The Quest for a Stress-Free Business Life
I had a conversation with one of my business partners the other day about stress levels. He was telling me that at his stage in life, he just wants “no stress or aggravation”, and to run a simple business that causes no headaches and doesn’t keep him awake at night.
He wanted to know how I deal with the constant pressure of running multiple businesses and dealing with daily problems like:
- Managing cash flow
- Juggling multiple businesses
- Being constantly embroiled in legal action
- Dealing with underperforming staff
- Balancing home and work life
- Suffering losses and defeats
- Realising there are only 24 hours in the day
The list goes on!
The Reality of Stress and Aspirations
Look, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have days where I wish that I had nothing at all to worry about. That I could just sit on the beach, sipping a mojito without a care in the world. But that’s just not real life. Or rather, that is just not real life if you want to build a big, successful business that makes a sh1t tonne of money. (*I am not saying that everyone should want to do that by the way, but I am saying that if you do want to be a financially successful business owner then stress and pressure come part and parcel in the game.) But this doesn’t just apply to business and money. If you are never stressed then you are living life in your comfort zone, never pushing to be any better. Anything you are ever trying to grow takes a level of stress to move on to the next level and to develop.
The Role of Stress in Improvement
Running, building muscle, learning a new skill or language, unless you are staying at the same level and never getting any better, how can you possibly improve in them without stress or pressure? Just like a diamond can’t be created unless carbon is subjected to extreme pressure. A human can never be great in something without it either. But this also doesn’t mean you should or are able to, live your life at a permanent breaking point.
The Importance of Recovery and Growth
If you are trying to build muscle and a great physique, as important as heavy weights are, rest, sleep and nutrition. Growing yourself for your business is no different. Let’s pause for a minute and rewind to 1908 when psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson were looking to investigate “The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit-Formation.” In simple terms, they were looking to determine the relationship between different levels of stress and performance.
And this is how they did it:
- They designed a wooden box with two electric chambers painted black and white.
- The dancing mice were given a choice of either entering the white or black electric box.
- If the mice entered the black box, they would receive an electric shock.
- If they entered the white box, they would not receive any electric shock.
- The experiment was repeated using differing strengths of electric shock.
- In the first set of experiments, it was found that the mice took too long to form the habit of choosing the white box over the black box.
- As the psychologists increased the strength of the shock, the number of trials needed for the mice to select the correct box decreased.
- Until the strength of the shock was at its highest, at which point the number of trials needed to make the correct decision went up again.
- The psychologists concluded that the speed of habit formation and the conditions of discrimination were closely related.
- When the difference in electrical stimulus of the boxes was minimal, habit-formation became difficult and vice versa.
- When the applied voltage was high, habit formation came with ease.
- When the conditions of discrimination were set at moderate levels, the rapidity of learning first increased with increasing amounts of stimuli up to a certain point and thereafter decreased with further increments of stimulation.
So now you don’t just need to take my word for it – those little Japanese dancing mice proved it is true! But what does this mean for you and your business? Low levels of stress make us just as unproductive as high levels of stress.
The Strategy: Finding Optimum Stress Levels
So the key is to find our OPTIMUM level of stress to achieve our OPTIMUM level of performance. But how do you do this? Old-school logic would just tell us to keep working. Work, work, work, Outwork your competition. But there is a limit to how much work anyone can do. Even the most sadistic of entrepreneurs can only find 24 hours a day in which to work!
You can’t outwork, you have to OUTPERFORM.
The Process: Push, Recover, Train
This means being able to consistently handle high amounts of pressure & stress. Do this and your stress “baseline” will become higher. We all understand baseline and tolerance in other areas of life, and it is no different here. You should recognise this process.
Push Yourself
First, you need to get yourself stressed. Increase your workload, take on tasks, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Do more, work harder. Push yourself as far as you can. Just like with the mice, it has to be uncomfortable – but not to breaking point.
Recover
Now it is time to optimise. To take your foot off the pedal and focus on sustainability. Just like a man must eat or a car must refuel – you must replenish your levels. Get back your sanity. De-stress.
We all have our own ways of destressing, Time out, sleep, hobbies, exercise – whatever it may be. But you need to bring yourself down from that stress ‘high’ and stabilise.
Train
Just like you have a bicep or a pectoral muscle, you have a stress muscle too. Train it and unlock your true potential. You do this just the same as you would in the gym by progressively overloading. Adding more and more on till you are at breaking point and then STOP. Recover and repeat. Just as your capacity for exercise and your strength increases in the gym, your baseline for stress and ability to handle more increases too. Top lawyers and bankers who regularly work 12+ hours a day, and perform under extreme pressure, weren’t born this way. They have gotten used to it over time, training their stress muscle. There is no right answer for the amount of stress you should want to be able to take. Everything depends on your goals and desired lifestyle. But whatever it is you are looking to excel in at life, remember: Not being stressed enough leads to mediocrity. Being too stressed leads to burnout.
Find your optimal stress level and crush your competition!
