IAM1179- Psychologist Helps People Handle High-stress Occupations

Registered Psychologist, Dr. Ganz Ferrance, is a Speaker, Author, and Coach. Since the early ‘90 Dr. Ganz has been helping individuals, couples, families, and corporations beat BURNOUT, reduce their levels of stress, improve their relationships, and enjoy more success.

Known for working with the toughest of the tough including fourth-generation gang members, hardened oil and gas workers, battle-tested CEOs and entrepreneurs, and stressed-out law enforcement officers, Dr. Ganz is truly a master at showing people in high-stress occupations with no-nonsense, practical strategies to stay focused, make healthy decisions under pressure and boost communication skills to reduce conflict during difficult situations.

• CEO Hack: Managing my state for optimal performance
• CEO Nugget: Cultivate a sense of humor and look for opportunities
• CEO Defined: Having the courage to be a servant leader

Website: http://askdrganz.com/

Stress-Busting Tips: www.askdrganzVIP.com

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/askdrganz-com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askdrganz/

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:24 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

If you're a CEO, you're a leader who is responsible for the people who have given you the right to lead, right? That's the people downstream for you, the board, whoever else that your customers, your suppliers, everybody. Your job then is to have a vision, cast that vision, and then support all the people around you to do their very best.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Gantz Ferance from AskDrGantz.com. Dr. Gantz, It's great to have you on the show.

01:01 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

Hey, Gretchen. Thanks so much for having me here. I'm really happy to be here.

01:04 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I'm super excited to have you on as well, too. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Dr. Gantz so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Registered psychologist Dr. Gantz is a speaker, author, and coach. Since the early 90s, Dr. Gantz has been helping individuals, couples, families, and corporations beat burnout, reduce their levels of stress, improve their relationships, and enjoy more success.

Known for working with the toughest of the tough, including fourth-generation gang members, hardened oil and gas workers, battle-tested CEOs and entrepreneurs, and stressed-out law enforcement officers, Dr. Gantz is office a master at showing people occupations, no-nonsense, to stay focused, make hea pressure and boost communic conflict during difficult connected through the Evo So super excited to hear things you've been doing of course, having you on ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:59 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

I'm so honored to be able to do that. So thank you for sharing your audience with me. Love it.

02:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing your gift as well, too. And speaking of that gift, I want to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I like to call your CEO story.

02:13 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

Yeah. So, you know, for a long time, I wanted to kind of understand how people function, what is it that makes us tick, right? And so I went into psychology and after being in private practice for quite a while, but also being on the other side of the couch, so to speak, I was also in therapy for quite a while, and I still am in therapy, 30 years later, I started to really see certain patterns that would show up for people, and especially in my own life.

And so what I did was I realized that, okay, If I can put a system together, not only can it keep me straight, but it can also do a lot of good for a lot of people. And so this is kind of where my me factor system kind of developed. But I also realized, you know, talking to I got this weird entrepreneurial bend, right, to me. So it's like, I'm always looking to see if I could do better, build a business here and there and stuff like that. And I realized, you know, the business is always a reflection of me, right?

It's always a reflection of who I am, how well I'm doing, you know, what my thought process is, what my paradigm for life is. And I realized that when I had a better paradigm for life when my state was better, I was, you know, in a calmer, more healthy state, I could recognize opportunities better. I acted on them faster. I was way more creative. And I had this huge buffer for stress.

When I was not in that state, things didn't go as well. So this is what sort of prompted me to put all this stuff together in a system really for myself and then I want to pass it on to my kids. But then I realized that a lot of clients could benefit from it. Then a lot of my, you know, CEO and entrepreneurial friends also could benefit from it. And that's kind of what got me started.

03:54 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to hear a little bit more about your lane, and the race that you're running. Can you take us through a little bit more on how you're working with your clients, how you're making an impact, and how you serve them?

04:01 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

So my 3 big areas are burnout, burnout, prevention, recovery, and relationships and communication. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, it really helped me. I burnt myself out a few times in the past. one time I was actually doing this crazy kind of circuit in the northern part of this, the province where I live up in Canada here in Alberta, Canada. And you know, I woke up in a hotel one day and I had a splitting headache for like 2 weeks and I woke up and I didn't know where I was and it was scary.

I thought I'd had a stroke or something bad had happened, right? And that was one of the big motivators to say, okay, I got to do this differently. Because I was at that point, I was doing things the way it was early in my career. And it was like, I was doing things the way I was expected to or told to or what everybody else was doing, right? Work hard, make your boss happy, that sort of thing.

And I realized that, no, I can't do this. If I'm broken, then whatever service that I can give is also broken or gone. Right. And so I had to really rethink how I did my life and also my business. And so so that really created helped me create the system for myself to keep me on track. And when I did that, then I realized that it wasn't just to like, you know, kind of recover and help me, you know, not be burnt out again. But it actually enhanced my life, it actually helped me to be better.

So I was better at, you know, spending time with my wife, you know, I didn't have kids at the time. But when the kids came, it's like, okay, I can actually present for the kids. That's awesome. My health was better. I started making better decisions at work and more opportunities. I don't know if more opportunities came or if I just probably just recognized those opportunities more. And I was able to act on them better. And so this is kind of it really solidified how powerful this idea of well 2 ideas really one is managing your state is you know is one of the core things.

If I can manage my state then everything else tends to work better. Then the other one is proactivity, which is if I can start to think ahead if I can not be reactive, which unfortunately much of the world is reactive, especially my particular profession, psychology, which tends to be built more on, especially people's perceptions, it's built more on the reactive, It's built on more on the sickness spot. Well, you go see the shrink that I tell you that something's wrong, right?

And so really focusing on being proactive and positive, because I really believe that the, you know, the best defense for a lot of the stuff that we deal with stress, anxiety, depression, all these different things that are sort of common cold of, of our minds and our emotions, the best defense to that is a good offense. When I find that I am working well on myself, I'm choosing the direction of my evolution and I'm working towards my own enhancement, I tend not to have room in my life for these things and they don't really come up very much. And then when I teach my students to do this, this is what they find too.

They find not only are they able to avoid this stuff, but their life is way better and they actually enjoy what they're doing more and they can be creative and have more success that way. And So that's kind of the core of what it is, really positive, proactive, and really life-enhancing, as opposed to trying to find something wrong and fix, quote-unquote, fix what's broken.

07:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think so many times you mentioned in your industry, but I think in so many ways people aren't necessarily proactive, like, and we talked a little bit about, you know, being a leader and being kind of more in the middle of the road or being in that middle spot so that you don't disrupt, you don't exactly, you keep things, you know, status quo, you keep things as they are, you can just kind of go with the flow.

But I think when you are being proactive, A lot of times it is putting things in place, putting habits or practices of those things in place so that you're able to understand that when that stress comes up, then you're able to kind of navigate that because you've, for lack of a better term, worked out the muscles and built that so that it is able to withstand certain times whenever they might come up. So I love that you're able to kind of do that with your students and the people that you work with. Because I think those are kinds of skills that you'll always need and never go out of fashion or out of style. So it's something great that you kind of build, help people to build.

08:13 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

Yeah, exactly. Right. I like the simple concept. I like to think of it as a happy bank. If we have lots of deposits in our happy bank, then when the tough time comes and we need to take some withdrawals, we have some buffer. Most people, unfortunately, live in overdraft. We're constantly overdrafted in a happy bank. Just a simple thing, if you have a big meeting coming up that you know will be a little bit stressful either because you got to prepare or whatever difficult people you're dealing with, whatever it is, do some things ahead of time to make some deposits.

Go and play some golf if that's your thing, or get some extra sleep, or hang out with the family, or eat some food you like. Whatever it is build that account in your happy bank so then you're in a better state to go and deal with these difficult people when you're giving the presentation. But then you also want to do, you know, create some time for, I would say recovery after that, right? So yeah, after a big thing like that, you know, maybe give yourself a few days to pace yourself.

Don't jump right back in and, oh, I got to catch up with the emails, I got to do what? No, no, take your time, ease back in, do the same things, and maybe a little extra sleep on the back end, some things are going to feed your soul, and your spirit on the back and get some exercise, and then ease back into your regular routine. Just by doing that, what you're going to do is that particular incident, whatever that is, that meeting is going to go way better. But you're going to have way more energy.

And so your longevity expands. The next meeting is going to be better. And how you treat the people back at work when you get back there is better. And all this other stuff starts to be a synergistic kind of positive cycle that creates more health, better culture, all that stuff in your company, but then gives you more longevity in your career. And you tend to just let your winds run. And you also cut your losses short when you're able to have an approach like this.

10:03 – Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that. That's that kind of like having that, you know, that short-term memory and understanding. You know, I think a lot of times we, first of all, don't realize how sometimes if we're blessed, of course, you know, life can be and opportunities can be. And that the things that we think are fires or things that are going to completely destroy us or our business are sometimes things we'll forget about in the next 5 minutes or let alone 5 years or 5 you know weeks or whatever.

We forget about that aspect but also I love that And I don't know if that might be a hack, something you feel like makes you more effective and efficient, but that ability to build out that happy bank and be able to kind of go to that, not knowing when that might happen, but having that practice and that habit in place, that muscle built so that you're able to kind of go back to that would be like what you would consider a hack.

10:45 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

Absolutely. I consider that a hack. You know, the bigger concept on that is state management. That's one of the things I think is anything you do to manage your state, when a happy bank is one of those things, You make sure that you build yourself up. So you have the extra, right? Okay, if I got $10, 000 in my bank and I got to write a $5, 000 check, I'm okay. If I got $2, 000 in my bank, I'm gonna be in a little bit of trouble, right? If I'm in overdraft, then I'm really screwed, right?

So, you know, you wanna manage your state and that's the thing. And, you know, I actually have an owner's manual in my system that people go through. I go through with people to help them figure out, okay, what is it that is gonna help you be your best? How do we get optimal performance from you so you can be happy most of the time and perform your best? And honestly, when things start to go well, you know that you're doing these things, but when things start to fall off, you can go back and check and say, hey, well, wait a second, what haven't I done? Or what do I need to do more of to get back to that prime state?

Because once you're in that state, all that brilliance gets to flow. If you're not in that state, I don't care how smart you are, how good you are, you're going to fall apart. It's like if you're going into your house and got your keys, you've done that thousands of times, right? But if a dog's chasing you or you really got to pee or something, right? Like you dropping the keys, you're upside down, it's like it takes you forever to get into the house. It's not like you lost the skill to open a door, right? Just your state is wrong. And that's, you know, it's a simple, simple process, simple concept. But it's one of the most powerful hacks that I can think of.

12:21 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate that. And so you might have already touched on this, but what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget, which is kind of a word of wisdom or piece of advice, something you might tell a client or if you were to happen to a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

12:35 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

My younger self? Yeah, honestly, I would say that you know, and you touched on it actually, Gresham. You said, you know, you're going to laugh about this in 5 years or 5 months or whatever. Don't take yourself so seriously at the moment, right? One of the best ways to manage your state is to cultivate a sense of humor and to be able to laugh at your situation and also look for opportunities.

If I've been through this, I've lived long enough now, I've been through this enough times that things that I thought were, you know, at the time, horrible, you know, things that happened in my life have really turned out to be a blessing in disguise, right? They've really come out to be something that has been powerful and positive in my life.

13:16 – Gresham Harkless

It actually brings me to my favorite question, which actually I love because a lot of it is built upon looking from the center, which is the definition of what it means to be a quote-unquote CEO, and the goal of that the question is really to look at from different perspectives from everybody to see and define it for themselves what it means to them. So I want to ask you, Dr. Gaines, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:35 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

It means having the courage to be the leader. I really believe in servant leadership. If you're a CEO, you're a leader who is responsible for the people who have given you the right to lead, right? That's the people downstream for you, the board, whoever else, your customers, your suppliers, everybody. Your job then is to have a vision, cast that vision, and then support all the people around you to do their very best.

Give them the tools they need not just the physical tools, but the emotional tools, the environment, the mindset, and the support that they need to do their best. And so by doing that, you're kind of like the conductor of an orchestra. You might be able to play some of the instruments, but your real job is getting the high-level picture and making sure all the instruments play together and make sure that there's harmony. And I think that's, to me, that's what a CEO does and who that CEO is.

14:28 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Dr. Gaines, truly appreciate that definition And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:44 – Dr. Ganz Ferrance

Thank you. So the best way to get ahold of me is my website. It is askdrgans.com. A-S-K-D-R-G-A-N-Z or Zed if you're from Canada or England.com. And there's also I have a free gift for people who are interested. It's askdrgansvip.com. And what that is, is my 12 stress-busting strategies. And you also get an Ask Dr. Gans component where every week you can ask questions and pick a question and I answer, and I give you a video answer to your question. So you get to touch and feel a real psychologist that's not too scary in the privacy of your own computer. So that's how best to get a hold of me.

15:24 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, no, I love that Dr. Gans. And we will definitely have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can get ahold of you. I love, love, love that last point that you left us with because even in alignment with your definition, of what it means to be a CEO, we often forget about the impact that we can have from the things that we do, the leadership, the courage that we can have from the regular actions that we take.

And not realizing that even if we're quote-unquote CEO, we're small business owners, we're entrepreneurs, whatever title we might give, we're creating a culture just by the actions and things that we do in so many people's lives. Those that are in our business, those that are affected by our business, those that we just have relationships with on so many different levels.

So I appreciate you so much leaving us with that because I think it kind of reminds us of the impact that we can have by being what we hope to see and what we hope to experience in the world that we live in. So I appreciate you so much for of course doing that as well too and reminding us of that. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:17 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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