Staying Grounded When Things Get Hard
Why can one difficult conversation roll off your back while another stays with you for days? Wellbeing educator Jan Raeder and Dr. J.J. Peterson explore how the stories we carry influence our reactions—and how greater self-awareness can help us stay grounded, learn from what happens, and decide what comes next.
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Sometimes the hardest part of a difficult situation isn’t what happened. It’s everything we bring into it. Someone gives you feedback and you immediately feel defensive. A project doesn’t work and suddenly it feels like evidence that you’re failing. A comment that might seem insignificant to someone else stays with you for the rest of the day.
Those reactions are real, but they may also be telling you something. Wellbeing educator and author Jan Raeder has spent more than 30 years studying what helps people grow and thrive, combining research in positive psychology and behavioral change with lessons from three decades of practicing and teaching traditional martial arts.
Her approach to self-care begins somewhere unexpected: not with escaping difficult things, but with understanding what happens inside us when we encounter them. We can’t control everything that happens, but we can become more aware of how we respond and get better at what happens next.
Your Reaction Is Information
Self-awareness can sound abstract until something gets under your skin. Raeder learned through thousands of sparring rounds that becoming consumed by her reaction to what another person did could make her lose focus on what was happening in front of her.
The same thing can happen in a difficult conversation. Someone says something that feels personal, and while they continue talking, your attention shifts inward. You’re thinking about what they said, what they meant, whether it was fair and what you're going to say in response. Meanwhile, you may have stopped actually listening.
That is where self-awareness becomes practical. Instead of immediately acting on the reaction, Raeder suggests creating a small amount of space around it. Pause before responding and, when there is time to reflect, ask a deceptively simple question: Why did that bother me so much?
The goal isn’t to convince yourself that you shouldn’t be bothered. It’s to become curious about the reaction before deciding what it means or what you should do with it, because sometimes the answer has surprisingly little to do with what just happened.
Are You Reacting to the Moment—or an Old Story?
Raeder describes memory as a kind of filing system. Experiences happen, we interpret them, and stories about what those experiences mean get stored alongside them. The trouble is that we don’t necessarily go back and check whether those interpretations were accurate—or whether they are still useful.
A conclusion reached at seven years old can still influence a reaction at 47. Something happens today that brushes against that old story, and suddenly the response feels much bigger than the moment itself.
That doesn’t mean every uncomfortable reaction needs to become an excavation of childhood. It does mean that reactions can offer clues about what we believe, what we fear and what we may still be carrying. Instead of asking only, Why did they say that? self-awareness allows us to ask another question: Why did what they said affect me this way?
The difference is important. The first question puts all of the attention on something outside of our control, while the second gives us an opportunity to understand ourselves. Sometimes that understanding allows us to reconsider a story we've been carrying for far longer than we realized.
Self-Care Isn’t Always About Making Things Easier
This is where Raeder’s definition of self-care gets particularly interesting. Self-care can absolutely include rest, a vacation, a massage or anything else that helps reduce stress. There is nothing wrong with doing things that help us feel good.
But caring for ourselves can also mean learning who we are, what we can handle and how we respond when things become difficult. Raeder found that kind of self-knowledge through continually challenging herself in martial arts, where each new challenge gave her another opportunity to discover what she was capable of.
Later, physical limitations forced her to confront a very different challenge. After decades of identifying as a martial artist, injuries changed what her practice could look like. She describes grieving that change and having to reconsider an important part of how she understood herself.
Most of us will eventually encounter some version of that crossroads. A business changes, a role ends, a relationship shifts or a plan we were counting on no longer works. Self-care cannot prevent those moments, but knowing ourselves can help us navigate them without immediately assuming that a change in circumstances has changed everything about who we are.
Start With One Small Pause
Greater self-awareness doesn’t require having yourself completely figured out. Raeder offers a much smaller place to begin: the next time something creates a strong reaction, pause for a moment before responding. Even counting to one or two can create enough space to interrupt an automatic response.
Then, when you have some distance from the situation, get curious about what happened. Ask yourself why it bothered you, what you thought the moment meant and whether that interpretation accurately reflects what happened. You can also consider whether the experience says anything meaningful about who you are now and what, if anything, you want to carry forward from it.
Those questions won't necessarily make a difficult conversation comfortable or a disappointing outcome less disappointing. They give you a chance to respond to what is actually happening instead of automatically responding from a story you may have brought with you.
Optimism Doesn’t Require Pretending Everything Is Fine
Self-awareness can help us understand our response to what happened. Optimism can help us decide what to do next. Raeder describes optimism as a choice, but she isn’t talking about finding a positive spin for every bad experience.
Consider a project that fails to produce the results everyone expected. Optimism doesn’t require declaring the failure a blessing in disguise or pretending the disappointment isn’t real. Instead, it creates room for a different set of questions: What happened? What worked? What didn’t? What did we learn, and what could we do differently next time?
Dr. J.J. Peterson describes this distinction as the difference between optimism and toxic positivity. Toxic positivity asks us to look past what is difficult. Grounded optimism lets us look directly at reality while also recognizing that the difficult thing does not have to be the end of the story.
Seen this way, optimism becomes less about maintaining a positive attitude and more about preserving our ability to act. Something went wrong, but we still have a say in what we learn from it and what we choose to do next.
You Can Get Better at What Happens Next
None of this gives us control over what other people say, whether a project succeeds or which unexpected changes life puts in our path. It gives us something else: a little more choice in what happens inside us afterward.
A reaction can become something to examine instead of immediately obey. An old story can be questioned instead of automatically believed. A disappointment can be acknowledged without allowing it to determine what we expect from everything that comes next.
That may be one of the more useful ways to think about staying grounded. It doesn’t mean becoming unaffected by difficult things. It means knowing yourself well enough to recognize what you're bringing into the moment, remain present with what is actually happening and make a more intentional decision about what comes next.
Go Deeper With Jan Raeder
Raeder brings these ideas together in her M.O.R.E. framework: Meaning, Optimism, Relationships and Engagement. Her book, Strive for M.O.R.E.: What Wellbeing Really Means and How You Can Achieve It, goes deeper into each part of the framework and includes exercises for applying these ideas to your own wellbeing.
You won't always get to choose what happens next, but with greater self-awareness, you can get better at choosing how you meet it.
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[00:00:00] How the Past Shapes What We Expect
J Raeder: If you have a negativity that you only think about from your past, when you look forward, no wonder you're anxious. You think things are gonna be negative going forward. That's the only way we can imagine, and we suffer the past and the future because we're trying to control it. The only thing that exists is right now, the present
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Welcome to Badass Softie, a podcast for leaders who are unapologetically ambitious and want to lead with heart. I'm your host, Dr. JJ Peterson, and today, um, I have a very special guest who has maybe one of the best, uh, titles for themselves that I've ever heard, which is The Self-Care Sensei. My guest is Jan Rader, and I love the title of Self-Care Sensei, because Jan is a wellbeing educator, keynote speaker, and author who has spent more than 30 years studying what helps people grow and thrive.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: But what makes her approach really interesting to me is where a lot of that learning happened on a karate mat. Because Jan spent 30 years practicing and teaching traditional martial arts, and has fought more than 10,000 sparring rounds, which means she's been hit a lot and she's hit a lot, and also then spent time in the academic world.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And so everything she does is really grounded from this base, uh, place of research, which really is about how to care for yourself, and then also this martial arts space. And that's why it was so fascinating to me to learn about her and bring her on to talk about this, because she's the author of a book called Strive For More: What Wellbeing Really Means and How You Can Achieve It.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: In it, she brings together, like I said, this research-based positive psychology and behavioral change science, and melds it with lessons from martial arts to help people think differently about what it actually means to care for themselves, and that's where our conversation went today. Because self-care can absolutely mean a massage or a vacation or doing something nice for yourself, which I enjoy, and there's nothing wrong with any of that.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: But what you're gonna hear from Jan today is that self-care can also be something much deeper. And I really love this conversation because it helped me reframe a number of different ideas I had about self-care, and I know that it's going to be helpful and encouraging for you as well. So without any further ado, I'm very excited for you to hear my conversation with The Self-Care Sensei, Jan Rader.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Jan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, and I always start out the podcast telling the people, my guests why I wanted them here and why I wanted my audience to hear from you. So the fact that you spent 10,000 round, more than 10,000 rounds in the martial arts world competing makes you a badass.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I'll just say it right there. Anybody who can go through getting hit and taken down for 10,000 rounds, that's a badass. And yet you're also the Self-Care Sensei, and so you teach people how to actually do real self-care based in research and study and experience. And the fact that you bring those two together of being this like incredibly driven and competitive person, and yet also put forth people caring for themselves and yourself even, uh, with that, that is...
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I was so excited about getting the chance to talk to you because I truly believe that you are a badass softie, and so thank you for being here. Thank you for cha- talking with me, and I'm so excited about our conversation today.
J Raeder: I'm ho- I'm honored to be here, I really am. I, and I'm excited about our conversation.
J Raeder: I hope that some of the people that are listening, it's really helpful for them.
[00:04:11] Finding Growth Through Challenge
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Well, let's start out with, uh, first let's talk a little bit about your martial arts career. I, I wanna know a little bit about that. You know, you've, you were in martial arts world, uh, for 30 years, and tell me about that. Like what made you stay with martial arts for 30 years?
J Raeder: Well, um, it's interesting. I started out because I, you know, I had a friend that, uh, used to, was in, studied ninjutsu actually, believe it or not. And I started asking him questions. Like, "Well, if somebody attacked you, what would you do?" What, you know, and so on. And then a friend of mine expl- s- told me about the school that I got involved in, and I thought, "Okay, well, I'll try it out."
J Raeder: And they had six lessons that you had to take at the beginning, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, you have to be..." Sorry, I know most people know who Bruce Lee is, and I, I was like, "Oh my gosh, you have to be Bruce Lee before you get on the floor." And I never watched, I never watched a class until like I was like after the third lesson.
J Raeder: I said, "Can I watch a class?" And then I watched the class and I thought, "Oh, phew, you know, there, there's no Bruce Lees out there." Not that, no disrespect, but I was like, "Okay, cool." So then I, I started getting involved, and I just, it was my home. I, I just really found like I came home. And as I got challenged every single rank, all the times I went to class, I just, it was just something about it that- It appealed to me.
J Raeder: You know, and a lot of people go, "Oh, God, you're, you're..." My mother would say, "Well, you're paying people to kick and punch you." And I was like, "Yeah, but- ... but, but something about that appeals to me. And-
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Uh huh ...
J Raeder: I, I'd rather do it in a safe environment, and maybe I'm somewhat prepared if something were to happen to me in the street.
J Raeder: So I, I just... It was my home, and I, I'd never felt like that before about anything else. And, and then I started teaching classes, and I thought, "Wow, I have this great opportunity to get people to fall in love with martial arts, and themselves at the same time." You know, 'cause really, if we fall in love with challenging ourself, that's how we grow.
J Raeder: And if we shift our perspective with how we see challenges, that's really where the hidden, hidden strength is.
[00:06:32] What 10,000 Sparring Rounds Taught Her
Dr. J.J. Peterson: How then, you know, did you go from kind of this world that a lot of people would consider f- on the outside, you know, the most people's experience with the martial arts is in movies and in- Yeah
Dr. J.J. Peterson: popular culture. So it's considered fighting and maybe a little violent. And how did you move from... And, and you called it an art, which I think is so beautiful, but how did you then move from the competition world that a lot of people see as violent and fighting to, or defense, you know, as well, to moving to then self-care?
[00:07:09] Why Taking Things Personally Costs You
J Raeder: When I think about self-care, um, from my perspective, you're learning about who you are and what you can handle, and build, and your resilience. And, and the other thing that you learn, and this, I'm sure gonna get into this, is the don't duck, don't flinch, and we're talking about 10,000 rounds, is not taking things so personally, which is an observation I've seen lately.
J Raeder: P- and I've s- actually, I shouldn't say lately. I've seen it for years, that people take everything so personally. And when you fight 10,000 rounds and people are trying to hit you, if you take it personal, you're done. You, because the minute- ... the minute I get caught up in, "Wow, Jene Jene hit me really hard," I've lost what's happening in the match.
J Raeder: Do, do you understand? That split second of- Oh, yeah ... losing focus. And i- if you're, you know, we're, I'm assuming there's lots of businesspeople listening now, 'cause we spoke about it before we started. If you're in a dis- a difficult discussion with people and you start to take it personal, you've lost maybe three sentences of what someone said.
J Raeder: The other thing is you never know what someone's bringing to the table. So i- if you and I are sparring, and you had a terrible day that day, I don't know necessarily what's happening with you. So when you're hitting me hard, you might be releasing tension from your day, I might be actually helping you
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I mean, I think the, the biggest thing that's, you know, is that whole, the reframe of what self-care is. Yeah. Right? So, you know, the, the idea that you could take those lessons from martial arts, the idea of being able to be hit and get back up, the i- and understanding, oh, I can go through this. The idea of what it looks like to actually spar, that martial arts sometimes is an art.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: 'Cause I'm imagine, you know, that You aren't always competing against people that you don't like. You're probably competing with people that are in your class with you, that you've been training with. And, you know, there's all of these elements that n- I mean, very quickly I can see that when we change our mindset from self-care being about pampering or treating ourself, or in many ways escaping who we are, right?
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I think, like, that's what a lot of people think of self-care, is like, "Well, in my daily I'm, like, dedicated to my kids and my schedule, and I'm dedicated to my spouse and my work, and my treating myself or, or self-care is almost like removing myself from my responsibilities." And you're saying that the reality is self-care is more about, is
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Y- yes, that's wonderful. Those are nice things to treat yourself, lower your stress, and all those things, but the reality is it's understanding yourself. And one of the best ways to understand yourself is to go through hard things. I mean, truthfully, like I, I've said many times I don't know that I trust leaders who have not gone through hard things, because I don't know that they really know who they are, and I don't know that they really have the ability to be grounded in reality.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And so m- I, I would just be curious from your perspective in that, like, did some of this stuff, did you ... I, I would imagine outside of even the martial arts side of things that you in your life have gone through hard things that this kind of became appli- even more real for in those kind of situations.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yes?
[00:10:46] What Happens at Life’s Crossroads
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Of course. I, I, I, I, I have conversations with a lot of people, and I always say this to every single person I talk to when we talk about this subject matter. Every human on the planet is going to have crossroads in their life. No one escapes it. We're all gonna come up against something. So yes, of course I have had things that, hard things that I've had to do.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I've had difficult family members that I've had to deal with. I've had loss. Um, you know, I had, uh, when I was in high school, started in high school I had a high school friend that committed suicide, and then I had a boyfriend that was killed by a drunk driver, you know, uh, only weeks before he was supposed to go to MIT on a full scholarship.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Myself personally, when I, when I think about, uh ... Which one of the things that kind of started me on this journey, um, academic, my academic journey, was I have, uh, bad, I have two bad knees, and actually have a, a bad foot also. I had a, you know, surgery that I had to have on my foot. So my martial arts training changed for me.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And uh, dra- dramatically. So much so that the only way that I could describe it is I actually went through grief of having to readjust understanding who I was as a martial artist. Um, and I was very angry. I mean, I went through all the stages of grief, and to be honest with you, when I stepped back and I was like, "Wow, I've gone through the five stages of grief.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: This is grief."
Dr. J.J. Peterson: So I think, you know, when you talk about crossroads and when you talk about all these things that we all come up against, there's, there's so much where if you decide to take a trip down into the self-awareness and true self-care lane, you have to look in the mirror and go, "What do I do now?"
Dr. J.J. Peterson: So if you do the work to figure out who you really are and have things that, and go, "Oh, wow, I do like that about myself," or, "I don't like that," or, "How can I change that?" It helps everything else in your life. But it, going back real quick to what you said, uh, earlier about competing and it's people that you know and so on, um, I always, and this is gonna, and mindset, I always liked when people hit me hard, and here's why.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Because I felt like it was respectful. Because here we are, we know each other, and you think that I can take it, that, and hitting me hard. So I never, I always thought it was great when people went hard with me because they figured I could handle it.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah, 'cause if you treat people with kid gloves, then you're just basically saying, "Hey, I don't think you can handle this feedback."
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And so I, there's, I mean, it, it, as you're talking, there are literally, like, 500 different directions I could go with this because they, I, I am instantly, as you're talking, seeing so much application of just the, the, one, I mean, the martial arts piece, but also just, like, everything you're saying about self-care and knowing yourself.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And I, I, I do wanna a- get to whi- how you actually help people kind of begin this, or not, or go through this journey a little bit, but before I do, the, the question I would have is why is it so important to know yourself? Like, what, why is that part of the self-care? What happens when we don't? I mean, what's at stake if we don't know ourself or don't ask the question?
[00:14:12] Why Knowing Yourself Matters
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Why is knowing ourself so important?
J Raeder: That's an excellent question. No one's ever asked me that, and I think that's an excellent question, thank you. Um, and I think the way that I would think about it is, um, where I've given examples to people when we've talked about, like, taking things personally, specifically, because we're kind of talking about hard conversations and hard situations that we all find ourselves in.
J Raeder: Our memories and our mi- our brains are set up in a way where I like to think of it like an IBM card. You know, I'm, I might be saying things that people don't know that, what that is. But, um, there's, like, little dots on the card. Or a filing system where you have a bunch of files and there's a tab on the top of the file, but you don't necessarily know what's inside the file till you open it up.
J Raeder: So our, our minds, we have these tabs all over the place, and what we usually do is we fill the file folder with something negative because we're hardwired for negativity. So instead of remembering the good part of a situation, we're gonna remember the bad part of the situation, and a lotta times we're wrong with the story we tell ourselves.
J Raeder: So say something happened to you when you were seven, and now you're 47, and you've carried that bag- All the way to 47, and then somebody says something to you, and it makes you explode. And, and then, and if you're self-aware a little bit and you go, "Why do I do that?" If you're lucky, you can trace it back to that seven-year-old circumstance of what happened.
J Raeder: You might actually, if you're lucky also, be able to ask somebody about that, that was in it, and maybe they'll clarify, "Gee, I don't remember it that way. I remember it this way." So you can kind of dig through and then realize the wrong story you told yourself, and that you've been carrying that bag for a long time.
J Raeder: And maybe you can then let that go. And that's, for me, I have this philosophy of I really don't like to think about my past, um, because it doesn't exist anymore. 'Cause when you think about Eastern philosophies, your-- the past and the future are actually states that don't exist. The only thing that exists is right now, the present, and we suffer the past and the future because we're trying to control it, I think.
J Raeder: We're trying to control it. So the past, the one thing that I like to take from the past is I like to learn things about myself from the past, and then that helps me-- 'cause remember, if you have a negative negativity that you only think about from your past, when you look forward, no wonder you're anxious.
J Raeder: Because you think things are gonna be negative going forward. That's the only way we can imagine what's gonna happen to us in the future. So when you think about not taking this opportunity to figure these things out, you're gonna keep suffering these two states. You're gonna keep suffering what happened in your past, and you're actually gonna suffer what you imagine is going to happen in your future.
J Raeder: That's why we've had such a terrible time lately with depression, which depression is tied to your past. Anxiety is tied to your future. But there's people that suffer from both. I did. I suffered from both, and I, I started to do this work to figure these things out about myself, and, and it's made a difference.
J Raeder: Trust me, I don't have it all figured out. I'm not sitting here saying that, "Oh, yes, this is me. I'm perfect." I don't. I'm human. I'm still, I'm still unpacking a lot of crap. But that's the great thing. It's back to what I said about working on the one technique. If I work on that one technique, it's gonna help everything else.
J Raeder: If you figure out who you are, and you do a-- and you-- uh, or you start to figure out who you are, when you're bumping into other people, those interactions are better, because you're coming with a better self. And the last thing I'll say about that is the relationship you have with yourself is the longest relationship you're ever going to have And if it isn't a good one, the rest of your train ride of your life is gonna stink.
J Raeder: So why not take the time to figure out who you are and be in good company on the train ride through the rest of your life? You know, 'cause those people are gonna get off, on and off the train, but you're on it for the whole time.
[00:18:45] Jan’s M.O.R.E. Framework for Wellbeing
Dr. J.J. Peterson: So when you talk to people, when you're at, asking people to kind of get to know themselves and continue to move forward in this space, what are you doing just really practically, 'cause I know you have a framework and everything, of what are you calling people to do when you go in and talk to them?
J Raeder: Um, well I'm, I'm glad that you are, uh, asking that question also, because that ties right into my book, um, Strive for M.O.R.E. And, uh, the, it's an acronym, um, M-O-R-E stands for meaning, optimism, relationships, and engagement. And what we're talking about right now when we're getting to know yourself is the meaning piece.
J Raeder: And what I offer, I offer exercises in my book where when somebody has a difficult conver- you're having a difficult conversation with someone, and they say something, and right away if you take a minute- To, in your head, to go, like, one, two before you open your mouth. And then later you say, "Why did I get so annoyed by that?"
J Raeder: And you kind of can start, start to unpack that. And then saying, "You know what? Maybe, maybe I need to reexamine what is important, and maybe that wasn't so important. Maybe I can let that go. Maybe I can say, 'That doesn't define who I am now. This is what I am now. This is what I wanna do going forward.'"
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Well, and I know people can
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I, I want to encourage people to go get your book, and so just I wanna dive in a little bit more on the next thing, too. So it starts with the idea of striving for more. It starts with understanding yourself and finding meaning. And then I, I want you to speak a little bit to this optimism piece as well, uh, because I think this is something right now especially that I think could be really helpful for people.
J Raeder: Yeah. The reason I, I used O for optimism, and I also talk about positive emotions because, um, again, back to what Seligman had, it was P, positive emotions, engagement. It was PERMA, P-E-R-M-A. Positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and actually accomplishment is the A, which I didn't include 'cause I had glazed looks when I talked to people-
J Raeder: especially business, about accomplishment. I was like- E-
Dr. J.J. Peterson: explain
J Raeder: that ... "Did
Dr. J.J. Peterson: you sell a car?" You and I talked about this a little. Oh. You and I talked about this a little ahead of time, but explain this for our listeners. So a lot of your, the, what you have done is taken research and science and made it accessible through MORE.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Right, yes. And so you, you mentioned PERMA, and so PERMA is ... Explain just PERMA a little bit. Yeah. Kind of what it's based on, and then, and then we can go into the- Okay ...
J Raeder: the other piece of it Martin Seligman, he's the father of positive psychology. He developed the PERMA acronym, um, and it's the five pillars, uh, of wellbeing.
J Raeder: And these are things that he tested with rigor. And if, uh, lis- listeners aren't sure what that is, when you're in a scientific world, that's when you do a study and it can be replicated, and that's what he did with PERMA. But the ... I, and I taught that at a local university. I taught about the PERMA theory, and people were, like, glazed because it's tough to remember.
[00:21:53] Optimism Without Ignoring Reality
J Raeder: So I, when I wrote my book, I decided to adapt that to something that would be more memorable, and that's why it's, I landed on MORE, um, M-O-R-E. And so when I think about the O, I chose optimism because it's a choice. When you think about being optimistic, it's that every single one of us, like I said before, comes up against crossroads.
J Raeder: How am I going to look at that differently? How am I gonna learn from that? What am I gonna do with everything? How can I... And a lot of people do a lot of things. They start podcasts. They write books. They begin foundations. That's doing something with this. So that's why I love the optimism, because we can even do it.
J Raeder: I mean, you're not gonna necessarily start a TV show to fight crime because something happened. But if you decide to look at what's good about a situation, and you can make- siphon it right down to the smallest thing that a business person or a leader has to do, like Okay, that project didn't go the way we thought it was gonna do, go.
J Raeder: Well, what did we learn about it? What did we figure out? What did go well, and how can we move forward with those things? And then, do you see what I'm saying? It's a choice.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah.
J Raeder: So that's what I love- I love it ... about optimism.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Well, and I love that it, again, is another reframe for me, where optimism can often be viewed, if you're not really thinking about it, as maybe toxic positivity, right?
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yes. Like, it's like, oh, it just means that we ignore the hard things, and we look past the hard things and make everything positive. And what you're talking about when it comes to optimism is looking at something as it is. It happened. You got hit in the face, right? Like, that's not a good thing, and you go, "Yay, I got hit in the face."
Dr. J.J. Peterson: But it, you know, something bad happens, and it's looking at it, it, and knowing yourself before, you know, and where y- what you bring to the table, and then choosing in that moment to find the good- Right ... for the purpose of transcendence. It's not just to be happy all the time. It's not just for the purpose of, again, toxic positivity or false positivity.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: But it's actually truly a observation and looking at it, at the world, and saying, "Oh, there is good here as well," since we are prone to l- look only at the negative, but to find the good in the midst of the hard, and then transcend that and use it for even more good. And those are just the first two, uh, that you talk about.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah. Great. So I'm so excited for people to read your book, find out more about this, and really lean into, again, a bit more self-care for themselves so that we can be better when it comes to relationships and accomplishing and doing more and bringing more goodness to the world. That's what, I mean, again, this, this podcast is really all about that.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: It's like, how can we actually be the best versions of ourselves, not looking at other people, but ourselves, to be ambitious about having an impact in the world, but in a way that actually leans into relationship, re- leans into kindness, and makes people, uh, more human. So for anybody interested in, obviously, your book, they can get your book, but if somebody's interested in finding out more about you and the work you do and the speaking that you do, where can they find you?
J Raeder: Um, I have a website, and it's called Self-Care Sensei. So, and I have a lot of information on there, um, as far as my speaking is concerned. And when you talk about leaders and what, what, what you were saying just briefly, and I wanna kinda circle back around to that, is about making yourself a better person, it starts at the top.
J Raeder: When you're the leader, and if you are leading in this way- It really, your, your people that are following, that are working with you, are more likely to, one, trust you because you're transparent about who you are and how you lead, and two, y- you e- they wanna emulate you. So these are the, uh, there's so, gosh, there's so much we could talk about, JJ.
J Raeder: I mean, we, we could be here all day. So but, but that's because
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I'm passionate about it. I know, that's what I was saying, like... I know, and I love that, and I, and there is, I mean, and you know, we d- I mentioned at the very beginning, but what I love about this work, um, that you're doing in it, there's so many things.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: But that it really is grounded in research and science- Yeah ... and yet it's very approachable. You've made it very approachable, and it is for the purpose of helping people strive for more. Really, 'cause I think a lot of people really are feeling this sense of like, my life isn't like, uh, you know, it's, like I said, we're dealing with burnout, we're dealing with depression, and maybe even situationally it's, it's really hard, or for some people it's just kind of like blah, and I want more.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And I think the way that you have laid things out for people and challenging them really to step up in some different ways is, is, like I said, so approachable, so, um, practical, but also based in science- Yeah ... and based in research. And um, i- i- I would encourage everybody to go get the book and to, you know, if you're interested in just kind of finding out a little bit more about yourself and what you're capable of, and, uh, coming at this in a, in a, a positive, you know, way, I think this is such an incredible opportunity.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: So Jan, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for all the, all the work that you have put in over the past 30 years to come to these conclusions, both in the martial arts world and the academic world. And I just wanna thank you so much for modeling for us what it looks like to be a badass softie and for being here today.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Thank you so much.
J Raeder: Thank you for including me today. This has been an honor. I loved it. It was so great.
[00:27:49] Choosing Optimism When Things Get Hard
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Jan, thank you so much for that conversation. It, I, I loved it on so many different levels, and we really could have talked for hours and hours and hours. And I was thinking about the different takeaways that I was gonna walk away with, and for me, I think the thing I'm really focusing on out of this conversation is this idea of optimism.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: You know, we live in a world right now where media and social media are kind of tell- telling you that everything is going up in flames, and let's be honest, in many ways it is. For many of us, we are in a space that is not fun right now. Um, maybe we're a little depressed about some things. We've run into a lot of roadblocks.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: We've suffered a lot of grief, and we look around us at social media and the world, and we see that there's a lot of hard things going on, and it gets... It's very easy for me in those spaces to, uh, lean into the grief and the sadness and the hard things about it. And what today's conversation reminded me is that grief is not bad Uh, even getting hit is not bad, and it's not something we should wish for or hope for, or you go be like, "Yay, I can't believe that I have another loss."
Dr. J.J. Peterson: No, that's not how it works. But in the midst of those, what we can do is look around, what I can do is look around in the moment and say, "But look at also the goodness that's in the world. Look at also the beauty, and how can I lean into this moment, this lesson, this gift that I have been given, and find redemption from it and transcend above it and bring more goodness in the world because of this hard gift?"
Dr. J.J. Peterson: That's not an easy thing to do, and I don't say it lightly. But I do... That's something I wanna walk away from here going, "Okay, in the midst of grief, in the midst of getting hit, in the midst of loss, how can I learn from this and ultimately transcend it so that I can bring goodness to the world?" Again, not easy.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: Something I think I'll be practicing a lot, but I want to be someone who leans into optimism a little bit more. So before we go, I'd like to leave you with this. May you have the courage to know yourself deeply. May the things that hit you deepen your empathy without hardening your heart. May you never confuse optimism with pretending that everything is okay, but instead keep looking for the good that can still be created.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And may you take what you learn about yourself, even from the hardest parts of your story, and use it to bring a more healing, redemption, and goodness into the world. Because we believe you can be both ambitious and kind, fun and driven, powerful and deeply human. Your leadership can inspire, your success can have soul, and your ambition can make space for everyone.
Dr. J.J. Peterson: That's why you're a badass softie. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Follow and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Badasssoftie.com is crafted by Fruitful Design and Strategy.