Stress is a much discussed topic in today's world.  Everyone has stress, talks about it, seeks help with it and constantly looks for ways around or out of it.

In the real world, stress is actually a physical phenomenon.  Engineers test bridges for how much stress they can endure.  Buildings are designed to withstand the stress of high winds or earthquakes.  In almost all cases of physical stress, designed flexibility is the solution.

When is person is stressed, particularly a new threat or challenge, he or she often defaults to the familiar.  They seek comfort in activities that are either routine or repetitive.  For example, a person may seek comfort in television, food or alcohol.

The term comfort zone comes from a familiar routine.  When the person is challenged from outside influences, there is a tendency to seek ways back to the comfort zone.

This can be seen in the business world.  A tremendous sales person is promoted to a sales management position.  All of a sudden, the person cannot perform the comfortable sales routine and must transition to meetings, coaching and supervising.  Often times, this person may seek to revert to their comfort zone by going on sales calls with subordinates and sometimes even taking over the sales call to the detriment of the sales person.

This has been explored in the Peter Principle which holds that businesses often promote people to their level of incompetence.

What is a strategy to defuse this situation?  One technique used in some types of therapy is to add a cushion of time between the stressful event and the reaction to it.  That cushion can be used to use rational thought to seek other more measured responses.  It may help a person to avoid an autonomic response and creatively see and solve the problem.

Branding in one note

On my last commute, I switched radio stations and caught the very end of a song and with a short pause, the first note of the new song played.  I immediately knew the song and also immediately knew that for the most part, I could not stand the song.  All of that information conveyed in less than a second!  I knew the song, the singer, about when it was popular, and my emotional response of not liking it.

Over the years, there has been a number of game shows along the genre of naming popular songs.  Many of these shows come down to a playoff between contestants in bidding on how few notes they can name the song.  Usually this is done on a piano, so one note is not distinctive and it takes more than one to name a song.

But how many songs are recognizable in one note?  The Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" is instantly recognizable by the distinctive guitar chord that opens the song.  Others are recognizable with a vocal.  Who can forget the maniacal laugh that opens the tune "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris?

One could argue that these opening notes comprise the song's brand.  As familiar to audiences as the Coca-Cola label or the McDonald's arches.

In fact, one popular dittie was based on a corporate logo on top of its headquarters!

This begs the question of how we are establishing our personal brand.  What are we doing to make our company brand and our individual persona vibrate.

I suspect that our brand is strengthened with a couple of "C's"; consistency and constancy.

Consistency in how our work is performed, how it is presented, how it is perceived and how it is accomplished. 

Constancy in the fact that we are not here today, gone tomorrow.  That we are dependable.  That we follow through.

We can work on these things and our brand will flourish.

Using the Heart of Palm Method

I was watching one of the reality shows that pit man against nature with little else.  Although highly edited, (one member had a staff with day notches in it, with about seven notches above the crawl that told us it was day one) I came across an interesting lesson.

Early in the challenge, the issues of fire and water were solved as well as some sources of fish. (I will blog later about semantic laziness and the use of the word protein).  However the need for food of any kind was apparent.

One of the contestants found a cabbage palm tree, whose center contained the fruit heart of palm.  However to harvest this required chopping down the tree and cutting into the center to harvest the heart of palm.

Bearing in mind these shows are heavily edited, the contestants seemed to go at the tree in lengthy bursts thereby exhausting themselves and being forced to lie down or immerse themselves in the nearby stream.

My comment to the TV screen was "Why don't they go hard at the tree for about five minutes every hour of daylight until it is done?"  By doing so, their energy level would allow for gathering, fishing, drinking and resting.  And more than likely, the momentum would be self fulfilling as nearing the goal would provide additional motivation.  Thus, the tree would come down much earlier and provide food for a longer period.

Here is our common sense aha.  Why not apply this "heart of palm" method to our daily routine?  For example, take a break from a task by performing another task for a few minutes.  A good way to do this is to set a kitchen timer for a hour and then at the end of the hour take five minutes on another activity.

Write for an hour, then straighten you closet for five minutes.  Get on a conference call for an hour, then spend five minutes standing up and dusting your desk. 

Nothing really new here, but as with all things in the common sense realm, we need to remind ourselves. 

Napoleon:

“The reason I beat the Austrians is, they did not known the value of five minutes”