Musings 3 - Psychology and Stress

I had a heart attack when I was 35. At least that is what the hospital said. I was totally and completely stressed out. When they opened me up, they did not find any blockage or weird rhythms and one nitro glycerine was all I needed to relieve the symptoms. Any how, the helicopter flight and the week in the hospital cost me $15,000. It took us two years to fully recover financially.

Starting three companies, having three kids and just living on this crazy planet had taken their toll. Most of all, I let negative, unhappy people in my life affect my mental state. I did not handle criticism well and especially did not handle unintelligent and irrational business leadership that worked with a mini-max mentality (Minimize other people's outcome and maximize theirs). I believe the pie can alway be made bigger and everyone can win. I have discovered that most people do not sign up for that though.

I think a lot of guys find themselves in leadership roles in companies in combination with kids and wife and become overwhelmed by their perception of everyone's expectations. From this, catastrophic thinking emerges. A tendency to focus on the worst outcome emerges instead of focusing on the best outcomes. The biggest example is - what happens if I loose my job. This then leads to negativity and depression. Depression leads to a need to find something that makes you happy. For a vast number of us humans, the happy drug becomes food. When stress sets in, we reach for food - especially bad food. The happy feeling lasts about as long as it takes to swallow the food, so you keep eating.

Then you get fat!

I bet this story has been repeated hundreds of millions of times in our society. We are stressing ourselves out to death.

You cannot fix your health until you fix your mind. I saw an executive coach this year. We worked a lot on professional tools and strategies and that was very helpful, but the best stuff was the work on the personal side which has laid the foundation for everything positive that is happening in my life now.

Here is what I learned:

1. The most important thing is that most people do not really care about you one way or another. Very few people ever think about you when you are not around. Most people are totally self centered and egotistical. As soon as you accept this, you can go to the next point.
2. Since few people really care about you, you can quit worrying about what they think about you. In reality, they don't think anything - except the really negative people that tend to fixate on negative things and cannot find anything constructive anyhow.
3. Once you quit worrying about what other people think about you, you quit trying to please everyone else.
4. Once you quit trying to please everyone, life becomes super simple, because it is really easy to please yourself and meet your own needs.
5. Once you figure out how to meet your own needs (self actualize) you can find real peace and will no longer look for things like food and alcohol to fill the void.

This is the path I have been on this year. There is no way I could have done this process without accepting the 5 points above. For the first time in my life I am truly content. I need nothing and have everything I could possibly ever hope for. Our messed up society tells us we need to keep consuming and keep up with the next guy. This is silly. Once you check off the food, shelter, and clothes boxes, the rest is just window dressing.

In fact, I am finding that as I get rid of stuff, I get happier. The less stuff I have, the more free I am. Freedom to me means less stress and more space to live.

I have also found a renewed love for work. I love working hard in the absence of stress. There are days when I have to work super hard and there are easy days, but there are no longer stressful days. I am finding that this attitude has led to me being much more efficient and productive at work and I am much less emotionally driven.

Now that I am here, I am finding I have time and space to help others. I want my close friends and family to get in mental and physical shape and find personal peace. I want to help my co-workers achieve their goals. I want my customers to use our products to make their lives (and their customer's lives) better. I want to model a way of living for my kids so they never ever go through what I did.

All of this stuff is interrelated. You cannot get in shape without chilling out. It is hard to chill out without getting in shape. For me, I had to work on it all at once.

4 years ago, I doubted I would live to 40. I plan to live a healthy life to 100 now. I will never let myself return to where I was. Here is my vow to myself:

- No More Catastrophic Fear

- No More People Pleasing

- No More Stress Eating

- More Working Out

- More Helping Others

- More Chilling Out