Episode Description
Can empathy be your superpower in making better decisions? According to Dr. Stephanie Grunewald, the answer is definitely, “Yes!”
In this podcast episode Dr. Stephanie shares her personal journey from traditional therapist to mastermind and retreat leader and founder of Ancorio. Inspired by her own transformative experiences during a challenging period in her life, Dr. Stephanie discusses the importance of balancing logic and intuition for effective decision-making.
The episode delves into practical strategies for decision-making and self-care. Dr. Stephanie’s approach integrates scientific understanding with intuition, helping you tap into your inner wisdom to navigate complex personal and professional decisions.
Dr. Stephanie's work offers a refreshing perspective on achieving success while staying true to yourself in today's demanding world.
Show Notes
About Dr. Stephanie
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald is a Work-Life Alignment Strategist and founder of Ancorio. With over a decade of experience as a psychologist, Stephanie empowers Ambitious Empaths through mastermind groups, transformative programs, and RESET Retreats. Her work, grounded in research-based strategies, focuses on helping women balance empathy with ambition, fostering resilience, and achieving professional success while maintaining personal well-being.
Connect with Dr. Stephanie
You can connect with Dr. Stephanie on LinkedIn at Dr. Stephanie Grunewald. To find out more about how to work with Dr. Stephanie visit her website at Ancorio and follow her on Instagram at Dr. Stephanie Grunewald.
To discover how to navigate work-life alignment and manage stress with professional peers Join the WISE Community Mastermind Group. And to learn more about the upcoming fall RESET Retreat, join the waitlist here.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Dr. Stephanie Grunewald
- Dr. Stephanie transitioned from being a traditional psychologist to leading retreats and masterminds after her mother's early passing from Alzheimer's, which led her to reflect on how she was spending her time.
- She founded Ancorio, based on the Latin word for anchor, to help women "anchor within" - feeling confident and believing they have everything they need to succeed already within themselves.
- Dr. Stephanie works primarily with ambitious empaths, helping them align empathy with self-awareness to make decisions aligned with their values and goals.
- Key strategies Dr. Stephanie uses for decision-making:
- Use the "pause and reflect" technique to move beyond immediate emotional reactions
- Journal to clarify core values and long-term goals
- Set timelines for decisions to avoid analysis paralysis
- Focus on aligning with their values
- Self-care is crucial and should be a daily routine, not just occasional:
- Regular exercise, healthy eating, adequate sleep
- Mindful breaks throughout the day
- Retreats for deeper reset and connection
- Intuition plays an important role in decision-making, especially for emotional decisions like relationships
- The gut feeling can't always be verbalized or rationalized
- Sometimes intuition conflicts with logical pros/cons lists
- For big life decisions, getting diverse perspectives and accountability from others can be helpful
- Dr. Stephanie emphasizes the importance of alignment - making choices that resonate with your core values and goals, even if they don't make logical sense on paper
- Dr. Stephanie also believes retreats provide an opportunity for women to reset, connect with like-minded individuals, and potentially make big life decisions.
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Transcript
Harnessing Empathy for Better Decision-Making with Dr. Stephanie Grunewald
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
empathy, alignment, self-care, decision-making
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Dr. Stephanie Grunewald
Karen Covy Host
00:02
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making to help us figure out what keeps us stuck. But, more importantly, how do we get unstuck? I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur.
With me today I have Stephanie Grunewald and Dr. Stephanie is an alignment strategist and founder of Ancorio. With over a decade of experience as a psychologist, Stephanie empowers ambitious empaths through mastermind groups, transformative programs and reset retreats. Her work, grounded in research-based strategies, focuses on helping women balance empathy with ambition, fostering resilience and achieving professional success while maintaining personal well-being. Her journey has allowed her to guide her clients in achieving their loftiest goals and rediscovering their authentic selves in ways that they never thought possible. Dr Stephanie, welcome to the show.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
01:08
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
Karen Covy Host
01:14
I'm thrilled to have you and to have this conversation, but before we dive into the millions of questions I want to ask you, I'd like to start with your own personal journey. How did you go from being a traditional therapist to leading retreats and masterminds and doing all the things that you do today?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
01:31
Yeah, I mean that's a great question and for me it really started. I loved, loved, loved being a psychologist and I still really enjoy my work. But my mom had unfortunately been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in her 50s and ultimately passed away at the really young age of 61. And so for me, you can imagine, that was a really difficult time and it just caused me to reflect so much on my own life and how I was spending my own time, you know, both during her battle with the illness and her ultimate passing. And we were in the middle of COVID, unfortunately when she was ill. So that led me to find hiking.
02:13
I didn't know what else to do and how else to release my grief and that was a safe thing that I could do and social distance and all the things. So when I was hiking in Tennessee I actually had like this really transformative moment where I just recognized that there was so much more that I could do, where I could work with people proactively before things developed into mental health difficulties. I could help with the epidemic of loneliness by creating a community, because there were so many times in my sessions where I thought what if I could just make my clients all be friends and then, ultimately, it was giving myself flexibility and freedom because, with my mom's situation, she worked her entire life thinking someday she would retire, and this has led me to really recognize I have to save her every moment. I can't save things for the future. So that was really how Ancorio was founded was just thinking about where my life was going, how I wanted it and the impact that I wanted to make with people in this world.
Karen Covy Host
03:14
That's beautiful and I don't know if it has a meaning or not, but Ancorio, it's an interesting name. Is there a meaning behind it? What does it mean?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
03:23
What a great question. So Ancorio is like a spin on the term, the Latin term anchor, and this is the mission that I'm trying to achieve, which is to help women anchor within, and everyone's like an anchor is heavy. What does that mean? Right, but for me, what an anchor means is it helps you feel steadfast in the storms of life. So it's not about finding validation from someone else, it's not about a promotion or your salary. It's all about feeling confident with who you are, as you are, and knowing and believing that you have everything you need to succeed already within you.
Karen Covy Host
03:56
That's beautiful. So I know that a lot of the work that you do these days is with women who are empaths. Why, why choose that group of people?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
04:10
Well, I don't know that I chose them so much as they chose me. If I'm being honest with you, when I first opened Ancorio, I did not say that I worked with ambitious empaths. I worked with women and I just felt like those are the women who really resonated, who reached out and who worked together. And then I thought it was important that I protect that space, because there's nothing wrong with people who aren't empaths, but we do think and feel differently. And so creating a space that is specific for these women, where you can be more vulnerable and raw and don't have to worry about a lot of the stigmas that we hear from everyone else in the world like you're too emotional and you're too this, but instead you're among other people who are like I get that. I feel that that's okay. It's just been really refreshing to help people feel validated in who they are and not feel like they have to change that part of themselves.
Karen Covy Host
05:01
Well, what? is the role I mean for somebody who is an empath. Does that affect the way they make decisions?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
05:09
I definitely think that empathy can be a double edged sword when you're making decisions, and the reason I think this is because, on the one hand, it really allows you to understand and consider the feelings and needs of others. Right, and this can help you lead to more compassionate and inclusive decisions, but, on the other hand, it also can result in prioritizing the needs of others before yourself, and this can lead to decisions that are not in alignment with your personal and professional goals or, if it continues and it goes unchecked, it can build to burnout or resentment.
05:42
And what I continually find and hear from the people that I work with is that they feel like by putting others before themselves and, you know, making decisions by prioritizing everyone else that somehow it's a sign of commitment, dedication or love, and that's where I have to kind of deconstruct that and help them recognize that it's actually detrimental for everyone who's involved. And so what I would say in terms of how to use empathy a little bit differently is balancing empathy with self-awareness to ensure that your decisions both honor your values and those around you, and I often like to remind people that true empathy includes ourselves in the equation. It's not just about everyone else, right and like we overlook that so easily. But I will say that when you honor your own needs, you do create a really solid foundation that helps build sustainable success, and I find that it can lead to more genuine fulfillment for both yourself and other people that you support.
06:43
Okay. So is it okay if I play devil's advocate with you for a minute?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
100%, yes,
Karen Covy Host
Okay. So I can see. As someone who tends to be high on the empath scale myself, I can see how it's important to take into account my needs as well as others. But how does that help others? How does it help others when an empath when I, as an empath consider my own needs or maybe put my needs in front of theirs?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
07:15
I would say one of the first ways that it helps others is it sets a model right. I was having a conversation, actually, with an attorney, and you know it was one of these environments where they were struggling to get work done, because you know they were seeing this as I want to be available and collaborative and if I should close my door to do work, I'm being closed off. And what I said is well, how many other people are probably struggling to also like put up some sort of signal that I'm unavailable and I need to go into this deep work? And so what I like to say is, first and foremost, it helps other people to see a model of. This doesn't have to be done in a mean way. It's not that my needs are more important than yours, which is often the pushback I get, but really what it's saying is that if I don't take care of my needs, I can't be available to help you with yours, and so that's ultimately the bottom line we get to.
Karen Covy Host
08:07
So it sounds like what you're talking about is boundaries.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
08:12
Yeah, that's a big part of it.
Karen Covy Host
08:14
Absolutely Do you find that empaths have a problem with, you know, setting and maintaining their own boundaries setting and maintaining their own boundaries.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
08:27
Yes, I think with being an empath, people-pleasing tendencies tend to be very highly correlated. And again, it comes from this place of love and we think we're doing, you know, the best. I mean, think about all the moms, you know, and it's often well, I have to put my kids first. It's a foreign concept to think about putting themselves first in any capacity. But then I'm like well, if you're sick and you're not taking time to heal, how is that benefiting you to be truly available and present with them? If you took maybe a day of rest which, don't get me wrong, would be very difficult and would require a lot you might get there a lot faster than slowly stretching it know, stretching it out, and two weeks later you're still kind of battling that cold or whatever might be going on.
Karen Covy Host
09:10
So you know you talk a lot. You mentioned balance, balancing your needs and other people's needs. Do you have I mean, you've worked with a lot of women do you have any strategies that you could share with the listeners to help them do that? Because for those people who are very empathetic, who are empaths, it's hard, like they might not even know where to start with. Like, saying, balance things, that's a great idea in theory, but if you don't have any practical strategies for doing that, it's really hard.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
09:44
Yeah, Well, one thing I will say, and I will provide some strategies, because I have some great tips to help, but what I have found is focusing on alignment over balance can be really helpful, because balance kind of applies to this or implies this concept that everything needs to be equal and I don't know about you, my personal and professional scale never looks like this right and so alignment is really about thinking about what are your values, what really matters most to you, and how can you make sure that, in whatever domain of life, you're acting in accordance with that. And that's where I think boundaries do become so important. And you know, a big part of the strategies that I'll talk about is helping you to kind of balance the idea of do my actions align with my longer term goals? And so to really help ensure that decisions do align with core values, long term goals, it's essential to take a step back and reflect before acting, using this is a really technical name here, the pause and reflect technique right.
10:47
You know what the simpler the name, the more effective it is yes, and you can remember this by just thinking about the power of pause. That's what it's all about the power of pausing. So when you do take a moment to assess how a decision fits with your long-term vision and values, it's really about deciding, you know. Does this really connect with, you know, career-based decisions that I'm making, a personal decision that I might have to weigh, because how many times in life do you have just one thing that you have to think about? It's often how does this important career choice fit with this significant personal decision? And what about my day-to-day thoughts that I have to work out?
11:33
Right, there's always so many things going on, and so when you pause, it allows you to move beyond the immediate emotional reactions that are common for us, and that's because the first part of our brain that responds when we have a stressful situation is the amygdala, and that's the part that is responsible for processing emotions and it triggers the fight or flight response. And the reason I'm telling you all of this is because the amygdala is really quick to react, especially, like I said, in stressful situations, but that leads to decisions that are more about immediate survival than the long-term benefit. So this goes back to why the power of pause is so important, because when you do take just even a few deep breaths, it allows the logical brain, known as the prefrontal cortex, time to process and respond.
12:18
And when the prefrontal cortex gets involved, that's the part that's involved with higher order functions like planning and decision making and moderating social behavior so you can already hear why having that part of the brain activated would be pretty powerful in these decisions, and so giving yourself that pause gives your brain time to really weigh what are the pros and cons of whatever decision I'm trying to consider here, what are the consequences, and how does this response align with my values and long-term goals?
12:51
So by being deliberate, you can prevent more impulsive decisions that might feel right in the moment but are really misaligned with your broader objectives. I think, in addition to the pause and reflect technique, taking some time to journal it doesn't have to be every day, but just taking some time to articulate and analyze your thoughts and emotions can help you clarify what are those core values and long-term goals that you're trying to align with. I also think that by journaling, having some things written down and revisiting that regularly, can serve as a reminder to help you stay aligned with your deeper aspirations whenever you're faced with a decision right, and so putting this together, taking that moment to pause and reflect, can help transform hasty decisions into thoughtful, intentional ones, which I believe the more deliberate choices we make paves the path for truly resonating with who you are and who you're aspiring to become.
Karen Covy Host
13:45
That makes so much sense. But I'm curious because you know I can see the value of pausing, but a lot of my clients seem to get stuck in the pause. The pause doesn't become a pause, it becomes a permanent stopping place, right, and they get stuck. So how do you differentiate between a pause that's healthy and helpful in making a good decision and the pause that you know it expands to the point where you're now stuck?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
14:16
That's a really good question. I mean, one of the things that I will say is you don't need much time for this pause. I mean, yes, some of them you might want to give yourself a day or two, but really, like I said, to activate that more coordinated part of your brain, I'll say right, it is more logical and advanced than that primal part. It takes a few deep breaths. And so, to your point sometimes we go from pausing to assess to analysis, paralysis.
Karen Covy Host
14:44
And it's like I'm now thinking about everything.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
14:47
So that's why I talked about journaling, because it's like, okay, let's say you're thinking about a career move which would involve moving your entire family. Well, how does that move with your entire family and this new career align? If you're making more money but you're traveling 50% more? Is that what you want? Maybe not right If it requires you to move to a state that has better schools? Perhaps that's something to consider.
15:12
And so this is where knowing what are my top priorities and focusing your analysis around only those key things because you can go down the rabbit hole and you can think about a million things. So, being really intentional with what is it I'm trying to decide, what is the outcome I need to achieve? What are the key factors that'll help me decide that? Are there any key decision makers that I want to include in this? And then I always set a timeline I need to decide by this. And then I always set a timeline I need to decide by this state this time, and communicating that with the other person or someone who can hold you accountable, I think is really critical, because then you can't just keep going and keep thinking and extending it.
Karen Covy Host
15:54
That's true, but what about the person who now they've got this arbitrary deadline in their head of I have to make this decision. It's a big decision. I have to make it by Tuesday, you know whatever day. And now it causes extreme anxiety because they're like I have to decide, I have to decide, I can't decide. Have you ever seen a deadline become counterproductive?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
16:17
It can. But see, then you're focusing on the deadline and not the decision, and so that's where it's just. I mean, I'm saying this as if it's a simple thing you take a few deep breaths. For me I would go for a nice walk and I would work on getting my body regulated, and then you come back and it's focusing on okay, so the decision I'm trying to make is this these are the factors that are making me feel unsure, and that's again logical. Brain is kicking in of like it doesn't matter when I have to make this decision by. That's emotional. Logically, these are the things that I have to weigh out and decide.
Karen Covy Host
16:51
But what do you do? Sorry, I'm playing devil's advocate again here with you, but I know that so many of my clients struggle with this. They say, ok, great, I have to make a decision that aligns with my values. Here's the problem. My values conflict. I have a value of marriages forever, I want to honor my commitments. I don't want to disrupt my children's lives. All those are values that they line up on one side of this decision, but on the other side, I also value my own health and happiness and their suffering in a relationship that isn't working out the way that I thought. What do I do when I've got conflicting values?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
17:33
Well, that situation is a true example of being out of alignment, right, and so, whether it be the relationship they're in that wasn't allowing to prioritize these things, I mean, first and foremost, if it comes to relationships, I think the key thing is recognizing you're only 50% of the equation and so you can't solve 100% of the problem with 50% involved, right. So to your point. If it's making a decision about a relationship and there's some conflict between what the relationship is doing and what the personal needs are, that's where you seek help together, and it also may be that you have to decide which one does take care of your mental, physical, spiritual health. It feels to me that that needs to be a top priority, because it can Think about the kids that you mentioned.
18:27
They're seeing someone modeling self-sacrifice, being miserable, perhaps being in a high conflict environment. And don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a simple and easy decision to think about separating or any of those things, but I do think it's important that you model that setting boundaries for yourself isn't about the other person, it's about protecting yourself, and I think that when we neglect to do so, we often tell ourselves that you know well, I'm keeping the peace, but what that does is it creates internal turmoil, and that also comes out in other ways.
Karen Covy Host
19:04
Yeah, 100%. I mean, from what I've seen in my clients, a lot of them suffer health effects from, you know, from this, from keeping the internal conflict internal right, from not taking care of themselves. And I know that you have a lot of you know a lot of emphasis on self-care. You do retreats, you do masterminds, you do things where you help people focus on taking care of themselves. So can you, you know, explain to the audience a little bit more about self-care and about how your retreats play into that or use that?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
19:41
Well, first, I'm going to tackle this in two ways. I think there's a lot of misconception around what self-care means. It's kind of gotten glamorized to bubble baths and candles, and I love all of those things. I think they're all great. I partake myself, but self-care is really about like a daily routine, and so this is where consistency is really crucial. What I find a lot is that people think they can do like a self-care Saturday or a self-care Sunday and that's supposed to give them enough energy to make it through the whole week, and that's literally like saying I'll just eat on Saturday or Sunday and then I'll be good through the next week. It doesn't work that way, right?
20:15
Even your face, you're like yeah, no that wouldn't be so great, right and so, first and foremost, I want to just emphasize that self-care is regular exercise, eating healthy and ensuring adequate sleep. If you're not focusing on those every day, there's a big problem. And the next part that I think people often overlook is mindful breaks every day. These are just really short, intentional pauses where you can reset and recharge. This could be five minutes of deep breathing, a quick walk outside or a brief meditation session. But we often hear that so many people, whether you're making a decision or just in work we try to keep focused for hours at a time. Our brains are not set up to work that way. Our bodies get stagnant. So for me, I mean, I'm in clinical sessions and between every session I have typically about five minutes and I'm up and I'm walking around, I will do laps or I'll sit and I will like if I have flowers in my house, I'll stop and smell the flowers. You know things like that, just to sort of get other parts of your brain activated too. When you move and when you kind of switch into a different place, it can give you some new clarity.
21:23
And that's really a big part of where my retreats come in, because I think it's important that you practice self-care every single day, but sometimes we do need to kind of get out of our day-to-day grind to really reset and, as I've told you, I think that having a support system is really important and that's why I created these in-person retreats. It's an opportunity for me to provide a space where women can leave all of the demands of their life behind their career, their kids, you name it and also I'm very intentional with where I hold them, because I want to give an experience in nature like the one that I had, because it was so transformative for me, and I know that anybody who's experienced that they're like I get it. I feel that, and so that's where those really come in. It's an opportunity again to be around like-minded women where it's not about you're too much of anything. You bring yourself as you are, you have intentionality with how you're spending your time and you're just developing deep connections.
Karen Covy Host
22:22
So when you say deep connections, is it deep connections with the other women, with yourself, with you as the leader? What kinds of connections?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
22:33
Great question, everyone. I'm included in that group. So, yes, I do. I both moderate and engage, because it would feel really awkward if I sat here on some high pedestal and I'm like I don't know, I'm going to teach all of you, but I'm perfect, I don't need to partake myself, right. So vulnerability is something I practice and I preach. The people who have been part of my groups and things like that could stay connected to each other and that's the ultimate goal. The reason I don't want to just do one-on-one is because I don't want to be the only source of support. Having other people in your corner is so critical.
Karen Covy Host
23:11
That sounds amazing. So how long are the retreats when you do them?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
23:16
It does depend. Typically, I try to make them like a long weekend, so three or four days to really give you some time to unwind. But also I need to be realistic and know that people don't always have the luxury of disappearing for a week or two at a time, and so I feel like it's enough time to give you a sample, and then you know, you can come back more than once. You can practice this on your own Because, again, you don't need to always leave to start implementing some of these things. But I too take a hiking trip every year because it is necessary sometimes just to have a little bit of distance from your normal day to day activities.
Karen Covy Host
23:51
Do you see, when people do these retreats, what's the goal of the retreat? Is it just connection, or do people go to make big life decisions? Do they go to work through some problem or issue that they have? What's the goal there?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
24:07
That's really set by the individual. I'm going to be honest. Some people have come to make big life decisions, whether it be do I stay in this marriage, Do I start my own business? That's a common one. How do I continue to move forward in my business? I have a lot of entrepreneurs in my community who are at various phases. Some are recognizing the burnout that I experienced when I built my practice as well.
24:30
You know, it's really easy to get consumed. Sometimes it's like, you know, I've started this business now and it's impacting my relationships. What do I do about that? So I feel like you know, the thing that you can get, whether you're attending one of my retreats or my mastermind group, is you get diverse perspectives.
24:46
You can hear from other women from different walks of life, hear their thoughts on it, and there's also a level of accountability that comes with sharing, because if you're telling someone I'm trying to make this decision, they're more likely to check in and say so where are you at? How's this going? You know which to your earlier point of what do we do with these arbitrary deadlines. Well, when you know someone else is going to check in with you, it does give a little bit of healthy social pressure to move you forward. And then I feel like, too, just really having that emotional support and understanding is so powerful, because a lot of the times when we're stuck in our decisions it's because there's some outside noise that's maybe making us question ourselves. And having other people who might kind of encourage you just to lean into your intuition and listen to whatever's really resonating with you can be so powerful in itself.
Karen Covy Host
25:37
Okay, you've just said a very, very interesting phrase leaning into your intuition. What role do you, as a psychologist and somebody who is well grounded in science, what role do you think intuition plays in decision making?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
25:56
I mean you can't separate decisions from intuition. There is, you know, yes, I believe in science and I only use science-backed techniques with my clients, and so I can very definitively tell you there is extensive research that shows the gut brain and the brain right and that gut intuition we often are told. Well, you know, you need to be able to verbalize that, and what is interesting is the part of your brain that is most associated with intuition is not actually connected to our vocal parts. So you can feel it but you can't explain it. And that's what intuition is right. How many times have you had this feeling and you're like it, just it makes sense. But how do I tell you what it is like? I can't explain it to you, I just feel it. That's why. that's intuition.
Karen Covy Host
26:47
Right? Well, I think what people struggle with, though, is they may have this. Usually people will call it a gut feeling, right? I have this gut feeling that I should do X whatever it is, but from a logical, like rational perspective, X doesn't make sense. I can't give you reasons why I should do X. I just know deep down that I should do X. What do you say to someone like that?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
27:14
Well, to that I would say you've just kind of written the premise of Simon Sinek. Sorry, I don't know how to say it.
27:22
Yes, thank you. The power of why, right? And so here I mean, let me give you an example from my own life. It did not make sense for me to start a second business. My practice was going well, I had a great you know caseload, my clinicians are happy, so why would I go and do this? There wasn't a logical reason. I wasn't needing money or any of these things. But emotionally, deep down, I knew I was called to do something different and bigger. And because that this is all founded in trying to find meaning out of losing my mom, that says it all so logically. No, I can't tell you. Well, here is the dollars and cents or time that makes sense, but I have a bigger calling that I have to listen to here.
Karen Covy Host
28:09
That's beautiful, that's really special, that you, that you listen to that calling, that you followed your intuition and went a little off the beaten path, so to speak. Yeah, how does that translate into relationship decisions? Because somehow people like a lot of my clients, they are successful, they are educated, they are smart people, they have all the trappings of success around them, but their relationship isn't working the way they want it to right. It's kind of, and they know they need to do something. But they say to me I have no problem making decisions in my business or in my career. I'm the CEO, I'm the leader of the company, I'm the, whatever their position is, but this one, this is really got me stuck. This seems different. Is it? Is a personal decision really different or is it just our perception of it?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
29:16
I would say that goes to the part of the brain that's being activated again, right, and, as we learned, when it comes to relationships, that's emotional. So your amygdala is going to get activated, and the thing to know about that, too, is like it only knows how to keep you alive. So making a decision, it sees it as a threat, right? So that alone makes it so much bigger emotionally for us. Of like, even though we're not worried about a tiger jumping out and eating us, the amygdala is responding the same way on whether or not you should stay or leave this relationship, and so that's part of it too is like there's just this intensity that comes with when that part of our brain gets activated.
29:55
And when you're making a decision at work, you are more logical about it. It's based on facts and figures and things like that, and I don't know about you when I write pro con list. It doesn't really matter when it comes to an emotional decision that I have to make and that circles back to where your intuition is so powerful, because the reality is we always feel a nudge one direction or the other. It's just whether or not you're willing to listen to it. That, I think, is really the part that we get stuck on.
Karen Covy Host
30:26
Yeah, that's interesting that you should mention the pros and cons list, because I you know, I've worked with them before, my clients have worked with them before and, quite frankly, they don't work in this kind of because you list. Here's how it goes. You list all the pros, You've got 10 reasons why you should do something, two reasons why you shouldn't do something. Any logical person would go, okay, clearly I should do this. But then your brain kicks in and goes oh yeah, but the cons were so much more important. And then now you're stuck because you've weighted the numbers and that it just you can talk yourself into circles, right. So that kind of thing doesn't really work, and it sounds like what you're saying is tapping into your intuition. Listening to that small voice inside of you is one way around that using the pro and cons list. That really doesn't help in this circumstance.
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
31:22
Well, if you are somebody who wants to use the pro con list, you have to recognize, in the example you just said, maybe it is five versus two. But going back to alignment, are those five really aligned with my core values or are those two Right? Sometimes there's more superficial things that we consider like me, I mean, as a psychologist. There's a title and a prestige with this other thing. I mean, I'll be honest, I came up with alignment strategist because that's what I do. I know that I'm not a coach, I know I'm not a consultant, but people have no idea what that means. And it still makes more sense because it truly is aligned with what I'm doing and how I'm working and what feels most important. But if I put this on a pro-con list, I'll be honest, this would not be the answer that would win.
Karen Covy Host
32:10
Yeah, but it sounds like an answer that, just to bring this full circle, really aligns with who you are and what you're trying to bring into the world. So, exactly, I just, I really thank you for sharing all of this knowledge and wisdom with us today. It's such a well-grounded approach, it seems like to me, to not just making decisions but living your life right, living life on your own terms, which is fundamentally what this is all about. So I just want to say a big thank you on behalf of all of the listeners and, if they want to learn more, if they're interested in working with you on going to a retreat, on participating in a mastermind, where can they find you?
Dr. Stephanie Grunewald Guest
32:53
Yeah, well, I know that they should be following your podcast and they'll get the links in the show notes, but they can also visit my website. They'll have access to all my social media and everything from there. So that's Ancorio - A-N-C-O-R-I-O.com.
Karen Covy Host
33:11
Awesome and you are 100% right. Everything is going to be linked up in the show notes and if people want to find out more about your retreats or masterminds, all of that will be linked. And for those of you who are listening, who are watching, if you enjoy today's program, if you like what you heard and you like what you see, please do me a big favor. It will help more than I can say. If you just like the podcast, like the YouTube channel, like the video, subscribe and I look forward to seeing you all again next time. Bye for now.
