Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Ron Foglia.

Ron is a business performance coach working with entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals to effectively reduce the seemingly unending stress and overwhelm physically, mentally, and emotionally. This results in client’s ability to make more confident and powerful decisions to elevate their business career and life. He has a bachelor’s in applied science system analysis from Miami university and MBA from capital university and is a certified coach and trainer of Infinite Possibilities, the art of living your dreams.

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Transcript

Norman Chella: [00:00:00] Ron Foglia is the stress buster, the guide for executives to achieve clarity and intuition on demand. He is the Antifool. Welcome to the AntiFool podcast. This is where we deconstruct the wisdom of people from all fields, backgrounds, and walks of life. My role is simple. I play the fool, I ask the questions and you get the answers.

Our guest is the Antifool, the source of wisdom, who we will learn from today. I’m on a mission to create the antidote to foolishness so we can understand the world and ourselves better, wonderful stuff. Right. So. Shall we hello there.

Welcome to the show. This is your fool friend, Norm. Let me talk to you about stress.

In a fast paced world, the avenues for stress has increased and with our routines becoming all the more faster, all the more hectic and all the more busy, there are many different avenues for negativity to come in for stress to cloud our decision making and for our ability to perform, to be heavily affected by our environment. But to manage stress, we’ll have to use proper techniques that are backed with neuroscience, evidence based protocols, which can reduce stress in as little as 60 seconds. And who better to talk this with than Ron Foglia.

Ron is a business performance coach working with entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals to effectively reduce the seemingly unending stress and overwhelm physically, mentally, and emotionally. This results in client’s ability to make more confident and powerful decisions to elevate their business career and life.

He has a bachelor’s in applied science system analysis from Miami university and MBA from capital university and is a certified coach and trainer of Infinite Possibilities, the art of living your dreams.

Ever since the last recession, Ron has helped a struggling clients use stress, achieve clarity, and make better decisions. Which has already proven because he has done this for himself in his own personal life, going through harsh times, which we’ll be talking about in this episode.

Some of the topics include stress reduction, how to train your body and your mind to reduce the speed of the thoughts, racing through your mind each and every day through simple breathing exercises and creating an environment that allows you to think clearly.

We talk about Ron’s personal life, how he was laid off. And he was, he had almost lost his home. And he had to coach himself through these harsh times in order to get back up on his feet and coach others who are going through similar struggles. We talked about the different ways to manage stress. We talked about the different signs that you are getting stressful? The ways that your mind can be clouded with negativity. And Ron runs us through a simple breathing exercise, which will be happening in the middle of the episode so do wait for that.

And the importance of having intuition on demand, how to harness your natural, intuitive ability for guidance, insights, and more effective problem solving.

Ron gives us an overview of his coaching process at golden trail coaching. We became quite vulnerable in this conversation. So without further ado, let’s play the fool and learn from the wise, by diving into my chat with Ron, Foglia of golden trail coaching.

Mr. Ron Foglia, how are you doing welcome to the show.

Ron Foglia: [00:03:39] Norm thanks. I appreciate you having me here. And I’m excited to share some of this information with you and some of your audience.

Norman Chella: [00:03:46] Of course, because this is something that I really want to touch on, especially in recent times. But I feel like it’s pretty much applicable to every day, the notion of stress management. And I would love to take a deep dive and how you even came this position, where you can help other people manage their stress, because it is quite a subjective thing. We deal with it very differently. But I’m sure you have a lot of wisdom and experience on that before we start, though, I do want to ask, Ron, before you help others with their stress, before you became a performance coach, you are just Ron growing up through your career.

Could you talk to me about your origin story? How did you arrive to today with all this experiences behind you and helping others in your own unique manner?

Ron Foglia: [00:04:40] Well, my, my business experience started, you know, as a, as a consultant. Uh, and, but as a consultant, but you know, we were solving problems. I got out of that business and essentially got into business for myself.

Um, interestingly I’ve owned brick and mortar businesses, um, landscape construction, businesses, service businesses, and dealing with employees and customers. You learn patience, which is an aspect of stress, which is quite interesting. The real period when I started focusing in on stress itself was during the last great recession, 2007, eight, nine, right in there.

I was actually back doing consulting for small and medium sized businesses. But one of the things I found is the bigger, the problems that these companies had, the higher the stress level. So I realized that one of the things I had to do to get them to focus was to help reduce their stress. So I started changing my protocol a little bit, and once we identified some issues, we worked on reducing the stress.

The results were pretty phenomenal because they were consistent. Once I was able to get the business owners and realize these were business owners who were struggling, um, you know, they had put their home, their retirement, everything into their, they put their life into these businesses and they were failing.

You’re not clear when you’re in stress, the brain and neuroscience shows us over and over your brain can only focus on your vulnerabilities and your weaknesses. So without outside help, it’s tough to solve problems. So I was able to work with these people to solve the stress issue and back it off. Then it was amazing to see like a light switch went on.

They were excited. They could see the problems and we were able to save a lot of those businesses, but nor the real interesting part, I didn’t know I was going to need that. Very, those techniques, that those processes I was working with these business owners to help my own life. You see, during that recessionary period, my wife had lost her job.

Being a two income family. It didn’t take long to fill the financial stress in order trying to save our home. We went through a lot of our retirement and it seems even though it was 18 months to two years, um, w we still lost our home. We went through our retirement and, you know, we were devastated. It was just mind boggling that we couldn’t figure out, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I had a client who I’d worked with about a year before that offered me a job. So we lost the house. The timing was such that we picked up, we moved, got a new job. My wife was still unemployed, but it was okay. We had roots. We were together again, which was really important to me. You know, we were living together.

I wasn’t on the road. I found out about five months later, the volatility of the petrochemical business, gas and oil prices, nosedived. The guy that I was working with had about a hundred employees. He literally had to let everyone but two or three people go. So there I was, I, my life at the end of the tunnel was literally snuffed out.

And five months to me at that time was almost overnight. I’ll never forget that. Drive home, the feeling in my stomach to tell my wife who’s been unemployed for almost two and a half years to tell her that I just lost my job. When I walked in, she knew something was wrong. And I told her, and we just, we were in shock.

Um, couldn’t speak, uh, you know, we were pretty much silent for about two days, you know, to be, to be quite honest, it was just unbelievable. But after two days, you know, the gears started turning again. I said, I have to do something because at this particular point we had no income, our only car, transmission, we had about a thousand dollars in the bank and we were within two weeks of being homeless because we couldn’t pay our next month’s rent. So coming from a metaphysical background, somewhat of a spiritual background, I was looking for the applications, you know, and, and what I was able to become aware of.

Cause my focus, you know, I’m a believer in what I teach is where you’re where your what’s your focus on. Whatever you’re focusing on is where your energy is going to go. I knew I had to make that shift. The light bulb went off the same thing I was using for these business owners just a few years before I needed now, as tough as it was.

And it was tough to start. I started applying those techniques. I start using those same strategies in my own life. And fortunately, I was able to find a job with another client. So we didn’t go through that, that homeless phase. That was honestly terrifying. Um, and we got to traction and I realized at that point that that stress was more important than really getting in there and solving the business problems.

What I found is once for me, I could get my mind calm. I can start thinking again, start being creative. Again, the problems were a lot easier to solve, and that was my history previously with the consulting. Once I got the business owners calm back the stress off, they could begin to see how to solve the problems.

So my practice shifted significantly to dealing with stress first, and problem solving second. So I’ve developed my coaching practice around that technique, and I’m able to get some pretty good results that I’m really proud of, and there’s nothing better than seeing a smile on someone’s face, knowing that you saved their business, you saved their family and you saved their life.

And that’s really what my passion is.

Norman Chella: [00:10:38] I love that. I love that you go with stress first because deep down, pretty much anyone is capable of solving their own problems, but they have to come from a state of mind where they are more self aware. They are not as, shall we say, high on adrenaline or filled with worry or filled with burdens that may cloud their decision making or cloud, the next thing that they can do. And with that, you can achieve clarity.

And that’s when you can move to step two, just to backtrack a bit on the moment when. I’m going to be vulnerable here for a little bit. So stop me if you feel uncomfortable, but the moment when you feel that you’re going to lose your home, or you’re going to lose a lot more, um, with what you currently have at the time. What were some of the potential battles you had in your mind that made you, gave you such a shock that when you walked around and you thought. I need to look for a solution to this. You had to look back and at the very practice that you are giving other business owners to help their stress?

Ron Foglia: [00:11:40] Now, I can tell you the way I processed it, what, what was going through my mind? And it started really with disbelief. Educated, I have a master’s my wife had two, um, and we found ourselves and we, and we did everything by the rules.

We followed traditional protocols. Um, for our life, for our careers and here we were, everything just, just collapsed, just crumbled. Um, you know, so, so that was the first part. It was, there was a lot of disbelief and a lot of people, first thing they do is blame themselves. Well, I asked myself, what did we do wrong?

My wife and I had this conversation many times, but the real question became, what could we have done different? What could we have done different? We didn’t know anything different. We could have done up to that point. We played by the rules. We followed tradition. You know, you do this, this and this, and here’s the results you get. That didn’t work.

So all of a sudden we had a fro tradition out of the way, literally throw it away. So the question became, what could we do different? Um, one of the things that we have to fall back on, besides each other, which was a blessing in itself that some of our training, um, you know, we’re, we’re real students of, uh, you know, we, we had a lot of esoteric teachings behind us.

I was also big fans of thought becomes things. In fact, my coaching certification is…It’s a coaching certification and it’s called the art of creating your dreams. And it’s all about the power of thoughts, becoming things. That’s not Norm, that’s not part of the traditional role. That’s where I went, because I’ve experienced that in my own, in my own life.

Many, many times. I mean, how many times when people say over and over, well, you know what. I always get passed over for the promotion. I always get passed over for the promotion. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I don’t want to drive to the mall. I can never find a parking place. Guess what? You’re going to circle for 20 minutes before you find one, people don’t understand the power of the spoken word.

That’s the realization I came back to and I realized that through some of the stress techniques with these business owners. So we got to the point where tradition didn’t work. What was going to work now, I’m not a religious person and, but I believe all religions have truth in them. Um, but I do believe I’m spiritual.

So I knew just to get down on my knees and pray wasn’t the answer. And I don’t mean to belittle that, but at the same time, I knew I had to be proactive. And the proactive side of prayer in my mind is using the applications of thought becomes things. I literally have to retrain my mind, retrain the way I was thinking.

Not an easy shift from where I was. I mean, down in the dumps, you know, to be very transparent, there were tears, there was self doubt and blame and anguish and guilt, um, you know, and, and that was tough to get through. But I also knew on the other side of that was the answer. And that that’s where I had to go.

And the whole process of retraining my mind is what made the difference. And that’s what I do now with my clients. That’s where we start. We need new habits, new processes, a new focus. So to answer your question or try to apply it to you Norm, if you find yourself in a rut where you’re not able to get out of the negativity, you’ve got to ask yourself what’s really important to you.

It’s not this situation. This is whenever whatever’s happens in the past, we can’t control that. We have to look at what we can control and what we can control is our thoughts and where we’re going. And as soon as you no longer believe you can control where you’re going, I can’t help you anymore. That’s where faith comes in.

Faith is very powerful. Gratitude is very powerful, but they’re forward thinking. They’re for thinking ideas are forward thinking concepts, faith in what, in, where you’re going on, gratitude for what, what you have and where you’re going. So everything has to be very forward thinking. So if you find yourself stuck hashing over the old stuff, I would suggest write down.

Where you want to go? What’s important to you right now? Is it to get a job, to find income, um, you know, outside of the business realm to find our relationship, you know, to, to, you know, achieve, achieve a personal goal, whether it’s, you know, dance or certification, some education, that’s where the focus has to be.

Norman Chella: [00:16:39] Which is a great segway, because I do want to ask about how you actually coach your clients. They have different situations, they have different needs and they have different levels of stress. So could you walk me through this. I’m going to play the fool. I’m going to ask you, Ron. I have a company and I’m in a, I have a huge responsibility to make sure that everyone gets fed.

Everyone has food on the table. Everyone is paid and we have to make sure that we are going through, you know, really hot situations like this pandemic and I’m stressing out. Okay. Can you help me? So, Ron, what is your coaching process? How can you help me manage my stress?

Ron Foglia: [00:17:17] Well, Norm the first question I’m going to ask you is.

What’s the vision for your business? Why are you doing this? What’s your why? Because a lot of times when people get in trouble, whatever that trouble may be, they’ve, they’ve lost that why and they’ve lost the as and when they lose it, the passion behind it goes. So I want to know what your whys are. I want to know what your values are.

Where are you coming from? How do you serve your clients? What do you do? That’s different. Once we get that picture, then I’ll ask you for some very specific, tangible goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months. So we’re working our way down. Yeah. Kind of top down from the vision to your values, to how much money you need to make the next 12 years or next 12 months.

I mean, that’s basically boils down to, what do you want to, what do you want to achieve once we do that? We have a roadmap. Here’s our goal. This is where we need to get. Now, how do we get there? The first thing I’m going to say, Norm, what kind of morning routine do you have? How do you get yourself ready for today?

Morning routine. Some don’t, you know what I mean? To put you on the spot, you don’t have to answer that.

But that’s where I go. Um, and by that, here’s what I mean for me, I’m up every morning, four o’clock. Okay. I go in, um, I grab some water, use the bathroom. I sit down and the first thing I do is a five to 10 minute meditation. It can be breathing. It can be, um, I like to use, um, emotional EFT, emotional frequency tapping.

Um, there’s a lot of different things that I like to use. Sometimes I’ll just do a visualization. I’ll read something and that’s what I focus on for five or 10 minutes. Um, and what that’s doing, your, your mind stops when you’re thinking. The conscious mind stops thinking you want to get it on a track that you want to get it on.

You don’t want to get up, starting to think about problems. So get the mind calm, get the body calm. Alright. At that point I jump in the shower. Oh wait, sorry. Before I jump in that shower, I’m going to do some kind of physical exercise to get the blood flowing. Now you’re saying, wait a minute. This is crazy.

You just relaxed and calm your mind and body. And now you’re pumping up the oxygen. The point is I’m relaxing the mind. I want that clarity. I want that focus. Now we need to energize the body. It doesn’t have to be crazy. You can take a walk, you can do some simple calisthenics, then get in the shower. When I have time, the next thing I want to do is come out of that shower.

I’ll grab a cup of coffee and I want to read 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half hour. If I have that luxury, and then I’m going to write down my intentions for the day. What do I want to accomplish? What are my goals? This whole process takes maybe 45 minutes to an hour to get done. And I allow myself that time.

So when I jump in the car or head to my office, I’m ready to go. You know, I’m refreshed physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’m focused on what I want to accomplish. Now. I take it one step farther. And there are different affirmation sequences I’ll use on their drive to work. I’m not going to let my mind wander.

I’m not going to go into fear. I’m not going to overthink my intentions. So this is the type of sequence I would set up for you Norm, I’d say, tell me your morning routine. How can we tweak it? And you don’t have to be as extensive as I am. You can do little pieces, get up, do your meditation, take your shower, get your coffee and write your intentions.

It could be as simple as that. Um, every one’s a little bit different. Some people want to do more physical. Some people want to go out and run. You need that morning routine. That’s where we start. And it’s all about forming new habits, retraining the mind, retraining the brain, creating new neuro net patterns that over time, once it becomes a habit, your body responds to it.

And it’s automatic.

Norman Chella: [00:21:25] Trying to build something automatic in the morning to set you up for the rest of the day and making sure that you are consistent, right? In terms of producing results, producing outputs with intention, which is the important part. And I do, you did touch on a great point.

Writing down your intentions is something that uh, I’ve struggled with writing because of the lack of clarity. Every time I try to put pen to paper, writing my intentions over time, but I tried it and over time, I had to build the habit and it really works. It really does work. It does set the stage for managing stress for me, at least personally, because there is a certain level of stress that emanates from not knowing what you’re meant to do.

For the day, um, lacking direction. And I think this applies a lot to maybe other clients. Are there any methods that you do to help say manage or calm down stress maybe in the middle of the day? Or is there like an exercise that you can, um, teach us about?

Ron Foglia: [00:22:31] Yeah, absolutely. There is, you know, in particular there’s a couple of them. And they’re excellent for stress management. And there’s one in particular that literally can reduce stress in about 60 seconds. And, you know, some people say, okay, well that’s hype. I don’t even want to hear it. Or some people will indulge me and they’ll say, yeah, sure. But the whole premise around this is it’s based on neuroscience research.

Neuroscience studying different impacts of the brain on our biology, very oversimplified explanation. And you can get into very, they get into the different segments of the brain, the different processes, functions. Just give me the technique that works. Okay. That’s what I’m, that’s where I focused. Um, and, and, and the techniques are pretty amazing.

There’s one in particular, the 60 second Stress Buster. And if I may, in a bit, you know, I’d like to take. Take you through it Norm, if I can. To give you just a little background about it on this, the 60 second breathing technique I’m going to share with you has been around for awhile. Neuroscience has put this together and, and they’ve shared, it’s actually been used to train different elite military forces and law enforcement agencies around the world. The technique works, it’s been used for years and it’s critical. To have that stress backed off when you’re going into a crisis situation and you have a weapon in your hand and you need a split second decision, whether you need to use that weapon or not.

So clarity is of the utmost importance. Um, and with that clarity comes access to a larger part of your intelligence, your intuition, which I don’t want to go into too much, but let’s back up to the stress here just a bit, but reducing the stress is the doorway to your knowledge or wisdom and your intuitive ability. But getting back to the stress, you know, we have on average, about 60 or 70,000 thoughts every day, 80 to 90% of their songs are the same one, same ones we’ve had yesterday so much for creative thinking.

On top of that, 90% of them are negative, but it’s not our fault. Yeah, we beat ourselves up, but we have an ingrained defense mechanism and you’re familiar with it. It’s fight, flight or freeze. That was left over and it’s hard wired in our brain. That’s what we have to overcome. That’s where the fear comes from.

Because back to caveman days, there was something that could eat you behind that rock. You know, a bear, a tiger. There was real danger out there. So this was a defensive mechanism. The issue is most people now don’t have that same physical danger they’re faced with, but the body and brain doesn’t know when it’s, when it’s a, a fear of losing your home.

A fear of, of, uh, going bankrupt. Those fears trigger that same response in the body. The first thing you have to do is become aware that it’s there. Then you can start taking actions and disarm that mechanism. So that’s where our fear comes from. This is what neuroscience and some of these metaphysical principles and protocols are helping us do now.

They’re helping us get in touch with this, identify it and find ways to back it off and back it off literally in 60 seconds. Let me explain this technique because I’m sure everyone’s waited with, waiting with bated breath here. It’s really pretty simple.

Breathe in through the nostrils to a four count. The key to the success of this is actually seeing the air come through your nostrils and into your lungs. So we’re going, hold up, breathe into a four count. Then we’re going to hold that air in our lives. Two, a four counts. We’re going to exhale through the nostrils to a four count, and we’re going to hold that breath out to a four count.

That’s just about 16 seconds. Alright. We’re going to do this four times. And again, the key is closing your eyes because the best way to do this, it’s easier to see that go the air going in, holding it, coming out and dissipating in front of you. So if you’re ready, Oh, before we start normal pay attention to your thoughts.

How fast are your thoughts racing? Um, what are you thinking about? You’re thinking this guy’s crazy. This will never work or whatever you’re thinking doesn’t matter, but just be aware of how fast you’re thinking and how much you’re thinking. Scan your body real quick to see if there’s any places you’re holding stress, your forehead, your shoulders, your neck, people hold it in different places.

Abdomen. Doesn’t matter. Don’t try to do anything about that. Don’t try to do anything with your thoughts. Just be aware. Okay. Okay, now let’s close our eyes and let’s breathe in through the nostrils. Ready? One, two, three, four, hold two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four, hold it out. Two, three, four, inhale, three.

Inhale exhale. One more time. Inhale, exhale, hold it out. Take a deep breath.  That was just about 60 seconds. First thing I want you to do is pay attention to your science and then your body. Tell me what you’re feeling.

Norman Chella: [00:29:14] Okay. Before we started, I immediately thought of the tension, the tension in my shoulders. So I feel that that is where the majority of my stress is clustered around. So of course, I’m going to say very bluntly. 60 seconds is, can lead up to a certain level of skepticism, right?

So we go through 60 seconds worth of breathing. Um, I’ve never thought about doing this four seconds pers uh, never actually had done it, that he liked that. So it was quite fascinating because I’ve already had thoughts racing through my mind, even throughout this conversation. And it has slowed down, um, You are right about the 70,000 thoughts thing, because I feel like there’s a lot hitting my brain in terms of thinking about this, thinking about that, what to say next.

Sure. But you know, throughout the, throughout the exercise, it slowed down a bit by the time that we’ve reached the final, deep breath. After 60 seconds, I have to say my shoulders are definitely less tense. Um, and I guess one analogy is that my thoughts are calmer and that they slowed down. And I think that’s like one of the first signs in realizing that I’ve gone from a certain level of tension in my body to a lower level of tension in my body. Yet I still function well yet. I can still think. And yet I have clarity. And yeah, it feels really nice. It feels really good, thank you for that.

Ron Foglia: [00:31:05] And that’s, that’s the goal because of what you just said is where we want to get to. We want the thoughts to slow down. We want that clarity. We want that focus. Once we do this, you’re able to make critical decisions faster. With more clarity and, and getting more powerful results. This technique is, is a very similar technique that has been used by people like, um, uh, Oprah or Richard Branson.

Um, Ray Dalio, a lot of very successful people. Elon Musk, they’ve used this type of a technique to slow down to get clear. And when you get clear, You then have access to your intuition. And the intuition is where the real power becomes. Now, this intuitive process is a gift  we all have. It’s always working for us, but because the thoughts are racing at such a pace, we don’t often hear it.

How many times does a thought flash across your mind, make a right turn up here and you ignored and you go 10 blocks out of your way and come back and have to make that turn anyway. It happens to all of us all the time. Sometimes we’re aware of it. Sometimes we’re not one of the things that I really like to do to help clients is a process.

I call intuition on demand. Whereas if you have a problem, don’t rely just on your intuition process and gather as much data as you can process the data, use your intuition to help give you the direction. And there are numerous studies that have indicated when you combine analyzing the data with slowing down the mind, tapping that intuition, you have a success level in the neighborhood of 85 to 87%.

I don’t know too many business owners would not like to have that kind of a track record. Um, that that’s pretty powerful and quite possibly one of the reasons why Elon Musk and Warren buffet, and some of these other people have reached a level of success that they have. They’ve learned the process. Now, let me answer a previous question or point that you brought up earlier about how do you control this throughout the day?

One of the things I really suggest my clients do and depending on their schedule, either every hour or every two hours set the timer on your phone, when it goes off, literally stop what you’re doing and do this exercise for 60 seconds. It’s a reset for the brain. They’ve literally shown that the brain reprocesses all the information, it stops what it’s doing through this process.

And it’s almost like a reset. It’s a refresh. Many of my clients tell me that in the afternoon, after they’ve done this, maybe for a week, three days, it really depends on, on the individual. Once they get in this rhythm, there’s no afternoon slump. Many of them at the end of the day have just as much energy as the, when they started their day, which is unheard of because we have a constant source of energy within us.

If we know how to tap it, if we don’t allow that energy to be sapped by fear, by worry, by stress, by literally over work, any more than a two hour period, you’re excessive stress on the brain and on the intellect to consistently come up with positive productive results. Take that two minutes.

If I can add one more piece to that. Do this for longer than 60 seconds. If you have the time. When I first started playing with this, I did it for a minute. Then I said, well, what would happen if I did it for five minutes? So every morning for the next week, I did it for five minutes. The next week I did it for 10 minutes.

I got up to a half an hour. One note of warning. If you’re going to do this for a prolonged time, I promise you your mind is going to drift. It will happen. It’s okay. You don’t shut yourself. Just gently, bring yourself back to the breathing, seeing the air come in, holding it, exhaling. Just bring yourself back to the rhythm.

Be gentle with yourself. Remember to love yourself, beating yourself up defeats the whole purpose of getting rid of the stress. So I, so I just wanted to share that and. Yeah, you don’t have to do it 30 minutes. Yeah. Five minutes. I just recommend people do it whenever they need a reset before they’re going into a meeting or presentation.

If they know they’re about to have a confrontation with an employee, um, whatever the case might be, get yourself clear and focus. You’ll make your best decisions.

Norman Chella: [00:35:59] Preparing yourself by going through this exercise and no matter how long it takes. Could I just ask though, um, could you pair this with another activity?

So I, as an example, I’m trying to fit this into my routine and. In the morning, I do a lot of stretches. Uh, I used to dance, so I would use the same stretching exercises just to wake myself up. Is it okay for me to be doing something like, say, take a walk and going through the breathing exercises or walk around park or stretching, or maybe a light exercise here and there, or is that too many things at once? Should I be just focusing on the air, going into my nostrils, et cetera.

Ron Foglia: [00:36:40] My recommendation would be start with the breathing. So your body gets comfortable with it. But what you’re doing is you’re getting into, what’s referred to as a walking meditation, breathing while you’re walking on the beach while you’re jogging.

Yeah. By all means, while you’re dancing, you can do that, but I’m suggesting you get the brief down first and then you adapt that. That’s, that’s what I do with some of more at my more advanced clients. Or they can dovetail some of that. Uh, one of the things I like to do as well, the power of affirmation is just very, very critical.

One of the things I’ll do sometime, and I’ll do it to a four count four simple words, oneness, abundance, health and peace. So four count, breathe it out to a four count and you get in that, that same rhythm. So not only are you physically and mentally relaxing your body. You’re also repriming reprogramming your brain and Norm you probably know the more you repeat something, the larger physically that, that neural net pattern becomes you don’t get rid of old patterns, old fears.

What you do is you replace it with something that’s stronger, something is more powerful. And as you pull your attention away from that fear, the energy subsides. And that literally can shrink and that your new, more dominant, more positive neural net pattern builds. So there’s a physical process that goes on as well.

So that’s why combining something like that is extremely valuable, but that was a great suggestion, thank you.

Norman Chella: [00:38:15] No, it’s no, it’s. I just think that maybe. There are many different applications, especially for our audience who may want to implement this on top of what they’re doing to manage us through hard times.

Of course, it’s just nice to know that it is quite universal in how you can apply it. But of course, start off with the breathing. We are coming up on time, but I do have two segments to ask you really quickly. Ron one is called mementos. Do you have a memento that represents who you are?

Ron Foglia: [00:38:50] Um, you know what absolutely I do.

Um, I have a video. I absolutely love for everyone to have it. There’s no obligation. You know, this video is going to give us kind of a quick overview of what we talked about here. And it’s also going to take you through an exercise. You can get this wwwgoldentrailcoaching.com/gift. It’s one of the easiest websites you’ll ever remember, little NLP there. goldentrailcoaching.com/gift it’s available for anyone who’d like to have it.

Norman Chella: [00:39:27] And of course the technique in that video is, uh, applicable to anyone who is in need of a way to handle their stress. So that I would say that I was a pretty good memento for anyone to receive.

And also the second segment is something called walkaway wisdom. So say a, we walk away from this conversation right now and I meet someone, um, and become friends with them. And in that moment in time our friendship deepens and I become vulnerable with them. Part of that is I share a part of my life with my story with them.

And a part of that is our conversation right now. Is there a piece of wisdom that I can share with them that represents who you are?

Ron Foglia: [00:40:13] I would say the piece of wisdom that I universally just love to share, and it’s a way to back to think about it, to help back stress off. And that is focus on what you control.

Don’t worry about what you can control if we take care of ourselves. As I mentioned early. Yeah. When we began our conversation, focusing forward, focus, positive, focus forward your goals, what you want to achieve. That’s the most important thing anyone can do. If there’s something you can’t control, don’t, don’t sweat it.

Just like this virus situation everyone’s dealing with. We can’t control that. Where do we want to be on the other side? Where do you see yourself? Once this is done? That’s where we want to be. So focus forward, play it forward.

Norman Chella: [00:41:03] I love that, that focusing forward and focusing on what you can control. Ron, thank you so much.

If we want to reach out to you or if we would like to contact you for anything stress-related or on your experiences or anything in this conversation, where can we find you? How do we contact you.

Ron Foglia: [00:41:20] The easiest way to reach me as that? Um, www.goldentrailcoaching.com. You can drop me a line there at the bottom.

The webpage. I have a little just. Question answer. Just put your name in there. Um, shoot me an email. I’ll answer your question. And, you know, I love answering questions, you know, and, and in fact I do that. Um, I offer anyone a free session with me. I just wanna help solve your problems. Yeah, we’re at a time right now where everyone in the world’s dealing with stress and my passion is to help that stress.

If I get a client out of it. Wonderful. If I’ve helped you, hopefully you can help your family teach this exercise to your children. Please. I’m glad to help. I’m here.

Norman Chella: [00:42:04] All right. Thank you. Ron links to your website at goldentrailcoaching.com will be in the show notes below as well as your LinkedIn. If we, if you don’t mind.

Ron Foglia: [00:42:14] Absolutely.

Norman Chella: [00:42:15] Anyone who can reach out to you on LinkedIn and via your forum on the website will be there for you, Ron. Thank you so much. And I will chat with you soon.

Ron Foglia: [00:42:26] Norm it’s been my pleasure. Thanks so much.

Norman Chella: [00:42:30] And that is it. My chat with Ron Foglia of golden trail coaching, an expert in managing stress, which is something that is quite abundant in recent times while we are all on lockdown. But Ron is here to help you out with that, especially with breathing exercises, with reframing the obstacles that are around you right now, to try to turn that into an opportunity to look forward, think forward and focused forward.

Cause that is the greatest thing they can do right now to focus on what you can control and run. I think we really do need to focus on what we are capable of interacting with, what we are capable of controlling and not allow for too much negativity to affect us in that way, because with the minimalization of stress come clarity and with clarity comes greater things.

So I hope you can have that as a takeaway lesson. And if you have Ron’s wisdom in mind, then all as well. Stay warm, stay lovely. And I will see you in the next episode, your foolish friend Norm.

Thank you for listening to the show. AntiFool is hosted, produced and edited by me, Norman Chella. You can find out more about the show at  thatsthenorm.com/antifool.

It’s where I host all my other podcasts shows and more live music and sound effects. Come from zapsplat.com. If you have any questions, recommendations for guests and more hit me up on Twitter @normanchella, or on LinkedIn as well. There is only one of me in the world. I’m sure you can find me there.

I love connecting with people and having warm, meaningful conversations. Don’t be foolish. Alright. Cheers.