﻿- I wanna start class by sharing with you one of my favorite quotes, and it's a quote from Marcus Aurelius. And Marcus Aurelius said this, "The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." So that's what we're gonna do in this course, is we're gonna look stress in the face. We're gonna look at the new research and science behind modern, current best practices for managing or working with stress, both individually and collectively. And in more thoroughly understanding stress, we're gonna be able to more effectively work with stress, and then that's gonna allow us to achieve more optimal performance both individually, collectively, teams, organizations, businesses, churches, communities, right? Whatever organization you're involved with, both individually and collectively we're gonna be able to achieve more optimal performance. And when stress arises, we're gonna be able to more effectively maintain that calm spirit, that uncontrolled spirit, 'cause we'll know stress more thoroughly and we'll know how to work with it more effectively. So that's the goal of this course. And it's all research backed. So this is all based upon the latest and greatest research, and there's new science and research and it's new in the sense that it upends and disrupts and changes the old approach to working with and managing stress. So there's new research about how to best manage and work with stress. We're gonna learn that in the course. It's all gonna be thoroughly documented. This course is gonna be a high level summary overview of all this research that I've synthesized and brought together, and so you'll be able to learn it all in a really quick way, and we're also going to have, you know, practical and applicable ways that we can apply it in our life, right? But if you wanna reinforce everything that you're learning, all of that research is gonna be documented in the course so you can look at that research and you can explore additional resources to further reinforce everything that you're gonna learn in this course. Because I believe it is my job as an academic, a researcher, and a teacher to unearth that which isn't widely known and to bring it into the world to others, and so that's what I've done here in this course. And it's based upon the research of the top academics at the top institutions around the world, including Stanford, Harvard, the American Psychological Association, and even research that has been done internally at Google, how to most effectively get teams to achieve their optimal performance and have less stress in them. So we're gonna see all that in the course. So the primary takeaway from this course is that the mind is powerful. So I just want you to know this, right here, at the very beginning, what are the primary key takeaways from the entire course? The primary takeaway from the entire course is that the mind is powerful and that the perspectives, the stories, the narratives that we tell ourselves about stress, the context in which we hold stress when stress arises, has a profound impact upon how effectively we deal with stress. And the impact is so profound, it even changes our physiological, biological response to stressful events. When we have a skillful narrative, when we have a skillful perspective, when we're holding stress in a skillful context, that changes how well we respond to that stressful event. So we're gonna learn the skillful narratives as we go through the course, and you're gonna learn how to apply those in your own life. Secondary takeaways from this course in managing stress most effectively are the importance of sleep, exercise, nutrition, belonging, and psychological safety. So we're gonna learn all that, and a lot of that stuff can be common sense but all too often common sense is not common practice. And so we're gonna see and reinforce. If you already know stuff, we'll reinforce the importance of these things in your life. And if these things are new to you, you're gonna see the research, which is is gonna emphasize the importance of making sure these areas of your life are on point because they're all going to help you to more effectively manage and work with stress so that you could achieve optimal performance both individually in your own life and then also collectively within organizations, teams, businesses. So that's the goal of the course. That's what we're gonna do. I'm glad you're here. Let's get started.