doug smith training

Have you ever had a leader who felt the need to let you know how stressed they were? "There's all this pressure on financials..." or "it's not easy being in charge..." or "I need you to consider my needs, too..." and so on. Leadership comes with stress. Leaders need to rise above the safe levels of just letting things roll around you. Stepping up comes at a cost of uncertainty. What if that's not a bad thing, but rather a stimulating thing? Your stress ins not your team's problem. They've got stressors and problems of their own. They'll do their best until they learn a better way to do it. They've got time to improve. What they don't have is time to fix your stress. You know who IS in charge of your stress? Of course you do. That's you. -- doug smith

From the Life Hack Bootcamp series featuring the cheerful and direct Demir & Carey comes this 13 minute video offering useful tips for creating teams that are productive and less stressed. You could call it Knowing When to Manage and When to Get Out of the Way. Good stuff!

How big of a deal is stress in your life? We all endure a certain amount of stress. Depending on what's going on in your work and in your life, you may be going thru more stress than you want. Not all stress is bad (setting an ambitious goal, for example, adds a kind of good stress) but too much stress can slow you down. How much of your stress are you choosing? Certainly, not all of your stress, but could you admit that some of it is the result of you doing too much worrying, or waiting too long to work on that big goal, or taking what the boss said too personally, or procrastinating when you knew the deadline was going to be tough? You know as well as anyone else the answer to what to do about the stress you cause yourself: let it go. Stop it. Relax, breathe, focus, and then get to work. When we do that, when we control the stress that we can control, when we choose "no" to a piece of self-selected stress, it makes handling the tough unchosen stress much, much e...

The best way to stop a task from causing stress is to finish it. -- Doug Smith

What's your single biggest stressor? Would you like to get rid of it? For me, the biggest stressor in my life is usually also my biggest problem. The longer it stays a problem, the bigger and more gnarly it gets, which puts more pressure on me to solve it, which causes more stress. I could do without that stress. But, it's there to help. Stress reminds us that somethings needs to be taken care of. Something needs to be fixed, found, or solved. Why not simply get started? Solving your toughest problem may not relieve all of your stress but it sure helps focus it in the right direction. Why not relieve some of that stress today? Get started! Centered problem solvers realize that problems are not completely separate from themselves. We know not to take them personally, and yet they interfere with our personal selves. Instead of reacting in an immobilized way to the stress that produces, why not move forward. Figure out the root cause of the problem and then set about a...