How to Effectively Manage Stress & Urges w/ Kristen Boss
High Performance Coach + Author @thekristenboss spent 15 years as a stylist BTC before transitioning to coaching. We dive deep into the aspects of stress, compulsion, and urges: why they happen, how they happen, and what to look for in the moment to manage them. She shares wonderful insight and advice to take better control of your life and business.
High Performance Coach + Author @thekristenboss spent 15 years as a stylist BTC before transitioning to coaching. We dive deep into the aspects of stress, compulsion, and urges: why they happen, how they happen, and what to look for in the moment to manage them. She shares wonderful insight and advice to take better control of your life and business.
Hi, Kristin, how are you?
I'm doing great, thanks for having me, excited to be here.
Thanks for being on here.
This is great.
I like having experts on things, you know, even experts on why things aren't going right
with us as humans.
uh You know, maybe especially I like having experts like that.
And I like approaching these things as like, I have lots of problems.
Obviously the listeners, they have their own problems, but by using my own curiosity, uh
oftentimes the listeners
um can kind of have their own curiosities satisfied if I ask the right questions.
So for those of you who don't know you, you're Kristin Boss, which is such a cool name by
the way, Kristin Boss, right?
Who doesn't wanna be a boss?
I'm curious, em is that the original name or how many generations do we have to go back in
the Boss family before it was like, uh know, Bozenberg or whatever?
ask my husband because I got to kind of take on that name when I married him.
So I was like, this works out real well.
Well, lucky you.
And he never told you that only like 50 years ago, it was like, you know, the Bozeman or
whatever.
Probably, probably.
All right.
We don't care.
All right.
Kristin is the founder of Sondera where you're a personal growth and performance coach.
You use a science backed approach and rewire humans to be better.
And you do this by speaking.
You are an author.
You've written things and you have a podcast and other things that we're going to learn
about.
So I've kind of, I've divin, I've divin, I've doved.
I have, I dove deep and learned a little bit about you.
And it seems like you have an interesting story.
So why don't we just start with your story?
Who are you, Kristin Boss?
Yeah.
So my story is I used to be a hairstylist.
I was a hairstylist for uh 15 years.
uh I started in Los Angeles.
I went to Vidal's soon and had that whole experience in Santa Monica, in Santa Monica.
Yep.
Vidal's soon.
Yeah.
It was a…
many times.
I've, I've probably done five podcasts there in front of the students.
Very fun.
It's no longer there from what I understand.
I think, I don't think it's there.
since I've been in Santa Monica.
So, but if you remember, uh, back in the day when like there was that brief TLC did the,
the, tried to do the show, like making the cut and it followed the Vidal Assasin students.
I was one of the students that they followed before they canceled the show.
So that was like my weird little, you know, reality show meets cosmetology.
So yeah, I was a hair.
LA.
Very LA.
LA.
so yeah, that was my, did hair for a really long time and, you know, moved from LA to
Colorado and that's where I'm at now.
And it was when I was putting some time behind the chair, I kind of looked around.
was like, I think there's more to what I want in life than being strapped behind the
chair.
and I, you know, there was so much I loved about being a hairstylist.
Mostly I loved the relationships and listening to people and
Um, you know, people are like, do you miss it?
I was like, I miss my clients, nothing else.
Um, and that was about it.
But, um, I, there was something about me that just kind of knew, um, unless I wanted to
own salons, I was just like, how can I, you know, show up in the world or make money
without having to be behind the chair?
Like, how can I, you know, go on vacation?
I was over it.
Um,
not over the creativity or the people, over maybe that particular avenue of earning.
And so, and I had done the things.
had done like the LA, fashion show.
had done an experience with things and I guess the glam was kind of lost on me.
So I looked to the online space.
This would have been in like in 2017 and I had started an Instagram account pretty soon.
I was just kind of sharing some things and then like, you know, started some selling some
product and making some money online.
was like, oh, I think that's like making money online is pretty cool.
So hold on, you were selling hair related product or different kind
I was just like, I, uh, this was shortly after I had my second, kid, I was postpartum and
I like took some supplements and I felt better and it, lost weight.
It was like, I just, was like, Hey, this worked for me.
And people were like, I want to buy that.
And like, I think I started making money.
I was like, this is crazy.
I can like make money referring things I like online.
So I, you know, I did that and it was great, good and all, but then I was kind of like, I
was introduced to the world of
personal development and I was insatiable like anything you could I put my hands on I read
I listened to um and so and Yeah, I was just like I think I want to explore what this
could possibly look like and so um Did that but I saw how how much trouble people were
having was showing up in the online space specifically in a non-gross way so this would
have been like
when did I, this was like in 2019 and online business just made a lot of sense to me.
People make a lot of sense to me as hairstylists.
When you spend 15 years listening to people, the way they think and how they make
decisions, you're like, okay, to me marketing makes sense because it's where creativity
and psychology meet.
And I was like, well, that's the ultimate expression of hair, creativity and psychology.
I can do this.
And so I started teaching people that and.
Next thing I knew, I grew a huge online business where I was teaching people how to
market, sell online.
And, that would have been, it kind of exploded right at the pandemic.
And so that was when everybody was like, if you're making, you're either making sourdough
bread or.
Well, it depends who you're asking at the time, right?
Like there are some people that like things were bad, but for me, it like exploded like
massive growth.
Like overnight you just, was this huge movement of people that are like, um,
They're either making sourdough bread or they're making money online.
That was just, and I was right there with the offer and helping people.
And I came out with this kind of mentality.
I was, which is funny with my last name boss.
I was really sick and fed up with girl boss culture.
I hate it so much, which I find ironic last name boss.
And I hate girl boss culture.
I hate, I hate the hustle culture.
Uh, and Hey, listen, I am, I, you could have found a
If there was the definition of hustle in the dictionary, my picture would be right next to
it.
So like, been there, bought that, did it.
ah But I was like, you know, ah how do I help people show up in a way that's like
anti-hustle?
that kind of like, people were really drawn to that at the time.
They're like, I love this idea of anti-hustle.
And that was like my first book and it was all well and dandy.
um Pivot to purpose.
Yeah.
Leaving the toxic hustle culture behind.
And it was kind of just…
what time?
This was published in 2021.
Yeah, that was right when we were all…
that was the zeitgeist at the time.
Yeah, 100%.
And I think there was like the, how do I want to put it?
Like just the overall fatigue, just the exhaustion.
were like, I can't keep doing this.
I can't run 24 seven.
So, and that, was a welcome message at the time.
And so, um yeah, it was great.
Things were fantastic.
um Had everything I could possibly want.
The money, the accolades, the career, the company.
Next thing I knew, you know, I had
I wasn't just coaching people, I was now a CEO.
And so I was like looking at profit margins and hiring and systems and like I, oh God,
yeah.
All the things where I'm like, my God, I've turned into a corporate girly.
I girlbossed way too hard.
Yeah, I have to manage people now and I feel the weight of like.
There's one thing when you're out on your own and you're like, I have to pay for my bills,
like my mortgage and keep my lights on.
And then when you become a CEO or a company owner, you're like, I have to pay for
contractors and keep the company's lights on.
So it's like a much bigger scale.
And it was great, but I wasn't fulfilled.
I wasn't happy because I got really tired of, I was, I got really tired of everybody
making more money, but not necessarily experiencing more fulfillment in their life or
feeling.
uh emotionally numb, bankrupt, tuned out to their own life.
And I realized as I was, you cause I've coached over 10,000 people and it was like on
mindset and strategy.
And some people were like, I want to up level, I want to do better.
And you know, I would notice I would hand people these, the playbook, so to speak, just go
do these things.
And I would see that some people could go and do it for a time and then they'd burn
themselves out and collapse.
or I'd see some people that couldn't take any action.
Like they'd every, every, every Monday they're quitting or like, oh life, all this.
And so I was like, what, what do people actually need?
And I started deeply caring about, um I guess you could say the emotional health and the
holistic version of a person.
I'm like, you know, if you can have all the success in the bank account, but.
You are disconnected, lonely, unfulfilled.
Your relationships are hurting and your health is crap.
Is that really a success?
And so I kind of was willing to pull away from that.
And I decided, think I'm going to close this business down, this business that's so heavy
and like, this is sales, this is marketing.
I got really tired of what I felt was the entrepreneurial message of like, make all the
money and all your problems go away.
Well.
I hate to tell you this, but turns out life is still hard no matter how many commas you
have in your bank account.
And I think there was a real, I think that was a real wake up call for me realizing like
there's no amount of money in the bank that could uh prevent me from experiencing the hard
parts of the human experience and you're still going to experience grief and loss and
anxiety and heartache.
And uh so I started with like what?
What do people actually need?
And I realized that most people were just living their life by default, uh constantly
reacting to their environment in a stress response.
And, you know, when you coach that many people, I started noticing patterns and I'm like,
well, what, is it?
The root cause of someone's action in action.
I'm a total nerd.
So I read psychology books for fun.
And I started getting into, um, nervous system and like really understanding the nervous
system and how that informs.
how our stress response, how we show up when a stressor's there, or as we say in everyday
language, when we're triggered, um how like your bodily response you have to a trigger and
your relationship with that and the behaviors that follow suit from that.
And so I was just like, what would it look like to build a company that is about helping
people regulate their stress response through the lens of high performance?
How can I help business owners?
uh show up less reactively, less with their hair on fire, less of a stress case.
What does that actually look like?
And that's when I decided to, you know, pivot and start something from scratch, which is
wild.
that seems much harder to sell to a customer because it's the opposite of sexy.
It's you have a problem, spend time and money with me to delve deep into your
psychological issue to repair it versus make more money, do this with your online
profile and you'll triple your income, which is a much easier sell.
it's a hundred.
It's way more sexy.
And so everyone wants to buy the external solution to an internal problem.
Everyone wants that.
They're like, give me, give me the diet pill.
Give me the quick fix.
Give me the magical funnel, you know?
And like, Hey, okay.
But are we actually getting to, we addressing the root cause, the root behaviors are we
doing?
Because what I found was, listen, I sold the strategies.
They worked.
People made a lot of money, but unless we are getting to the root cause of what's actually
going on.
we are bound to repeat our patterns.
And so that's, I was like, you know what?
It's less sexy, but it's what people need.
And so, yeah.
So from this idea comes Sundara.
Okay.
Saundera is two words together.
Saunder is the realization that everyone around you is living a life as complex as yours.
And they're the, they're the hero in their own story.
So it's kind of being able to have the lens of compassion to those around you being like,
they have a story I don't know about.
And then era, obviously a new chapter.
And so it's, it's kind of really taking ownership of your life and what does it look like
expressed through a new chapter.
And so
Yeah, we are in the very early stages of this as a startup, super new.
Yeah.
so you have this mountain decline that you've created.
And so you said it's new, how new?
Like 10 weeks.
Yeah.
So Jesus, Mary and Joseph all in one.
Okay.
So, so, so tell me what, what, uh, where, what do you offer?
What do you do?
Um, what, what, why don't we, yeah, let, let's start with answering that question.
Um, is this online?
Is this one-on-one, you know, give us an idea of like what you're offering.
And then let's get into some of the issues that a lot of people are having and how to fix
those issues.
And then by the end of the episode, we've got, you know, we've only got 40 minutes left,
so you need to heal all of the listeners in 40 minutes.
I got something to say about that.
OK.
um OK, so first, what we have established as a company is, first of all, we're backed by
an advisory board.
We're informed by licensed therapists, psychologists, neuroscientists.
So it's not just pop psychology.
It's not just Kristen went off and read a book and built this thing.
It was like, I went out.
was like, how do I source materials from the experts that truly uh
provide transformation and proof of the work.
so um in my, and I've done like 5,000 hours of coaching people individually.
And one of the things I coached with is through like a cognitive, cognitive behavior
framework where you actually learn to rewire, um you rewire your thinking, your default
thinking, because 80 % of the time your actions are default and subconscious.
You don't even realize you are doing that.
And so if we want to change the behaviors that drive us crazy,
we actually have to first bring them to awareness.
We have to come out of the subconscious, bring it to our consciousness.
And then what most people get wrong is they view it through the lens of shame or anger or
frustration at themselves.
Like, why do I do this?
What's wrong with me?
Blah.
And they use shame to propel themselves towards change.
The problem is, that shame does work, but temporarily.
know, ask yourself, like when you stand in front of the mirror, for example, with weight
loss, you're like, God, I'm such a gross fat pig.
I'm gonna go to the gym.
Well, it might motivate you to go to the gym for maybe two days and then life is gonna
life again and you're gonna default back to your old habits.
You're gonna default back to your old patterns.
And so what Sondra has done is we have uh helped people establish, we've created these 10,
we call it adaptive personality types.
Because according to Harvard, the number one predictor of success on life term, long term
fulfillment in all areas of life is your ability to adapt to stress, how you respond to
stress.
And some of them might be like stress like medical emergencies, things going down.
I'm talking about the stress of when someone leaves you a negative review on Google, when
someone leaves a comment on your Instagram, who are you, how do you respond?
When that family member, precisely, precisely these minor little stressors that
unfortunately our brain cannot, our nervous system.
cannot determine between uh a grizzly bear that's going to maul you to death and Karen on
Google.
Unfortunately, we just, our nervous systems are, they're highly intelligent, but deeply,
deeply primal.
so we have these, we have two parts of our brain.
There's many parts, but the two parts we focus on is we have the back of our brain.
It's our primal brain.
And so when you enter into a circumstance, you experience a trigger.
You have a stressor.
and your primal brain immediately is like, boom, how do I establish safety?
How do I outrun the bear?
And here's the thing, you can logically know that that canceled appointment, that person
that said that it's not life or death, unfortunately, your body doesn't understand that.
And so when that happens is your primal brain goes into overdrive and your frontal lobe,
where all of your executive function is, where your logic, where the strategy, where your
higher reasoning is,
Think of that like a wifi signal.
It goes offline.
So, so long as you're, you're driven by the back of your brain, your lizard brain,
whatever you want to call it, that part of you goes offline.
And most people don't know that.
So they're like, but I have, I know what to do.
Why don't I do it?
I'm like, because when you are in a fight, flight, or some form of stress response, logic
goes offline and you default to patterns that have served you at some point.
And so,
From that lens, we're just like, if we can help people understand what is their default
stress response when they encounter a trigger.
And so there's obviously fight, flight, fawn, or freeze.
And we've developed 10 different adaptive personality types based on how you respond to
your environment.
And when you understand that, now we're bringing things that are subconscious that have
been formed likely since your childhood, uh we're now bringing them to awareness.
And we can stop feeling bad.
How we show up instead of like, why am I not showing up better doing better?
What's wrong with me?
It's like wait, hold on What's actually happening is this is this is a default wired
pattern that's been with you likely since childhood and it has served you in some ways and
that's the thing is like all it cares about all your all your stress response is about is
how do I Offload all these stress hormones.
I'm feeling and return to baseline How do I get out of this state?
And so that might mean when you have an imposing
deadline or a hard conversation, your primal brands like that sounds horrible.
Do you know what would give us relief right now is scrolling on my phone or some impulsive
Amazon shopping or that drink or that sugar.
And so how we've built that is we're like, okay, we're going to help people understand
first, what is your adaptive personality type based on your nervous system mapping.
And then when they understand that now they have a map or a lens on how to better
understand themselves.
And so then we've built tools based on those things like how to bring your frontal lobe,
your executive function part of your brain back online.
How do we regulate?
Some people might know this as somatic work, where it's like you can logically know this
isn't a threat, but your body is like, doesn't matter, I have a racing heart, I feel like
I'm dying.
That is where we practice breath work, the best and free tool.
I love this.
This is the most accessible tool we have at our disposal and that you don't have to pay
for is breath.
Just take a minute.
we're going to do one right now.
We're going to do breath work because the listeners are highly triggered by all of your
words.
They recognize that this is them, that their lizard brains are uh causing them to short
circuit their logical brain.
And I probably said that wrong, but everybody understands.
And uh
So now they're all nervous and anxious and they're like, shit, that's my problem.
What's she going to say next?
What is she going to make me do?
So breath work.
And what is breath work essentially?
Just breathing for a few minutes.
Yeah, so think about if you were out running a bear, what's your breathing like when
you're out running a bear?
It's short, it's shallow, it's, right?
And so that keeps you in the activated response.
When you are able to take a deep breath and most people don't do a deep breath properly,
so it's in through your nose, through the count of three, but you want to, most people do
shallow breathing, they don't fill their belly.
You need to fully expand your diaphragm.
So inhale for the count of three.
into your belly, not your chest.
belly.
Yes, you want to think about like filling up your belly.
Yep.
And then hold for about the count of three.
And then exhale slowly through your mouth like you're like blowing on a hot cup of cocoa,
like
Yeah.
And doing that.
have me, you distracted me with hot cup of cocoa.
I really could use one.
Yeah.
you want to repeat it about three times.
And here's what happens is when you are breathing that low and that slow, you're moving
into a rest and digest state.
Your body is realizing there is no threat because who's going to take your you're not
breathing that way when you're in a high threat.
You're not.
No one does that when they're facing a grizzly bear.
And so what that actually has is that now we've signaled to your body, we're safe, and we
can actually bring your frontal lobe back online.
That is the beauty of it.
uh
a biological thing that you're talking about, right?
I mean, this is a…
These affect our physical…
The way that our bodies are interacting in the moment physically, not just the
psychological…
It's connection, obviously.
Yes, yes, this is why most people when they're trying to bring about positive change in
their life and they can have all the desire, all the motivation, all the to-do list
planners and hacks.
But unfortunately, none of the strategy can take root when you're in a primal or survival
state, when you're in a fight flight state.
And so most people, when they're trying to change their patterns, I call it symptom
management.
All you're trying to do is do behavior modification without getting to the root cause of
what's driving the behaviors.
If we can get to the root cause, we can actually change the behaviors.
Okay, so when somebody cuts you off in the parking lot and your blood pressure goes from
zero to a thousand, are you saying that some breath work, like in the moment real quick?
100 % yes, yes.
Even if you were to take the moment to notice or say, I'm fricking pissed off right now.
Just even naming what you were feeling actually brings you out of that kind of like
hijacked response where your body's just kind of like wants to blow.
Even if you were just to name and say out loud, I'm really pissed right now.
What we're doing is we're actually bringing awareness.
And then from that moment, you might be able to like, I need to take a beat.
I need to breathe for just a second.
that, and most people,
their confusion around this is they think the goal is to not be a triggered person.
I would be like, cool, then you can become a robot because there's, there's no way to turn
off that very human part of you.
That's there for a reason.
Like you need, there are times you need to be triggered so that you can run and stay safe.
Like, so it's not about you becoming a uh less triggered human being.
It's about you becoming a more regulated human being, which means it, when I am triggered,
which is going to happen, it's about
returning to a regulated state faster.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Very cool.
Okay.
All right.
So what other tactics do you have?
I love that you're like, what other like hacks do you have?
I'm like, I know there's cause there's no way like that, that the breath work could be
that good.
I mean, there's, there's more.
could be, you know, it could be there's, there's tapping, there could be, um, all kinds of
things, but here's, here's the thing as if this is really hard for high performers, for
people that are go, go, go, go.
Uh, what they don't realize is the reason why they are go, go, go is that's a form of
dysregulation too.
That's a form of I don't feel comfortable with stillness because if this is true for me,
I'll call myself out here is like for a long time, I am an incredibly productive person,
but it took me a while to understand the reason why I'm so productive is because I'm so
terrified of what comes up with stillness, with quiet.
As soon as it gets quiet, as soon as I'm not doing something, anxiety.
I feel like.
I feel like I'm about to come out of my skin and I've had to learn, okay, wait, hold on,
what's this about?
um And so, you know, the tools and the hacks, it really is, if we could just bring
awareness, if we could just name it, and one of the biggest things you can ask yourself in
a really highly triggered moment, because most people aren't gonna say, you know what, I'm
emotional or I'm dysregulated right now.
There's nobody out there being like, you know what I'm looking for is tools to help me
regulate better, unless they're already aware of this work.
What most people are looking for is, okay, why can't I stop binge eating?
Why do I need that drink?
Why can't I stick to my budget and do I buy so much on Amazon?
Well, we have to actually look at what is the, no one wants to admit this, but what's the
state?
What is the emotional state that you're in before the behavior?
Because story drives the state, drives the behavior.
Here's what I mean by that.
If you can just take a moment.
If you can just learn to pause, promise this will change so much in your life.
If you take a moment before the behavior and ask yourself, what story am I telling myself
right now?
What am I feeling?
What am I needing in this moment?
So it might be like, I'm feeling anxiety.
What do I need in this moment?
And usually if you could just introduce a pause, it interrupts the automatic loop you find
yourself in, where it's like.
For example, I coach a lot of people on impulsive shopping.
This is a very real thing.
And especially when we get the like that really fast dopamine response, like we are a
dopamine nation.
Everything is about instant gratification.
So learning to delay that, not deny it, but learning to delay is where all of our power
is.
So I like to tell people, hey, before you buy, pause, just take a minute.
If you could just breathe.
If you do the breath work, do you still feel the urge?
Do you still feel the compulsion?
If you do, I've even encouraged people, hey, if you could just do like a 24 hour
purchasing hold.
You're not saying no, but if you still feel as intense about tomorrow, you can buy it.
And what's quite interesting is about 60 to 70 % of the time, the urge isn't there and
they don't wanna buy it the next day.
And so I've even had some people, I'm like, hey, every time you put something in the cart
and you don't buy it, I want you to write on a post-it note.
the amount that was and put it in a jar.
And at the end of the month, we're gonna add up how much your like unchecked compulsions
could cost you.
You do that?
I love it.
Yeah.
in my head, I have, I just saved 174 bucks.
Yeah, bitches.
I'm like, and then I like, you know, I feel like I got one up on the business that I was
going to give the $175 to, you know?
I feel like I'm empowered over that urge to buy the stupid whatever the hell it was.
yes.
would be cool in the moment, but do I need it?
Of course not.
Right?
Yeah.
I love that.
So hold on.
So are you in this process, are you simply giving a pause to your lizard?
I'm going to keep calling it the lizard brain because that's what I remember you referring
it to.
You probably had better terminology, but lizard brain is more fun.
So are you giving pause to your lizard brain to allow your logical side to re-circuit
instead of short circuit?
So kind of like maybe re-engage and give it some power over the lizard part.
1000 % you landed it.
Yeah, so it's like when you take that pause the the frontal lobe can come back online and
now you're capable of asking the higher reasoning questions you're able to be like well
does this actually align with my values?
this does this purchase?
Is this really that important?
That is a that is a frontal lobe question.
Your your your rear lobe is like buy it now.
right?
And your logical side can say, this is going to cause me more pain because I know I
logically recognize the pain that comes from making a similar poor decision 15 times in
the last month.
And now I'm $5,000 more in credit card debt.
That's painful from a logical standpoint.
and I recognize that I don't want that anymore.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And usually the thing we have to ask ourself is, what need do I need to meet right now?
Because if every behavior, especially one that's seeking relief, ah whether it's reading,
drinking, just whatever, wherever you are seeking your dopamine, your relief, the best
question we can ask ourself is, what need do I need to meet within myself right now?
Like, what is the unmet need?
And it's a hard question to ask.
it is, not often enough is the answer in the moment I need to uh clear up my credit card
balance.
Not often enough is it that.
yeah, no, it's not.
And I think what would really surprise me, I would say that's the, that still feels like a
strategic logical answer, and that's a valid answer.
That's a valid answer.
However, I think it's like getting to the root of, why am I telling myself I want and need
that thing?
What is the unmet need?
And if someone was willing to sit with that long enough, they might realize the unmet need
is belonging.
Meaning if I buy this thing, then I will feel a sense of belonging among my friend group
when I go out to dinner with them and they comment on this purse.
Then I feel like I belong.
Then I feel like I'm getting validation.
So it's like, what is the unmet need?
And it is often a deep seated emotional need.
No one wants to hear that, but it is true.
Mm-hmm, but that's where we are in this conversation those Lulu babies or whatever they're
called.
You know what I'm talking about?
Oh my gosh, what is this called?
Shit.
No, are you kidding?
I'm older than you are What
Lububu.
uh A Lububu doll.
It's the most absurd thing.
um The guy…
The only reason I know about it…
Here.
You can see it on the screen now.
That's a Lububu doll.
and my barber.
more.
No, other way.
Let me see.
There.
Okay.
What is that?
Okay.
And ah it's a little monster guy.
And it's essentially a plush toy, a doll, a fuzzy doll, you know, uh stuffed animal kind
of deal.
Except um it's got like sharp teeth.
It's maybe a little bit like the ugly dolls.
Remember the ugly dolls that are back that your kids might like those?
My kids like those.
um
So I first heard about this reading kind of like business media and it said that like the
youngest billionaire in China, dude's worth like $25 billion, he came up with Labooboo,
which is this absurd looking plush toy and they charge like 75 bucks for these little
things.
They're no bigger than your hand.
Okay, so.
And then within days, I had multiple interactions about Labooboos from separate people.
So one was my barber who had a Labooboo sitting on a station.
For what reason?
I don't know.
We started, I started making fun of it and we're all making fun of it.
And then some friends of mine have an eight year old girl.
She spent $75 of her own money earned from whatever, you know, doing chores on a Labooboo
doll.
So anyway, this is
kind of like the most irrational thing in listeners.
Maybe if I'm missing something here, please excuse me.
But I'm pretty sure that this is this insane thing where there's a sense of m maybe FOMO
because apparent, you know, there's a little bit of um scarcity.
Somebody explain to me that they're quote, hard to get, which I doubt.
um
but there's a sense that they're hard to get.
So if you get one, all of a sudden maybe that increases your sense of status.
And then of course belonging to this supposedly exclusive group of people who also maybe
did a good job of getting a Lububu doll and paying $75.
So is this, so now I've, now for your edification, you know what a Lububu doll is.
I know.
I've just killed brain cells.
I've killed some of your brain cells through the virtual call from afar.
But yeah, like you always have to look at what is the psychological tripwire?
What is the psychological tripwire to the purchase or to the thing?
And, you know, that one is like a sense of belonging, a sense of like, again, status.
uh Again, so much of like, we might be in the year 2025, but are, we still operate at a
very primal level.
Meaning like back in the hunter gatherer days,
You could not survive alone.
And so this idea, like you had to be in your village.
And so to be ousted from your village would mean certain death.
Like you were out, you were alone, you died.
Well, we don't have the same idea of villages now, except for we have villages that could
be like your followers.
It could be your family.
It could be your friendships.
So anything that might potentially have your village.
look at you as if you do not belong here or hey everybody in the village dresses this way
why don't you well we have what's kicking in right now is a very deep survival reflex
where i am going to buy the purse i cannot afford to belong in a village that dresses this
way so i belong here and my answer to you would be like find another fucking village can i
say that yeah
that one's gonna kill you from the inside.
from the inside, I watch people do it.
you know, do you know who, like the Louis Vuitton, do you know their target market?
Do you know who they actually market to?
Have you heard this?
Yes.
middle market.
It's not even the people who pay 15,000.
It's all the little bullshit like the key chains for $400 and those things.
it is all people who long to for who want to pay for a status symbol period.
this is what I tell and I have plenty of friends who are just so ridiculous.
Like they always have to have labels on them and everything.
And the ones that I know well enough to tease, I'm like, you know that there is absolutely
nothing exclusive about that thing that you're wearing.
I'm like, they sold and I actually read the financial reports for this company.
I mean, they,
They sold like $25 billion worth of these quote unquote luxury products more than just
about anybody else.
And they make for every dollar that you spend on that stupid little dongle that costs 400
bucks, something like 65 % of it is pure profit to the company.
Yep.
Yep.
So you kinda, like if you think of it from the logical standpoint, it's a very foolish
thing to do, isn't it?
It is, but unfortunately we are quite emotional creatures.
you're explaining why, it's not foolish, that's the wrong word to use.
You're explaining why uh people get value out of making that purchase.
And it's not the dongle, right?
It's not the key chain, doesn't matter whether it holds your keys or not.
It's all the psychological elements that are primal that you already named, why people do
that.
Yeah, it's all about belonging and this doesn't have to just be with purchases.
It could just be like, you know, some people that are afraid to speak up their mind, say
their piece.
It's like, well, if I say my opinion, how might I not belong here anymore?
So in order to preserve my belonging, I will silence myself, shrink myself.
So this is not just limited to your bank account.
This is every area of your life.
This is how you charge for services, how you interact with your clients.
It's
Everything.
It's not just what you eat or drink or buy.
Everything.
about, so we beat the dead horse of the shopaholic.
What about the person who, maybe I'm quoting, because I don't know if it's the right word
or not, but self-medicates by um eating things that they shouldn't eat.
They don't control their intake of food or drink because of a similar sort of primal
thing.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
course we have these enormous GLP-1 drugs, know, Ozempic and Wegeve that have come on the
scene, tremendously popular.
And so talk about that.
What could be a tactic for gaining control over eating and consuming things that you
shouldn't?
Yeah, I think it's just exploring the relationship with the things you eat.
And so again, it's always going back to the same question.
What is the need I'm trying to meet or what is the thing I'm trying to not feel or what am
I wanting to feel?
What if we can just pause just for a second?
So I'm going to give you an example.
I had someone that in our coaching program that someone is working with one of my coaches
and she identifies as a sugar addict.
She's like, I'm a sugar addict.
I cannot help myself.
And I was like, that's really interesting.
that she would assign that as an identity, that she looks at her behaviors and she's just
decided, she doesn't see herself as I am somebody who reaches for sugar, she is I am a
sugar addict.
So she's now taking her behaviors, assigned it as an identity, and now we have this
enmeshed thing going on.
And so I'm like, okay, what if we just start by changing the conversation with like, I am
somebody who struggles in my relationship with sugar, or I'm learning to approach sugar
differently.
But the thing that was happening was she was, what she was doing was her only way of
trying to solve for it was she's trying to bulldoze her way through denial.
Like I'm just, I can't have it deny, deny, deny.
But there's actually uh studies that show willpower actually erodes with time.
It's a muscle that actually, the more stress you put on it, the more it weakens.
And so what happened was I was like, here's the assignment I want you to do.
And anybody can do this.
If you're like, I cannot help myself.
with this food in the house or with this thing, this is what I do.
If you could, again, we're just taking the pause.
When you're reaching for that thing, if you could just take a moment there and the goal is
not to say, I can't have that thing.
Cause as soon as we have that, I can't have that thing, our little toddler inside of us
comes out and wants to stomp their feet and I have to have it.
So it's like, yeah, it gets mad, it stomps its feet.
So instead of denial, we're just gonna delay just for a second.
And I would say before you eat that thing,
on a scale of one to 10, 10 being like, I feel like my body is being hijacked.
I have to have it.
One being like, I could care less if I eat it.
What is your craving or your desire on a scale of one to 10, right before you grab the
thing.
So they might say, it is an eight.
I feel like I'm dying.
Be like, cool.
There could be multiple reasons why somebody is reaching for food, food, especially if
it's sugar or flour creates a dopamine response.
So we actually get those little happy, happy feelings going on.
So
There is a reason our brain has associated with like, if you just grab this dopamine, I'll
feel better.
And so when we do that, it's just like, all right, we're just gonna take, again, do a
couple breaths.
And so we're getting out of like this, because when you're feeling that compulsion or the
intense urge, you are not in a grounded state.
You're in a pretty activated state.
And so if you could just calm down, breathe, and so we had her do this.
We're like, okay, rate it, pause.
You're not allowed to say, it's not no.
Rate your desire.
You're gonna do the breath three times.
After that, rate your desire.
And she found that the desire dropped from like a 10 where she felt helpless to a six or a
five.
Yes!
But most people aren't willing to do the pause.
They don't want to.
like, they'll…
Right, because they want to satisfy that they want to scratch the itch.
Yes.
And, and especially if we've been conditioned for really fast instant, like I feel
uncomfortable.
Uh-oh.
I've I'm already a handful deep in chocolate chips.
I'd like, all right, you've caught yourself the first handful.
Let's pause before the next handful.
And we're going to just sit with curiosity.
That's all we're just going to be really compassionate, curious.
So she found the desire dropped and then we're like, okay.
Then from that place, ask yourself, do I still want it?
Does this still feel like the supportive thing I want or is there something else I can
offer myself?
I can't tell you how many women I have coached in this where they were like, I had one
woman, she's like, Kristen, every day I get the same giant venti vanilla latte from
Starbucks and a big blueberry muffin.
And we're like, that's like 750 empty calories.
It's not gonna stay with you, do nothing for you.
Oh, it's just like, and so what she did was she, on her way driving to Starbucks, she did
the breath work.
we have our, we have audio tools inside of our, inside of our, our program.
And so she listened to one, she went in and she was able to, she's completely changed
order.
She's like, I didn't want the pastry.
I didn't want my, my sugary vanilla latte.
I ended up subbing it to like non-fat skinny, and I got a spinach feta wrap instead.
And I couldn't even believe it.
So she was like, I feel like, I felt like a completely different person.
was like, you walked in as a regulated person.
That's what it was.
You made a decision from a
intentional place.
And the sense of accomplishment that comes out of that, is that equal, better, worse than
scratching the itch, so to speak.
% because every time she scratched the it she'd be left feeling with like guilt and shame
and beating herself up like why do I do that?
God, it's just she would get the dopamine in the moment, but then there was like regret
and shame and the Unkind conversation with herself afterwards, but with this she was so it
was so sweet when she shared it with us.
She was so proud.
She's like I Didn't even think I was capable of that.
I didn't even think that was possible for me my whole life I've just always grabbed the
thing and it felt
I felt helpless and now she feels empowered.
And I even tell people, I'm like, listen, even if you breathe and you still choose the
thing, you're choosing it from a different place.
And the conversation becomes different.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
I want the listeners to try this.
You know, I think, I don't know, I'm not the best one to have this conversation because I
tend to, you know, the logical part of me is like the Hulk and I want it to beat the other
part of me so badly that sometimes, I mean, I literally, think of it like a game and
uh I'm so I'm really good at strengthening the green muscular logical Hulk inside of me
and and I do and I feel great about when the Hulk wins against Yeah, no, I know there's I
I'm just I'm a hundred percent describing a separate psychological issue That we're gonna
transition to now
That's my segue for, okay, psychotic people like me, what is our problem?
Actually, I think it's most men.
Most men have just been, there's cultural conditioning, there's childhood conditioning,
there's all kinds of things like that, but most men will have a fight response when it
comes to their stress response.
And there's nothing to, they see stress as something to control, manhandle, conquer, power
through, and that's fantastic.
It makes them great business owners, very decisive, but it can also make them a bowl in a
china shop.
Mm-hmm.
uh It's just different.
Everyone has a different response.
That's why there's 10 different adaptive personality types.
Everyone's different.
Okay, so this is all very fascinating.
Our listenership is about 90 % beauty professionals, hairstylist beauty professionals.
Surprisingly, I often run into people who are not in the beauty industry at all who listen
to this podcast, which is always very, very fascinating.
I'm like, really?
Like there's not 800 other more entertaining podcasts for you to listen to for whatever
reason they listen.
So I actually have friends too who are like, you know, they're insurance salesmen or
whatever, and they listen every week.
And it's like, why are you listening?
Why are you here?
Okay.
Mostly um independent beauty professionals.
You yourself were a beauty professional, so you get it.
So what's the most valuable thing you can say to this audience?
Yeah, I would say in the lens of understanding yourself, understanding your stress
response, we've kind of pulled it out of the salon and in your like day-to-day life, but
um you know, I've coached a lot of business owners, six, seven, eight, nine figure
business owners, and there's a really hard pill to swallow.
Cause most people are like, you know, why is my income goal, my revenue goal?
Why am I not hitting that?
And the easy thing to do is go out there and be like, it's.
my clients, they're not coming in.
It's the foot traffic, it's the algorithm, it's the economy, it's those things.
And to say like there's some validity to that, but if that's where you're putting all of
your, if all the answers are always outside of you, then so is your ability to make money.
And like you're always going to be helpless to things around you instead of, okay.
What is my responsibility in this?
And I have a very painful ouchy pill for everyone to swallow.
And I have said this to business owners who are doing, I mean, a billion dollars.
And it's all the same across the board.
And I say, every business problem is actually a business owner problem.
If your business is underperforming, it's likely because you are underperforming.
And it could be with your decision-making, how you're pricing your offers, how you're
relating to your customers, um how you are
upholding your boundaries or investing in yourself.
And so uh that is a really hard pill to swallow.
just like it's, yeah, learning to take radical responsibility and accountability for every
aspect of your life is the most painful and rewarding thing you will ever do.
And so when you stop being a victim and I will say, listen, this was my work too.
I'm not like being, none of this is things I haven't had to work on myself.
and realizing, okay, well, how am I showing up in these ways?
And uh where am I um kind of defaulting to old patterns and saying, this is just who I am?
I can't tell you how many people will look at their habitual patterns, their stress
response patterns.
So if we have somebody that is a flight type, that's like, and that's me.
And there's two different types of flight types.
But if we have somebody that's like looking at their patterns and like, okay, I
repetitively will say yes to too many things, burn myself out, get myself in trouble and
fall and fall back on my word or my follow through or my productivity starts to suffer.
Why do I keep doing this?
Most people will just say, or I'm just a procrastinator.
It's I've been this way my whole life.
And what people don't realize is that procrastination
is a stress response.
It is your survival brain kicking in being like, hey, that big scary thing over there,
that deadline, that project, I'm going to delay or escape or uh put a buffer between me
and having to do that.
So I'm going to go do anything else that's going to provide relief or dopamine so I don't
have to do the thing.
And so when we view procrastination not as an identity or personality trait, but as a
survival coping mechanism we default to, the good thing is we get to change it.
So I would say every part of you where you're just like, uh, I'm just someone that's
chronically late or I'm just like a careless creative or, uh, I'm always just going to
make this money.
I'd be like, I want to challenge you and ask you where, where are you contributing?
Where's your behaviors here?
Where is your, why do you, why are you defaulting to these patterns instead of same thing
with a sugar addict?
It's like, what if you're not a sugar addict?
What if you are working on having a better relationship with food?
What if you're understanding these parts of yourself?
So
If you, for someone that's like, why, why don't I have the client base I want?
Why am I not making the money I want?
I'd be like, let's ask that question, but it's not allowed to be outside.
Let's answer that question, but your answers aren't allowed to be outside of you.
You have to ask, you know, the hard stuff.
right.
And of course, the logical part jumps in there.
You can't control a lot of those external things.
It's nice to blame them because we can't control them.
Then all of sudden it's not our fault.
Right?
No accountability.
The only thing that we have control over, are the things, those are the only things that
you can really respond to and have uh and, you know, choose behavior in order to move
yourself in the right direction despite
the environment that you don't control.
yes.
Yeah, there's so many things that like the hairstylist that's listening and like think
about all the things you can control.
You can control your skill level.
Like are you investing in improving your skills or do you just feel like are you
comfortable and are you cruising and you just think because I've been doing this for 15
years I haven't done anything to refine my skills.
But the length of time in the industry means I am owed a raise.
would say absolutely not.
Sorry, it's not the length of time.
I would actually say, what's your skill level?
How are you investing back into your craft?
Like nothing, nothing pisses me off more than entitlement.
When it, especially in the entrepreneurial space, I'm like, you are not owed anything.
You are not owed a thing.
but you can go and take ownership and be like, invest in your craft.
You are in charge of your offer.
You can decide who your clients are and not you get to decide to fire some people keep
some people You're in charge of your schedule You're in charge of your work and but like
where you want to work and the business model you want to be under commission or rent
Listen to all these choices I'm giving but yet some people are like this is my lot in life
And this is how it will always be and I'm like, here's the world's tiniest
going to be over here miserable because and complain about everything else.
because it's easier to be miserable.
It's easier.
It's not fun, but it's easy to be miserable and have it be everybody else's fault.
so easy to bitch and complain and be bitter about the external world.
Yeah.
Do you know that you can actually be addicted to bitterness?
You can actually be like, you can be addicted to misery.
Absolutely, because it's easy.
Yeah.
it's like you're constantly off the hook.
It makes me think of like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, like, hi Pooh, I'm just, oh, how's
it going?
Exactly, yeah.
Well, this is a lot of fun.
This is one of those deep conversations where somebody's got to hang in there and kind of
pay attention to all the theories and the concepts that you're talking about.
Some of these things are a little abstract, so sometimes maybe a little bit difficult to
wrap around, uh to wrap our brains around them, but super amazing.
And of course, this is just an introduction to much deeper things that you do.
um So where is the best place for somebody to find you?
Chris and boss on Instagram, or do you prefer?
they can find me personally, Kristen Boss on Instagram, or you can check out
sonderalife.com.
And we have a free quiz where you can learn if you fall in the fight, flight, fawn, or
freeze.
And then from there, if you're like, I want to unlock the full report to understand
myself, where your feelings might get a little hurt.
But most people say they feel an enormous sense of relief.
They're like, oh, I finally understand myself.
I feel like I just took the shortcut that therapy was trying to give me for 15 years.
because of the deep pain of making the wrong decisions and the wrong behavioral actions,
right?
That pain is much deeper and the satisfaction from conquering some of these issues is
gonna be huge.
Right?
Roar, conquer.
Yes, I have no emotions.
I am only logic.
men it's stress.
don't tell men it's emotions.
I say, stress, your stress response.
And the answer is, what stress?
Meanwhile, I'm laying there all night, unable to sleep.
I actually sleep fine.
I'm kidding.
But I know exactly what you're talking about.
I plenty of guy friends who are just disasters.
And they have their own hills to climb and stuff like that.
So super cool that you offer this.
And you definitely know what you're talking about.
And hopefully the listeners hit you up.
Thank you, Chris and boss.
was so good being here.
Thanks so much for having me.
It was a real fun chat.
- Transitioning from Hairstylist to Performance Coach
- Understanding Stress Responses and Regulation Techniques
- Understanding Compulsions and Urges
- The Role of the Frontal Lobe in Decision Making
- Identifying Unmet Needs Behind Purchases
- The Psychological Triggers of Consumer Behavior
- Exploring Relationships with Food and Eating Habits
- Business Decisions and Personal Accountability
- Taking Control of Your Life and Business Â
This Week's Topics
- Transitioning from Hairstylist to Performance Coach
- Understanding Stress Responses and Regulation Techniques
- Understanding Compulsions and Urges
- The Role of the Frontal Lobe in Decision Making
- Identifying Unmet Needs Behind Purchases
- The Psychological Triggers of Consumer Behavior
- Exploring Relationships with Food and Eating Habits
- Business Decisions and Personal Accountability
- Taking Control of Your Life and Business Â
