perception of my actions. So I’m a type A self-proclaimed perfectionist who is also a diehard competitor who really hates to lose in anything that I do. So that is the recipe for disaster in many ways. There’s also some great benefits to having those traits, but in my case they did not serve me as well, like I said, whereas I would go from one to 10 in a split second with no pause. And again, it affected me in many ways, some that come to mind, like in childhood playing sports.

Todd Bertsch: 4:00

I was that kid in youth baseball. If I didn’t perform to my best or what I thought I could do, I would. If I struck out, I’d throw my bat on the ground and throw my helmet across the field. I think I got thrown out of more games than anyone else on the team and it was a shame because I was a pretty good ball player. I still even made the all-star teams, but I could never progress into being anything more than just kind of an average player because my temper was keeping me from my full potential and that unfortunately followed me into high school.

Todd Bertsch: 4:40

I had played soccer all my life and again, I was a pretty good soccer player as well and I received more red cards as a solo player than collectively everybody on my team. I was a defensive player. I was a very physical player. It was just my temper. If I wasn’t doing well or somebody upset me again. I didn’t have that moment to reflect or pause and I would just go straight to ten. And it did not serve me well at all and then fast forward into kind of a professional career and again it continued to follow me. And you know, looking back now, I wish somebody would have just sat my butt down or kicked me in the butt and said, hey, man, like you got some potential here, but you have these character traits that are holding you back. You should work on these. But back then, you know, 70s, 80s, self-reflection, emotional intelligence, self-love you know none of these were topics that were really being discussed. So I guess I’m not surprised that nobody kind of took action or put me toward a plan of action, but anyhow. So this continued to follow me.

Todd Bertsch: 6:07

You know, throughout my professional career and I was making, you know, some small iterative progress, you know, as I got out of college and a few different jobs, but I really wasn’t getting to a place of leadership and management. That’s really where I wanted to be. I love people and I love to work with people and coach and mentor and really help them become better people in their lives and careers. And that’s what I wanted and I was not getting there. And looking back now as a business owner, manager, leader, there’s no way in hell I would have promoted my younger self, knowing the character traits that I had, which are not the traits that I would look for when I’m recruiting somebody. So all that to say that, you know, by having this kind of temper which, in you know all aspects, really ended up being kind of a negative attitude which again kept me from being, you know, the best person that I could be, and it took me a long time before I realized that there was kind of an issue here and that I needed to take action. So after so it’s been about seven years on this kind of personal transformational journey and I really did take action.

Todd Bertsch: 7:38

And I this was kind of right around COVID time I started this program by Shirzad Chamine called Positive Intelligence and it’s all about boosting your mental fitness for both personal and professional growth and obviously it’s centered around positivity. He has a New York Times bestselling book, there’s a life coaching program component, and also a mobile app, I’ve done all three and continue to practice this technique every day with a performance coach, who is awesome, and I also went through this with one of my colleagues, and it was really an amazing experience and I’m not trying to sell you on this program and I’ll have links to it in the show notes, but it worked for me. This program literally changed my life and I’m not kidding you in so many different ways, but what I really want to focus on today is the piece related to this topic of patience and pause. So by going through this program and really doing these exercises of building my mental muscle and essentially the best way that I can relate, that is by calling it a habit. That I can relate, that is by calling it a habit. So I was changing my patterns, my habits, and it took a while. Just like any habit, it takes a while to build that into your system, you know, to integrate that into where you know I was able to.

Todd Bertsch: 9:20

What I’m able to do now in any situation, is pause. I don’t go from 1 to 10. I don’t go anywhere. I just pause and I just listen and I take it in and think for a second and that’s all it takes. It’s just that split second to say, yep, do I really want to say that? Do I really want to do that? What’s going to be the benefit of that? Does that really benefit me? Is that coming out of a positive or negative environment? I want to stay in the zone of positivity, so that really keeps me kind of centered and grounded and that’s what I look for.

Todd Bertsch: 10:03

Things don’t bother me. I don’t have a temper yeah, I’m not saying I’m a perfect person and certainly I have my moments but those things that would bother me, the most basic things, would get to me, even like somebody passing me or not, turning on their turn signal at a stop sign or cutting me off. You know I would go ballistic and honk the horn and it was just silly. It just doesn’t make sense. These things, in the grand scheme of things, and the way people are today, you just never know. You know how somebody is going to react and, quite honestly, you don’t know what people are going through. Everybody is going through something. So I don’t want to assume that I understand what they’re going through and maybe they’re having a crappy day, but I don’t need that to affect my day and that’s really what this program did for me was to build in an internal pause button and that’s what this episode is all about.

Todd Bertsch: 11:02

You know your mind is constantly sabotaging your potential for both performance and happiness. All your negative emotions, including stress, are the result of this self-sabotage. But what this program has done for me is strengthen that part of my brain that serves and quiets that part that sabotages me, so I can handle life’s challenges, life situations, in a more positive mindset and with less stress. So this is all about shifting from a negative to a positive and seeing the gift and the opportunity in every situation, regardless of how crappy it is. There is a gift. Trust me, I know that’s really easy for me to say, but if you take on that attitude I am not kidding you it will change your life forever.

Todd Bertsch: 12:06

We focus on so many of these silly things that pull us into a negative mindset, that throw us off our focus for the day, and this affects our lives in so many ways. It affects our work, our creativity, our relationships, our creativity, our relationships. It affects our attitude, our mental well-being, our physical well-being, our health. It really affects everything. Life is about being positive, being happy, and if you don’t have that pause button built in, you’re certainly headed down a road of sabotage, and that’s not good. I know you may not be ready for the Positive Intelligence program quite yet, and that’s okay, but there are several other things that you can do today to get moving on the journey of building some patience and the pause button into your life. So here’s just a couple Stay calm and breathe, practice into your life. So here’s just a couple Stay calm and breathe. Practice some breathing techniques, Practice some mindfulness techniques. These are really easy to do and you can start those today and they will allow you to build some time in some buffer to give you a moment to think before you say something or act.

Todd Bertsch: 13:23

Number two is practicing empathy. To cultivate empathy, a good place to start can be engaging in active listening, and a good place to try this out can be at home or at work or with family members, and this actually means more than just hearing what people are saying. It means paying attention to their body language, their tone of voice and the content of their message. When someone is speaking to you, try to really hear what they are saying and reflect on how they might be feeling. Again, you never know what someone else is going through. Everybody needs help and everybody is going through something going through. Everybody needs help and everybody is going through something. So just assume that and it’ll be much easier to cultivate and practice on empathy.

Todd Bertsch: 14:11

Tip number three mastering resilience. By building resilience, you can maintain a positive outlook and remain motivated in the face of challenges, no matter what comes up. To build this resilience, try reframing challenges as opportunities for growth and learning. This can also be a great way to combat stress. Number four cultivate gratitude. If you listen to any of my other episodes, you know that I’m a big, big fan of gratitude. Gratitude helps us in so many ways. Gratitude is that practice of focusing on the positive things in your life and being thankful for them. When you’re grateful, you’re less likely to become impatient or frustrated, because you’re focusing on what you have rather than what you don’t have. Number five slow your butt down. By taking a step back in the present moment, reflecting and focusing on your thoughts and emotions, we can become more patient and respond with greater clarity and purpose, and not stick our feet in our mouths.

Todd Bertsch: 15:24

So I want to share another tip, or life work hack, with you. I have a good friend of mine that creates a ton of emails and what he does is he saves those into a draft box. And we were working together in a cubicle one day many, many years ago and I looked over and he’s got 200 drafts in his inbox and or his email. And I said hey man, like what’s going on there, why do you do that? That would drive me nuts. And he said look, I have something that I want to get off my chest, or I want to vent, or I want to say something to somebody, and I just need to get it in a written form, but I don’t send it. I want to pause and I want to sleep on it a day or two, reflect, then come back to it and see if it’s the same email that I want to send, and I just love this.

Todd Bertsch: 16:22

We ended up coining this, the draft box strategy, and it works wonders, especially if you’re in a managerial or leadership role or dealing with clients or customers. There’s nothing better than just. You know we all need to just get it off our chest, right? So write it down, but save it, don’t send it. I guarantee you, nine out of 10 times you come back to that email draft next day and you’re going to tweak that baby a little bit. It’s not going to be the same email that you crafted the day before. So, again, by just taking a minute to reflect, pause, you’re going to have so much more positivity and be in a whole different state to really do what you want to do and not for lack of a better word put your foot in a mouth. So there’s the tip of the day right there. So, in summary, if you want to increase patience, it’s going to require consistent practice. Just like any other skill or habit, this is something that you need to do time and time again with consistency. It doesn’t happen overnight, folks. Trust me, I’ve been on this journey my whole life. But by practicing some of the tips that we just discussed every day, you can start to cultivate greater resilience, compassion and understanding, which are all key components of developing that patient mindset.

Todd Bertsch: 17:56

I hope everybody got something out of this podcast. I poured myself into this Again lots of personal reflection here but I thought it was really important because this has been a huge challenge for me my whole life, and to be able to transform and change that negative energy into a positive energy has changed my life in so many ways, and I hope this will help motivate you to potentially do the same. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. You are on your way to growth, transformation and joy. If you find this episode helpful. Please like and share with your friends and, by all means, please leave a review. You can also view the show notes and subscribe to the Bolt newsletter at toddbertsch.com. Remember, real change takes time. Start small and watch the growth take shape, and don’t forget to take a moment to pause.