Step to Help You Cope With Stress and Respond Better to Stressful Situations in Just Seconds With Kevin Dugan

As entrepreneurs, we experience different struggles and challenges in our personal lives and on the business side at some point.

When we make failures, our emotional well-being is affected. And if not managed well, that would lead to depression and anxiety; and a lot more mental health issues that go with it.

That's why it's crucial that our mental wellbeing has to be taken care of. Once we do that, it will give rise to our strong sense of self-worth, which positively affects connecting and building nurturing relationships that are life-giving and not life-sucking.

Kevin Dugan, is a Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner, Personality Development Facilitator with over 12 years of experience focusing on adult learners. Now, he is focused on bringing mental wellness to the grassroots level in the Philippines through a non-profit project, helping more people manage strong emotions better, Developing self-esteem with individuals and teams, and helping people find their motivation to get things done.

In this episode, Kevin shares how the struggles and challenges he experienced in his childhood brought about by his parents' separation led him to dig deeper into the human person's emotional intelligence.

Armed with the proper tools from unearthing knowledge through this quest, he was able to understand his struggles and find the means to deal with them. Today, he is sharing with us how to combat stress and find proactive ways to manage it. That way, we learn to master emotional resilience, so we don’t easily give in to depression and anxiety.

What you'll learn from this episode:

• Discover about one crucial step that helps you cope with stress and lets you better respond to a stressful situation in just seconds 
• Find out one motivation we need to have to reach a more meaningful and beautiful outcome.
• Hear about an essential element that helps us live a quality life rooted not in money but in our personal values
• Simple but productive action steps you can do on your own to eliminate stress

"The better way to manage that stress is to express it productively." - Kevin Dugan

Topics Covered:

20:41 - Kevin taking us into a journey back to his childhood life and the challenges he faced

24:24 - Starting going deeper with emotional intelligence

27:34 - Providing free online workshops for emotional resilience at the start of the pandemic

30:32 - Kevin's initiative of bringing mental wellness practices to the grassroots level

31:42 - The reason behind carrying out the mental health programs starting with the barangay

34:34 - What challenges did Kevin face when starting the project in the barangay?

36:02 - Measures in place to overcome the implementation challenges of the mental health program

37:23 - Sharing about how the mental health project is progressing in a barangay in Los Banos Laguna where he first started it

39:30 - Helping entrepreneurs cope with the emotional aspect in dealing with business challenges

45:05 - One crucial first of a 5-step process to better manage stress for entrepreneurs

48:21 - Rumination versus reflection

52:00 - What goes on his mind and what he sets aside when he is in a coaching mode

56:52 - Pivotal moments for reflections from his own personal experiences of giving workshops

01:01:16 - Differentiating extrinsic and intrinsic motivation - what pushes us to do the things we do?

01:03:19 - Big wins in what he does

01:06:21 - An important element in living a good life

01:08:07 - How important is an accountability partner in dealing with stress versus doing things on your own

01:09:13 - Simple, productive action steps we can do on our own to help us deal with stress

01:11:46 - Defining what success is to him

Key Takeaways:

"When we're better able to understand our own selves, our thoughts, our emotions, it's easier to manage relationships with other people." - Kevin Dugan 

"I want something to last for the long term. I don't want to be fleeting in terms of fulfilling my purpose." -Kevin Dugan

In reality, our brain needs stress. If we don't feel it, there's nothing to help us learn. The key here is understanding how to manage the emotions we feel when we come upon a stressful event." - Kevin Dugan

"Not just entrepreneurs, a lot of people feel like we should always be thinking, or doing something, that we should always be busy. The problem is, we have a hard time just being with our own thoughts. Just taking a moment."- Kevin Dugan

"When you come across something that you're very challenged with. Take that pause. Whether it's 10 seconds or two minutes, just breathe; try not to think about anything. Just think about your breathing. What that does, it slows down your thinking so that we can focus and reflect on how we're going to respond to that stressful moment."

- Kevin Dugan

"A lot of entrepreneurs want to become that because they want to earn the money that they see that people are earning. But a lot of the businesses that I see are not based on that person's personal values."- Kevin Dugan

"Money is not a value. Money is a tool that you get for your service. The value is what are you providing for? I think a lot of us need to understand and work on that." - Kevin Dugan

"When we pursue things that come from deep within our hearts, the outcome is much more beautiful."- Kevin Dugan

"People actually live longer, are healthier – physically and mentally, when there are good quality relationships with others." - Kevin Dugan

Connect with Kevin Dugan: 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dugan.kevin
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin23/