Stress; it’s something we all live with these days. It causes tension, depletes our energy and can affect our ability to interact appropriately with others.

Many things can cause stress to pile up onto our already overloaded shoulders.

Did you just hear from staff on-site that the large project you had scheduled for this week suddenly won’t be available to you and the rest of the team for another three weeks?

Your programmer called to let you know that over the weekend he decided he was going to hike around the outback for a month. That’s not going to be a problem for you, right?

Your project manager illegally parked the company van outside the cinema last night and it was towed away with four displays, the rack and many other valuable items stored within it.

Yep, stress can certainly pile up.

So now what? As owners and project managers these are scenarios we deal with on any given day, and they all need to be resolved.

One area of deep personal stress is dealing with conflict with others. It can take many forms, including, but not limited to:

• Conflict with an employee who just used the company credit card to purchase flights for a vacation, thinking you would understand and be happy to loan them the money in the meantime and just deduct the amount from their next paycheck.
• Conflict with your main contact at XYZ company as the amp they have been peddling to you heats up to become a serious fire hazard when in use. Sure, they are offering all kinds of incentives and a truckload of crap for free, but now you need to drop everything and have all 18 installed units replaced immediately, including the one installed in the Blue Mountains. Just think of the stress your guy over there is enduring, too!
• Conflict with a client due to their constant meddling with the field tech over issues that have nothing to do with the project, or repeatedly changing their mind as to what they want and where they would like it.
• Conflict with suppliers regarding the timeliness of shipments, RMAs, under-applied owed credits or missed shipments. You got some guy from Perth’s stuff, and the factory has no clue where yours is – and oh, that’s now backlogged.

Today’s tip:

Deal with personal conflict first thing in the morning or even better, the instant you discover the situation. Carrying the stress will not lighten your day in any way.

Remember dear reader; this is something we have been taught for years.  Manage the things you have control over, as the things that are out of your control are still going to get worse, better or stay the same regardless. (Well, they probably won’t stay the same, nothing ever does…)

How you deal with anxiety internally is the most important thing.  Stress can literally be a killer.  Take a deep breath and wait about five minutes before responding to any calls or emails and things will be easier to respond to without additional stress or anxiety. Your response to situations should be measured, not like gallons of gasoline pumped onto a fire.

The following was penned by a friend (Chuck Swindoll) about 40 years ago, and it has never let me down:

“The longer I live, the more I realise the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is even more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a school, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change the past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is plan on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I choose to react to it.”

And so it is with you. We are in complete charge of our attitudes.

We know things get testy – your staff will at times act in such a way they make a crate of used shoelaces look scholarly.

From the 50K foot level, one could ask: “When you started your company: What the heck did you expect?”

Stress is part of the gig. How about you? Besides exercise, how do you bleed off the tensions of the day?