Transcript:
Peggy is devoted to helping people overcome life’s big and small frustrations and challenges through stress, anxiety, trauma, and pain to super charge their lives. She’s a personal development coach, motivational speaker, inter- internationally known as a expert in overcoming stress and anxiety, two of the buzzwords today, that’s for sure.
Your book “Integrated Life: Personal Coaching System” is a customized fast track approach to awaken personal balance and ignite the inner source of empowerment. Your best selling book: “Escape from Anxiety: Supercharge Your Life with Powerful Strategies from A to Z.”
You published a book “Embodying the Power of the Zero Stress Zone,” a highly accessible compilation of the teachings of world renowned spiritual master Yogi Amrit Desai, and co-author of “The Change: Insights into Self Empowerment,” one of the fastest growing personal develop series in the world with Tony Robbins former mentor Jim Britt, and others.
Formerly a journalist in New York City. You contributed articles to publications all over the place, from the New York Times, and Newsweek, to then owning your own marketing company.
So how do you go from, what appears to be obviously a big time journalist and owning your own marketing company and turning into this wellness expert?
Peggy Sealfon: (laughs) That’s a great question David, and it’s great to be here with you. It really boils down to my own needs because I think out of adversity, we have to be motivated to find solutions. And through all of those different advocations or professional careers that I embarked on, I was always suffering, I was always struggling. I was always full of fear, full of anxiety, full of stress, and it would short circuit me, and I was getting sick.
And I couldn’t understand why I was constantly in this cycle, and so for my own well-being, I began training in lots of different modalities to find solutions, and that kind of morphed into, um, my expertise as a wellness specialist, and my expertise in so many different areas from modern psychology to neurosciences, functional medicine, nutrition, and, um, ancient yogic techniques.
And so it’s been an incredible journey, and I like to tell people I have a PhD in reinventing myself.
David Brower: Well, that’s exciting. It’s funny. I tell people that all the time because I love to reinvent myself every couple years, and, and um, I’m a big fan of change which, uh, my wife has … is a challenge to (laughs) is challenged with that.
But uh, I love change and reinventing myself, so I’m, I’m really, uh, really thrilled to talk to you. So when you got … So how did you transition, though? Did you just take a leap from, from, uh, writing and marketing and just go, “Okay, I’m gonna go on this journey and just start learning as much as I can?” Or did you have a little bit of a transition period, or how did that flow?
Peggy Sealfon: I’ll be honest, it was not so conscious. It was more about trying to find solutions for my own self-destructive patterns, and my own beliefs and fears. And through searching for own solutions, I realized that there’s just in the United States alone 40 million people who suffer from anxiety …
David Brower: Right.
Peggy Sealfon: … and I had found solutions that worked …
David Brower: WOW
Peggy Sealfon: … and that were really able to benefit people, and pretty quickly. So I wanted to share it. And I just put my toe in the water first. I actually did a training program for a hospital health system community, and that went fantastically. And then I took the leap from there …
David Brower: Nice.
Peggy Sealfon: … because because it was just so empowering to see the change in others.
David Brower: I mean at the end of the day, you’re really just paying it forward, aren’t ya?
Peggy Sealfon: Absolutely. That’s really what it’s all about. I feel like that’s what we’re all about.
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: And it’s really about not what you get, but really what you give.
David Brower: Absolutely right. I mean people talk about that in the spirit of Christmas, really, and but really that, that philosophy, that mentality, that logic should carry through in every day of our lives, you know?
Peggy Sealfon: And what I’ve found is that the more you give, the more you actually get. You feel so grateful and blessed, at least, I do …
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: … for all the great things that come back, just in seeing people thriving and seeing their lives really transforming and changing …
David Brower: Wow.
Peggy Sealfon: … in ways that they never thought possible.
David Brower: Then you have people that you touch that maybe years later, months later, weeks later come back to you and say, “Peggy, oh my god, I had no idea you could do this for me.”
Peggy Sealfon: Absolutely. I had one last year, in fact, a man in his 40s who came to me. His wife dragged him to me because they owned a restaurant, and this man had been held up at gun point in his own restaurant in a really beautiful neighborhood.
It was just bizarre.
David Brower: Wow.
Peggy Sealfon: And for months, he had been suffering from this trauma, and he would be in a supermarket with his two young girls, and he’d see someone who reminded him of the guy who held him up at gun point, and he would break into a cold sweat. He would start shaking and feeling like he was going to pass out.
And so he clearly was suffering post traumatic stress disorder.
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: Well, I worked with him to recreate new neural pathways and really change that behavior and that reaction, and I just saw he and his wife recently, about a month ago, and they were just so excited to have had such a dramatic change in their lives, just from the different skills that they learned with me.
David Brower: But the big question is did they buy you dinner?
Peggy Sealfon: (laughs)
David Brower: (laughs)
Peggy Sealfon: No, they paid me for my services.
David Brower: (laughs)
Peggy Sealfon: So I guess, in essence, they did buy me dinner.
David Brower: So if I hear you right, a lot of stuff that we have going on, and I mean 40 million or 200 million. I think there’s a huge number out here, but some of us refer to it as old tapes. Some of us refer to it as triggers, and really you’re just kind of trying to help p- people get in there, figure those things out, and, and get rid of them, right?
Peggy Sealfon: Right, really develop skills. I call them interrupters. Where you’re literally first aware of the fact that you’re having this reaction, and that’s the first step because a lot of people are mindless, and so it’s cultivating mindfulness, and really paying attention on purpose and being aware that you’re reacting.
And then it’s what I call using interrupters, and interrupting those patterns of behavior, and we’re learning now in the neurosciences, brain plasticity, we can change. We can even expand the capacity of our brains. And so by doing this, we can change these old stories and change these old patterns and put them back into the past where they belong and come into the present, where we can really enter into our greatness.
David Brower: So mindfulness is another buzzword that we’ve certainly heard a lot about, and my wife and I are big fans are mindfulness, whether it’s in our church or eating or hanging out with the grandkids or whatever it is, and just kind of being present, I think is probably the way we look at it.
Is that related, at all, how you go after mindfulness?
Peggy Sealfon: That is absolutely it. It’s really being in the moment, really being connected to what is. Not what you’re imagining is going to happen or what will be or what has happened, but really being in the moment right here, right now.
And taking in whatever is in your surroundings without those emotional ups and downs without those reactive tendencies. Instead, just being able to be responsive.
Let’s say you get stuck and traffic, and you’re late for a meeting, right?
David Brower: Right.
Peggy Sealfon: And so, it’s irritating and you’re frustrated because you need to get somewhere, and now you’re going to be delayed. So it’s a matter of kicking back for moment, taking kind of a mental time out and saying to yourself, “Well there’s nothing I can do about this traffic.”
And the more aggravated and irritated and upset I get, the more I’m harming myself, because physiologically, your body is suffering when you’re going through those kind of emotional reactions.
So again, that mindfulness is really just being the observer, being aware of what you’re feeling, and being able to literally shift out of it.
David Brower: Makes perfect sense. Do you … I used to train sales people a lot back in the day and one of the things I always found challenging with sales people was how, uh, they would beat themselves up about goals and working extra hours, and doing all the extra stuff, and having really, no balance at all, um, unless you could figure out a way to tap into that to let ’em know it was okay.
Do you, do you work with, with corporations and groups and help, uh, not only individuals, but but groups of people work through these things?
Peggy Sealfon: Oh absolutely, actually I’m doing a keynote talk, uh, in a couple days for a national company. They have 200 CEOs coming from all over the country, and we’re going to be talking about how to interrupt those old patterns, change those old paradigms which is the old approach to working. You know, work harder. Rather, today, it’s really more about working more effectively, more efficiently, working smarter.
We lowering stress levels so that you can mind, body, heart and spirit be able to function at a higher level and be able to do so much more.
David Brower: Well, once you figure that out, mind, body, heart, spirit, there’s such a, there’s such a peacefulness that allows you to be more productive because you’re just enjoying the work instead of worrying about the work, right?
Peggy Sealfon: Well, that’s it, and actually the book that, uh, just came out that I compiled for Yogi Amrit Desai is the zero stress zone, and it’s being able to enter that zero stress zone on command. Not just when you sort of accidentally get into it. You know, we all get into the zone from time to time. We might be on a tennis court. I like to play competitive tennis so …
David Brower: There you go.
Peggy Sealfon: Some people enter into that when they’re playing their sport and some people don’t really have any clue how they got there, so it’s really being able to access that place of calm, and what I call it is that state of integration so that you’re really functioning more optimally.
Mind and body are actually functioning in a way that is so much more productive. You can see more clearly solutions, where before you might have seen problems. And we too often function in our mind, in our egos in these crazy monkey-mind thoughts that just spin stories, spin emotions, spin reactions, sp- spin self judgements, and those can be very destructive.
So it’s learning how to quiet that and how to really stay in that zero stress zone.
David Brower: Well, in the zero stress zone, it’s got to help people, personally, professionally, spiritually, psychologically … I mean it’s gotta touch every, every facet of your life, doesn’t it?
Peggy Sealfon: That’s the whole point. It really is life, and think too often we separate out our work life, our professional persona, and our personal persona …
David Brower: Right.
Peggy Sealfon: … and it’s really the melding of those, and it’s really about collaboration, and cooperation, and communication, at all levels. Personally, with our family relationships, and then professionally with our associates. Its really more about transparency because, for me, at the end of the day, we are really all in this together, and we need to support one another.
David Brower: No question about it. No question about it. I know, uh, I worked in the corporate world for a long time and just retired a few months ago. I’m now running my own business from my home, and so the adjustment has been a little bit challenging, but it’s also been so, uh, refreshing and invigorating because it’s just ..
You know, I can go hang out with my wife. I could go walk my dog, I can go play with my grand-kids, you know, and I don’t know that I could have done that 20 years ago.
Peggy Sealfon: And I, and I do believe that is what’s changing in the workplace. We’re beginning to see this transformation, more and more outrageously successful CEOs are using things like meditation, and creating time out rooms in their facilities for employees to be able to have that place of calmness.
And look at places like Google where they play games …
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: … and play is really important and it is important to have that work life balance and be able to integrate all parts of our lives. We’re not just this one work person and this other family or home person.
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: We’re a whole integrated person, and it’s really looking at all of those different parts of us.
Because otherwise, one part always suffers. Our health suffers or our work suffers or, um, you know, we end up having many more challenges than we have solutions, and it’s, it’s not beneficial in the long run, and we’re hurting ourselves, and we’re hurting those people who are closest to us because we’re not very fun to be around (chuckle) …
David Brower: Understood, understood.
Peggy Sealfon: … when we get to that place.
David Brower: So your books that you have available, are they … Do you have audiobooks, uh, regular books? How, how can people tap into, tap into those books to kind of get into your work?
Peggy Sealfon: Great, thank you, “Escape from Anxiety: Supercharge your Life with Powerful Strategies from A to Z” is a paperback and an e-book, and it’s broken up, literally, into the A to Z.
So if someone’s feeling stress or anxiety, they can open to any letter of the alphabet, pick one thing to do, and they’ll feel resolution. And then the second part of the book gives them more sustainable recommendations, and so its available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or from StonewaterStudioBooks.com, and “Embodying the Power of the Zero Stress Zone,” which is really an extraordinary book. It was just published January 12th, um, and it provides a real deep understanding of the truth of life, and really how to enter that zone and be able to access it on a regular basis for health, well-being, relationships, work, life purpose, everything.
So that’s also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a paperback, and I’m hoping by June, we’ll bring it out as an e-book, and I’m actually looking at the idea of bringing it out as an audiobook ’cause I think it would be great to listen to.
David Brower: Good I’ll, uh, you can hire me to do that. I do audiobooks.
Peggy Sealfon: There you go.
David Brower: (laughs).
Peggy Sealfon: Right, you do voiceovers.
David Brower: I do. I have my own studio right here in my house. In fact, that’s where I’m sitting talking to you, so …
Peggy Sealfon: Fantastic.
David Brower: Yeah, it’s my therapy. In kind of researching you a little bit, I watched a few minutes of a couple of interviews with Yogi Amrit Desai, and man, what a fascinating … What a fascinating spiritual guy.
Peggy Sealfon: He is the real deal. He really goes back to the ancient yogic traditions. We in this country, a lot of people practice yoga, but they’re, they’re learning a physical yoga. They’re learning to do postures, asanas, and they’re not really learning the ancient understanding of that integration, and he really is the carrier of this authentic, wisdom teachings, and he is extraordinary to be around, truly.
And I’ve done many workshops with him. We have, sometimes 350, 400 people who come to be …
David Brower: Wow.
Peggy Sealfon: … in his presence, and its quite remarkable. And he founded Kripalu, which many yoga aficionados know and now he has the Amrit Yoga Institute, which is just a thriving yoga and Ayurvedic center.
David Brower: What a, what a gift for a lot of people. So when, when somebody sees the word yogic, that’s not a typo.
Peggy Sealfon: (Laughs) No.
David Brower: (laughs)
Peggy Sealfon: No, that’s … Yeah. Variation.
David Brower: Right, right?
Peggy Sealfon: Right. Very true.
David Brower: So your website is?
Peggy Sealfon: The website is PeggySealfon.com.
David Brower: And S-E-A-L-F-O-N.
Peggy Sealfon: Right and …
David Brower: So they can find out all the information about your books, background on you, reach out to you?
Peggy Sealfon: Absolutely, and there’s a lot of free programs that I offer on the website, and you can actually access a lot of them by just going to EscapeFromAnxiety.com, that makes it easier. Don’t have have to worry about the spelling of my name.
David Brower: Nice.
Peggy Sealfon: I’m sorry.
David Brower: I’m sorry. I watched one of your videos, just like a three minute deal on YouTube, and I’m going, “Man, how easy is that if we just pay attention, you know?”
Peggy Sealfon: And that’s the point is that in the hyped up, very busy society and culture that we live in, most people say, “Well I don’t have time to do XYZ.” But really you can change these patterns of stress and anxiety in just a minute. Three minutes.
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: Five minutes. If you can devote more time, great. In fact, I tell people who say, you know, “I don’t have 20 minutes or a half hour to, to, you know, stop and relax and meditate and do any of that.”
And if they tell me that, I tell them, “Then you know what? You need an hour.”
David Brower: Right? Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, it’s not just baby steps, sometimes you got to put your whole foot in and, and take care of yourself.
Peggy Sealfon: Take a leap.
David Brower: Take a leap of faith.
Peggy Sealfon: And it is really about self-care.
David Brower: Yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: And that’s something that we have denied ourselves for way too long. We tend to just have our nose to the grindstone, and we’re so focused on goals and success, and what does success look like?
David Brower: Right.
Peggy Sealfon: Is success killing yourself so you have a stroke and a heart attack because you’re working so unrelentlessly?
David Brower: Right.
Peggy Sealfon: It doesn’t make sense so …
David Brower: It makes zero sense, yeah.
Peggy Sealfon: Right, so it’s really about taking time for yourself and that balance that we talked about earlier. That work life balance …
David Brower: Yup.
Peggy Sealfon: … and I like to think of it, actually, as work play balance.
David Brower: There you go.
David Brower: I like that. Yeah. Peggy it’s been a real thrill, a real honor to talk with you and, uh, such great information, and again, folks, check out her website, and um, pick up her books, and reach out to her because she’ll be uh, she’ll be a gift for you down the road.
Peggy Sealfon: Thank you David. I really appreciate being here with you.
David Brower: Yeah my pleasure, and you’ve been listening to Your 20 Minute podcast with David Brower, and be sure to like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Your20MinutePodcast.
Peggy have a great week.
Peggy Sealfon: Thank you, you too David.