Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And Dr. Stein, everybody knows me but the reality is they don't know you. But the gentleman with, I'm gonna say, the great haircut and the mustache on the other side here of this video is actually Dr. Steven Stein. And he's joining us from Toronto. Good day to you.

Dr. Steven Stein
Good day to you, it's nice to be with you, Greg.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a pleasure having you on and we are going to be speaking about a topic that's near and dear to his heart called Hardiness. And the subtitle is always what people buy books off of "Making Stress Work for You to Achieve Your Life Goals. This is a widely book to learn more about Dr. Stein and his work. He also has a co-author on this book is Pau Bartone. Is it bear? Oh, yeah. And the website is Steven, stevenstein.com. There you can learn more about Steven. His books, his media's contact, you can get in touch with him. I'm gonna let the listeners know a tad bit about Steven before we get started into investigating and going deeper into the book. He's a world-renowned clinical psychologist International Best Selling Author and sought after speaker and Founder and Executive Chair of the multi health systems MHS, a publisher of scientifically validated assessments over 40 years, which have been named the three time winner of the profit 100 fastest growing companies in Canada, one of Canada's best managed companies since 2013. And Canada's 10 Most Admired corporate cultures to work for. He's a leading expert on psychology assessment and emotional intelligence and has consulted with the military the government agencies including Canadian Forces, US Air Force, Army, Navy, special units, the Pentagon, FBI, and the list goes on. Dr. Stein consults with numerous reality TV shows, including Big Brother, Canada, The Amazing Race Canada, Master Chef Canada, Bachelor Canada that must be a cool one. Real Housewives of Toronto, I didn't know there was such a thing. Bachelor in Paradise and blown away. So what do they utilize a Dr. Stein's gifts for, they want to find out if they can get the best guests on their shows possible. There's actually a gentleman here in Del Mar, California. Richard, somebody is his name. He's world renowned for actually profiling the people that appear on those shows. That sounds like interesting work. Do you enjoy it?

Dr. Steven Stein
Yes. It's a lot of fun. That's great work.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, I bet it is. I bet it is. Well, look, you know, you've done a lot of studies, you're a psychologist, you spent years studying and then coming up with these assessment? What inspired you to write hardiness, making stress work for you to achieve your goals? And what do you hope that the readers out here are going to take away from it? I made a note to you earlier, when people hear stress, it's almost like they want to run the other direction. But the question is, certain stressors can be good for us.

Dr. Steven Stein
Right? Well, what made me get into this is kind of a long standing mission. I've had, you know, I started my career as a traditional clinical psychologist and transformed into the business world. But early on, you know, a lot of my time was spent looking at people that had serious problems and issues. I worked with kids and families, you know, where there's ADHD, and depression and anxiety. And at some point, I decided, you know, it's time to look at what's right with people, and not just what's wrong with people, instead of fixing people seeing what allows people to succeed in life and make them successful. And that led me into the area of emotional intelligence. And from there, I moved into the area of hardiness. And one of the things that really inspired me to move in this area is my coauthor, Paul Bartone. He was a senior psychologist in the US Army, but also did work research and taught at West Point. And he's a retired colonel, but he had done about 20 years of research in this topic, showing how important it was for everything from leadership to dealing with health issues. And you know, a lot of his research was confined to sort of military journals and research journals. And I said, Paul, we got to get this out into the real world. We got to get this out or the other world into the business world and to everyday people. And that's where we joined on this mission together to write the book and make it more accessible to people.

Greg Voisen
Well, I'm glad you did because you know, this is a topic and I can see why they picked up on it when you sent them your book If they saw this as a good fit for the business world, obviously because widely kind of caters to the business world, that is who they are. Can you explain the concept of hardiness? I know when we people hear the word they're like hardiness, why know what that is I'm, I'm great, I can withstand anything resilient, and how it differs from other approaches to stress management. Sure.

Dr. Steven Stein
So, so hardiness is really based on what we call the three C's. And again, that's based on a lot of years of research looking into this and, and looking at what differentiates people who deal well with stress versus those who don't deal so well with it. So the first C we look at is what we call commitment. And what that means is having a purpose in life, having a direction having some of a bigger picture something outside of yourself that you see as important in your life. So for some people, you know, it could be religion, for others, it could be sort of a political mission. For others, it could be working for the environment, or something that's bigger than yourself. So commitment is really important.

Greg Voisen
Can I ask you throw in a question here, because you're Go ahead, in commitment. You know, for a lot of people, they look at that word, and it brings up like, long term commitment to something right, um, committing to something, a marriage or raising a child or doing whatever it might be. And then in the, on the flip side of that coin, is just how they wanted to solve being thriving, thriving and being alive and being having this freedom to kind of move around. Because sometimes when you hear that word commitment, you're also thinking about well, do am I going to lose some of my own freedoms in the process of this? Am I going to lose other sides of me that I'm giving up? And I remember this statement, because you and I talked about this. Dr. Jordan, who you used to work with, talks about this process in his in one of his podcasts that I was listening to, is our contract with the future. And what we actually give up now for the contract in the future, and that is a big commitment. Right? That's like, Okay, I'm gonna sacrifice something here in the now, for this contract with the future. Can you maybe give us a little bit of, you know, a dialogue about that, because I've actually been thinking a lot about that. And I'm going to be 70 in July. So I look at it and I go, man, what have I actually given up? To get?

Dr. Steven Stein
Yeah, and that's gonna vary, you know, one of the one of the groups we deal with are elite athletes. And for them to reach their goal, their dream of winning a major championship, for example. It involves making certain sacrifices in their life, they may give up parts of their social life, they may do, you know, just other things, they may sacrifice in terms of that big goal. Now, we're not asking everybody to make those huge sacrifices. But I think part of part of the commitment that sort of contract with the future is to is to decide you know, what you really want in life, what's really important for you, and what are you willing to do to get there, right? And, and there may be things that we give up along the way, there may be certain vices or other things that will interfere with that goal. And what we find is that people who are able to sort of stay on that line stay, working towards that commitment, managed to deal better with difficult situations in their lives.

Greg Voisen
Well, what practical strategies can individuals use to develop and strengthen the sense of commitment when facing stressful situations? Well, we

Dr. Steven Stein
usually try and back up and prepare for it before you actually reach a stressful situation. So if you take a look now at your life, and you try and identify what are the things that are really important to you, to your future? What are the things that you really believe in? You know, again, identify Is it is it your religion, your commitment to God? Is it politically you want to make certain changes in the organization or in your community, something that you really want to commit to? And then we get people to outline aspects of their lives, their family, their work, their social life, and to rank order those things into, you know, what is most important and what is sort of less important what

Greg Voisen
what do you do to help people who go to the space of burnout to literally prevent that because in today's society, we're seeing so much of this loneliness, burnout, stress as a result of it And and then I find just a level of kind of complacency that it's almost like they've zoned out. They're just being thrown so much. And now we're talking about a big word, a commitment. It's like, okay, I see the three C's, which we're going to talk about all of them, by the way, folks. But, you know, the reason I'm throwing these questions in is because the listeners out there today, including myself, we find ourselves saying, Oh, wow, this is I'm almost an overload. I am almost to this point of burnout. How much more can I really take? What practical advice would you have? Because that is a stressful situation?

Dr. Steven Stein
Well, there's a couple things in there and involves more than one of the C's. So what is commitment, which is knowing what is my bigger picture in life right now and being overwhelmed with things everybody wants my time, everybody wants me to do things. So the second C that we talked about is challenge. So if I can step back and look at those things, and look at them differently, look at all those stresses as maybe a puzzle or something to solve. If I said to a friend of mine, I'm overwhelmed. I got all these things on my plate, I can't I can't cope with it. What would you do? What would your friend advise you? And usually, your friend would advise you to sort of back off some things, what's your don't do list? What are the things that you don't have to do and you can step away from, and then allow you to focus more on the things that are really important to you, and the things you're excited about or interested in or really want to do. So it's really a matter of a mindset and refocusing your priorities.

Greg Voisen
I get it. And, you know, what we all deal with is, I'm gonna call it this balancing act, balancing work life, right? Balancing the The To Do lists that everybody has the things that they'd like to accomplish, and then having a larger, more vision and a goal to try and reach something greater. And you say control is another key component of hardiness. And when you get burnt out, it's almost like you feel like you're out of control. How does the perception of control influence our response to stress? And what techniques can you help to enhance the sense sense of control? Because when you go to burnout, or you go to this level of just complacency where it's like, you're just like an inertia, you just don't want to do anything, right? It is a state of AI, it's a mental state. In many cases of depression. There's a sense of depression associated with that, because you lose your aim, you lose your goal, you lose your commitment, you lose a lot of things. What can you help people with by giving them some ideas here about keeping this sense of control?

Dr. Steven Stein
Okay, well, the first week, we sort of backed up a bit to commitment. So if you are sort of in that depressed state, what we would do is try and find something that you do care about something that motivates you. And it may have been something you haven't done, since you were a kid, you know, like, I looked back and found music, that I love playing a musical instrument, and that sort of changed my view when it comes to control, then the issue becomes, well, what can I do in this situation? What do I have control over versus what I don't have control over? I don't want to waste my time, sort of doing things or expending it on things I have no control over, you know, you know, I blame other people or I blame the boss, or I blame my workplace for, for getting in my way. That's not helpful. What I'd rather do is focus on what can I do myself to change the situation? What can I do to redirect where I'm going? So stop blaming the environment, stop blaming those people around you, as difficult as they may be? And look inward? And say, what are the levers that I have some control over and then I can manage?

Greg Voisen
That's good advice. Because, you know, when you get into that state, sometimes you don't look for that. You're saying things are out of control, or if they are out of control, I don't know how to get them back in control. And I think once you find one thing you can control, right, that you realize what it is. It's it's the first tee up right on the first hole of the golf course to, you know, make it out and say, Hey, I'm gonna go get the ball in the hole kind of thing. If you understand the analogy there. Can you provide some examples of how individuals can shift their mindset in views stressful situation. So as challenges rather than threats? I think in the prior case, its threats. In the case where I have a goal or an aim or I'm committed. It's really not a threat. It's a challenge. Exactly.

Dr. Steven Stein
So In terms of challenges, again, it's the mindset, it's the way we view things. It's, it's how we approach the situation. So we step back, and instead of getting all emotionally involved in all the stuff that's happening to you, it's kind of looking at it a little bit more objectively and saying, What can I do here? How can I solve this puzzle? And treating it more as a puzzle to be solved? And what are the levers that I can control? To do that maybe I have to avoid certain people, maybe I have to change my daily routine. Maybe I have to find somewhere else to work. But you know, looking at it objectively and taking charge of yourself, and making those changes is really important.

Greg Voisen
And do you have any particular stories that you can relate to us of people that you've either counseled or situations that you've seen, where they've actually been able to shift the mindset, and come from these three C's successfully, where they maybe weren't?

Dr. Steven Stein
Yeah, we have a number of stories in the book. And one of them that I really like is a story of Bianca Andre Sue, who was a tennis player. And when she was around 12, or 13 years old, she really had this image of winning the US Open. Now, that's a pretty big goal for a lot of people. But she visualized it and she got to visualize it so well, she actually imagined herself receiving the winner's cheque, you know, being there. Right in the in the stadium and winning against major tennis players. Well, visualization was was really helpful in terms of getting that commitment to staying on path. Because playing tennis being a professional athlete requires a lot of sacrifices, though, as we said earlier, giving up your social life, to practice every day and to do these routines and to get better. So so that was part of the commitment part that you had a goal and something a dream that you work towards, in terms of the challenge, she had to meet challenges all along the way. For example, not going to parties with her friends, because she had to practice and all sorts of things that she had to go through in order to keep this dream alive. And the final was control. And when you're an athlete, you can control all the elements. And I guess the, the one that, that I sort of talked about in the book, when she ended up at the US Open, and in the finals, she ended up playing Serena Williams. I mean, that's awesome, right. But what happened was, the crowd didn't like her, the New York round, didn't want a Canadian to win the US Open. And they booed so loud, she could hardly hear yourself think. But in that time, she took control. She said, I can't control the bluing of the crowd. But I can control the way I serve at all the practicing. I've done the mental practice, the physical track practice. And she did it she beat Serena Williams to win the US Open by that sense of control that commitment and the use of challenge to overcome obstacles.

Greg Voisen
That is a great story. It really is a great story. And I'm glad you told it because it you know, it puts a context around what somebody can do, especially all that booing, you know, the subconscious mind, which is something that very few people, I think, think about on a regular basis is a lot of places where this gets reprogrammed, right, where we can actually reprogram, what advice do you have for people and wanting to kind of albeit using a hypnotherapist or something else to actually delve into reprogramming the subconscious mind because there's so much there that's making the ability to get this done, hazy, and ineffective. Right. And who knows, it could be things from our past, it could be experiences that we've had. And being a clinical psychologist, I thought this would be a perfect question for you about how to actually take these three C's and utilize them into pro reprogramming the subconscious mind. Yeah,

Dr. Steven Stein
well reprogramming your mind is a challenge, right? It's not an easy thing. So often, we need a guide, coach, someone who can help get in there and find out what's holding us back. Why why do we keep making bad choices in life? Why do we not get away from the people that are toxic to us? So it's often helpful to have a really understanding outside person who knows these things and can help you reprogram yourself, to find purpose and to overcome challenges. And to understand what it is you can control and to stop you from the same circular mistakes that you've been making in the past.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, very good advice. Because I mean, I think many people during the course of their years on this planet, spend a lot of time trying to get clear about the things you're talking about this commitment this control the three C's, but it for some reason It's hazed out, you know, you, you use the example of affirmations of being able to visualize and create the dream for the future. I know sometimes it's almost like when you try and think about it, many listeners out there, and there have been times for me as well, where you just can't come up with anything. You're just like, it's like a block you following what I'm saying? Absolutely. And like you can't access it, because you're so busy doing the day to day stuff that you have to do to just get it. And you say, well take time for this. And they go, Well, where am I going to find the time to really do that, right, because they've gotten into a grind. Where

Dr. Steven Stein
there are small things you do. And we're not talking about huge time commitments with some of this. One exercise that we do with people, which is kind of helpful is to try and then set a goal for each day, something you want to accomplish each day. And at a set time each day, let's say three o'clock or four o'clock, you take five minutes, and you think about, you know, how do I feel about today was I able to make any movement towards completing that goal. And you know, there's some really interesting research finding that people who are able to do that and find something positive each day will be much more productive will be happier with their lives, and ultimately more successful with the goals that they want to achieve.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you know, you I'm looking behind on your bookshelf there. And you wrote this book on emotional intelligence. And I think that it's the it was the dummies book for emotional intelligence that I have it here. You know, there's been so much said about that in the workplace. And I want to talk to you about the principles of hardiness, being applied in the workplace, to kind of improve performance and well being. And if you would, add in a sprinkle around us being able to use our emotional intelligence more effectively to do that, because the more intelligent emotionally intelligent we are, the more relatable we are and the ability to communicate with others, and others do communicate with us. I mean, Goldman's work on emotional intelligence was really groundbreaking, right? I mean, everybody knows Daniel Goleman, and his work on emotional intelligence. So if you would hardiness in the workplace, how does it work? How can we make it work in comment, if you would, on emotional intelligence tools prove that. So

Dr. Steven Stein
here's the way I like to think of it as kind of strategic and tactical. So the hardiness is the strategic aspect of your life, your commitment, your control your goal, your ability, it's like your personality, or as you were talking about your subconscious, your deep down beliefs of where you want to go. And once you've got that established, that's going to help you set direction, for example, you're going to know that the work you're doing is the work that you really want to be doing, you're not doing some job, just because you need the money or because you couldn't find another job, you're going to know where you want to be in your life where you want to set your path. Emotional Intelligence is kind of the technical part, these are the skills you need to get ahead. These are the skills of being good with people, the interpersonal skills, being able to understand your emotions and manage those emotions. They really are the sort of the topping the icing on the cake that really helps you become more successful at work. And we spent a lot of years researching emotional intelligence. And now, people who are strong and that are more successful in many ways in terms of their career. They're better liked, leaders get more done, their teams are, are more responsive to them. There's so much more we can accomplish if we use these emotional intelligence skills.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. So Dr. Stein, when you get a room of computer programmers together, and you have to teach emotional intelligence, how do you start out? Well, one

Dr. Steven Stein
of the things we like to do is use an assessment, because they're very, they're very logical and rational, and they don't acknowledge emotions. So we developed a tool called the EQI, 2.0, the emotional quotient 2.0. That gives them really hard data on how they compare to 1000s of other people out there. And we can compare them to other computer programmers or to accountants or lawyers, or to salespeople who are much higher in these skills. And once they see that in front of them on paper, then it resonates to them, because that's what they react to right numbers, logic, rationality, and you can say, you know, it shows here, that your empathy is really low. How do you feel about that? What do you think about that? And they may say something, well, what the heck do I need empathy forums in front of a computer all day? Well, then we got to show them how other parts of their lives are important. Their ability to sell ideas to their to their co workers their ability to, to work with their boss, their ability to have a family life and deal with their kids. So we show that these skills are important in all aspects of their lives, and the fact that they can develop them if they really want to.

Greg Voisen
It's really good comment, I appreciate that. Now, we've heard about EQ, IQ IQ. And I've recently come across si spiritual intelligence. Do you believe there's a realm of spiritual intelligence that we have that we carry around and bring to the workplace that can make it a better place for us to work? If we bring that to work? There's actually a woman that I recently had on the podcast, talking about spiritual intelligence. Well,

Dr. Steven Stein
you know, it's a newer concept. And it sounds interesting. I haven't seen the data on it yet, but I'm sure it's something that we should explore that you know, people who are more spiritual, and it gets kind of to the area of commitment that I was talking about, it's a belief in something that you feel can be beneficial to you and take you to the next level. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
it her work is interesting is very deep. It's a Cindy Wadsworth, I think it is I can get you the information. But I spent a lot of time on how spiritual intelligence overall can help us be better at our own emotional intelligence as well, too. So what role does resiliency play in the concept of hardiness? And how can individuals build resilience because it's really psychologically when you look at stress, usually what's being spoken about, and I helped a company who created the wellness app for Mayo Clinic. And the doctor, the doctor, the psychologists, that was work was really there was a whole module on resiliency. And frequently, they're teaching resiliency in corporate America, they're not talking about hardiness, let's face it, there's, they're saying, hey, you need to become more resilient. Here's how you become resilient. This is what you do, whether it's through meditation, whether it's through mindfulness, whether it's through all these various practices that are being accepted. And Mayo Clinic is teaching, you know, meditation in the workplace through the app.

Dr. Steven Stein
I agree. And and, you know, resilience is important, but it's slightly different from hardiness. So resilience is about going through a stressful time or difficult situation, and coming back to where you were before. So it's kind of even in you up to where we started from. Whereas hardiness we see it as getting even stronger than you were before the stress hit you. It's almost like post post traumatic growth, some people talk about, where if you learn these skills in that situation, you become stronger, you learn how to challenge and you learn how to control things, you can control, your increase your commitment, that makes you even stronger, it's like going to the gym and exercising and building your muscles. And that's a big differentiator, you know, a lot of the resilience training, which is really good, but a lot of it is kind of avoiding the stress sort of relaxing and pretending it's not there, or learning how to control your, you know, your your reaction to some degree. Here, we're actually taking facing the stress head on and using it as a challenge and seeing how do I overcome this, I'm not running away from the stress, I'm managing the stress and trying to get stronger as a result of the stress. So that's a bit of the difference.

Greg Voisen
There's another third try, I think, not in defense of mayo clinic, or meditation or any of this, it's like, it's just a fact, I think the tools that were given to become more resilient. It's like I'm building my muscle, right to have to learn how to deal with this. Whatever muscle it's really the mental muscle to deal with this. Versus and when I look at the word resilience, and I look at the word hardiness, I get that what you're trying to do is uplevel people to say, hey, look, it's this is a this is a ability to go up a stair step to go up to go up to go up to become more and more hardy, under this meaning thrive in these environments. versus using techniques that we would do, what would be to the techniques that you would say, can help me become more hardy on these three C's. I know I get it that it's the three C's fundamentally. But what would you tell people to practice in the workplace to thrive, beam hardier, and have much more and I'm just going to throw this in again, emotional intelligence, because if you have good emotional intelligence, really, this, all of this hardiness can come along with it. There's no mistake that you wrote a book on emotional intelligence, and another one on hardiness there. Zero mistake there.

Dr. Steven Stein
Yeah, they're all going in the same direction, no question about it. So what are the techniques you would use right away? Well, one I like to use is visualization. I think that's really important. The ability to see yourself where you want to be to think, maybe 10 years ahead and see where would I want to be? And to break that down into different aspects of your life? Where do I want to be in terms of my working workplace? Where do I want to be in terms of my family? Where do I want to be in terms of my social life? What about in terms of fitness and exercise? Where do I want to be? So we would get people to sort of visualize that future down the road, their ideal life, their ideal self, and then we start working backwards. So then we work back to five years and then to one year, and then we come back into month by month and and then we work our way down to almost a weekly or daily activity, what can lead us towards those goals? How can we get there? So so that would be one sort of a technique that we would use with people to help them

Greg Voisen
so you're, you're forecasting to the future, we talked about this future note that we had with the future, and then you're regressively, kind of going back to the year, the month, the day, and then the hour, right? Like, hey, you know, hey, this is what I need to be doing during the day to actually strive toward this particular outcome that contract with the future or whatever it might be that you want to call it. Yeah. Yes.

Dr. Steven Stein
And when you talk about work life balance earlier, and the fact that we're overwhelmed by all these things, this helps you make those decisions. So it's not so much a matter of work life balance, it's like, how do I do What what goes towards my goal? How do I do the thing that matters most to me? If

Greg Voisen
I were being we're being pardon me for interrupting, but I think because of so just because of technology, we're frequently being derailed, because we don't know how to put that stuff down. And that takes people off track, right? It really does. It takes people out. You ask people well, how much time he is spending on social media, how much time he's spending on just answering emails, or how much time you doing? But then you ask him, well, how much time are you actually spending in contemplation or creativity or the amount of time you spend doing that? And I think you'll find a decrease, which is why these corporations are attempting to provide opportunities for people to become more creative. I know that at my son's work, Adobe, they want creative people. So they say, Hey, work from home, take time off, go surfing, go do what you need to do, do the things that are enjoyable, because you need the release. And they understand the psychology of this, of the endorphins and of the oxytocin's and of the things into your system. I'm getting a little more technical than we were gonna get. But the point is, is that you get these highs, and these highs have to come. And they don't hardly ever come from surfing social media or answering emails.

Dr. Steven Stein
Right, exactly right. And you know, if you look at the research of Jonathan Hite who looks at, you know, the effect of cell phones, on kids in school, it's exactly what you're saying. It's distracting. It's taking us away from where we want to be or what we want to learn. So that's a big part of what we have to do exactly what you're saying, take time away from the technology, and focus on what things are more important for us to be more creative, to be happier in our lives, and to pursue the goals that are really meaningful to us. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
it's it's a detox from one to an infusion in the other meaning detoxing from the social media and the phone and the iPad and whatever else it is, and the infusion of some activity that brings those oxy toxins in there that brings the higher levels of chemical release into our system that usually are related to higher levels of creativity, abilities to take greater risk. Because that is part of it. You have to be willing to kind of do some risk taking here along the way.

Dr. Steven Stein
When we come to the end of our life, I don't think we're any of us are going to say, Gee, I wish I answered more emails when I was younger.

Greg Voisen
Right? No, we're not. You're absolutely right. Because when you start to look at your finitude and I think the older we get, the more we understand, you know, all of us is not getting out we're none of us are getting out of here alive. And the reality is there is a day when we will take our last breath. And this is not being trying to be morbid or anything, but it's true. It's just a fact of life. And if if my listeners can take your three principles of commitment control win challenge. And take those three and insert them in to create a resilient, I'm just going to use the word resilient mindset, but call it a hardy mindset, the hardiness mindset. And to help them get to this longer term goal that contract with the future. There's going to be let's talk about it now. Because all these three that you talked about commitment, control and challenge, how do your studies tell me that the amount of joy and happiness that utilizing those techniques actually brings to me as a result of that and me becoming hardier

Dr. Steven Stein
a lot of the work we've done is, again, comparing different groups of people, right? People who are happier in a certain occupational group versus those who are less happy people are performing better, versus versus those who don't. So it's really been a matter of comparing groups. So the next stage is really putting people through that transformation. And there's some work on that in the coaching world, where people who have been coached, and hardiness was seen as a factor, when when their coach, they're starting off from a higher level of hardiness, they're much more successful in achieving their goals. And they found that that was a more important factor than their relationship. A lot of times in both therapy and coaching, we talk about the importance of the relationship between you and your coach or you and your therapist. But this study that looked at a number, a large sample of people found that being at a proper level of hardiness was more important than even the relationship that you had with your coach. So you can learn these skills and see direct improvements as a result of it. And the studies we have some reported in the book, do look at I know one where we did, someone outside group wasn't us looked at emotional intelligence had two groups, one with coaching and one without, and they used one of my books as part of that, that journey that the people went through, found significant changes, comparing the treatment group with a control group.

Greg Voisen
Well, you've given my listeners a lot to think about today. And I want to thank you for being on inside personal growth. And for all my listeners, we're going to put a link to this book. And it's Steven stein.com ste ve N Ste i n.com. So in wrapping this up, is there anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with Dr. Stein? Regarding this commitment, control and challenge the three C's? Which are the component parts have hardiness inside of your book? And if so, are there places where they can go if they're, they feel lost? You know, it's like, okay, I want to go to Stephens website, I can take an assessment, is there a tool that I can take of yours, that would actually tell me where I fit on the spectrum of these things? Right. Right, there

Dr. Steven Stein
actually is a tool called the hardiness resilient gauge. Now, it's usually administered by someone who's trained or professional in it. But if you come to the website, I'm sure we could refer you to people or if you want to be trained in it, there's an opportunity for you if that's, you know, the area of work that you're involved in. So yeah, there definitely is a way to compare yourself to 1000s of other people who've looked at how they score in those three C's, and what areas are most most important for them to develop as well.

Greg Voisen
Well, I figured you had an assessment. So I wanted to let my listeners know that there was an assessment out there. And it's the hardiness, resilience,

Dr. Steven Stein
gauge, the hardiness, resilience gauge HRV. All right.

Greg Voisen
And so if you're interested listeners, go to his website, contact him. They can put you in touch with somebody who administers those those tests, because they obviously distribute those tests out to people that are using them inside the workplace. Correct. Oh, am

Dr. Steven Stein
I right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well,

Greg Voisen
again, thanks for being on inside personal growth. Thanks for taking the time with us, Dr. Stein. It's always a pleasure having somebody speak about a topic that I believe nobody has really heard about hardiness, they have heard about resilience. They have heard about emotional intelligence from Daniel Goleman. And I would put a plug in go get his book on emotional intelligence. We have that one as well. I think I'm gonna hold it up because it's right here. Is this one, emotional intelligence for dummies? We did speak a little bit about it. But if you're new to emotional intelligence, or you really want what I would call a very comprehensive viewpoint, you're probably better off going to this one then you would be starting off with Daniel Goldman's book so you Nothing against Daniel Goleman at all. But this one here is what I would call the basics of emotional intelligence. Right?

Dr. Steven Stein
Absolutely a lot easier to read.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. You have a wonderful afternoon.

Dr. Steven Stein
Thanks so much for having me, Greg, and fun being with you.