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Stress is both a hero and villain in our lives. Good stress keeps us sharp, excited, vibrant. It adds colour and texture to life and makes the world an exciting place:

The great new idea. Pitching it to a potential client. The success of winning an engagement. The ‘crikey I’ve now got to deliver it’. The ‘thanks for a job well done’. The next engagement call from a happy client.

Each of these adrenaline rushes is fun, exciting and keeps us on our toes. Good stress is what makes life exciting, an adventure, a journey into the unknown.

Bad stress burns you out and eventually kills you. It’s the unreasonable boss, the over demanding partner/family, the overload of tasks, the 18 hour days, the all nighters, the ‘you get fired if you mess up’ demands of some organisations.

Here are a series of insights to help you understand the role of stress in your life. I aim to show you how to use good stress to your advantage and how to avoid, or at least handle, the bad stuff.

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Being a parent is a wonderful experience and we love our children to bits and yet, if we are truthful, we frequently find ourselves tearing our hair out with the difficulty of it all. Speaking personally, the younger generation are a major source of stress, up there with long hours, demanding clients and even the challenge of finding new business.

Just ask yourself the following questions. Wouldn’t your life be infinitely less stressful if your delightful offspring (if you have them) regularly:

• Bounced out of bed cheerfully on time, made their beds and opened the curtains
• Ate a healthy breakfast and showered properly (especially teens)
• Practiced their musical instruments diligently (ours are pretty good here)
• Didn’t leave games stuff at school (ours are dreadful in this regard)
• Did their homework diligently (ours are actually rather good at this)
• Came off the PC, PS3, TV, etc. cheerfully and on time (hmm…)
• Enthusiastically cleared up their rooms
• Were in bed, lights out and asleep on time (i.e. not feasting on illicit sweets or reading under the duvet with a flashlight)

Here are a couple of tips you may find helpful.

The first tip is to install an excellent utility called TimesUpKidz onto your PC from http://www.timesupkidz.com/. This basically allows you to outsource the hassle of getting your kids off the PC (I think Windows 7 has this built-in). Beware, this functionality is not available for the PlayStation 3 which is a mistake we made in buying one of these.

The second tip is to consider adapting this spreadsheet (click here to download) for your nearest and dearest. The idea is to:

1. Choose with them something they would like to save towards and put it on the spreadsheet
2. Print a copy weekly for each child and Blu-Tack it next to the kitchen light switch
3. Each day tick off each item successfully completed
4. At the end of the week give them, say £5, for successfully completing all tasks
5. Any task not completed gets a 50p deduction

This normally works brilliantly with younger children. Once they are in their teens it may be too late. But it’s at least worth a try…

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Sharon Jandoo who shared her original ideas with me and helped develop the spreadsheet.

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1. You meet a Chief Executive at a networking event. How do you do business with them?
2. You are facilitating a workshop and some smart-ass asks you a difficult question. How do you handle it?
3. You are leading a team of experts. How do you steer them?
4. You are dealing with a difficult person. How do you quickly win them over?
5. You are about to be mugged. What should you do next?

I have to confess that I lasted 3 weeks as a Boy Scout at the age of eleven - I got bored and took up judo instead. But I did learn one valuable lesson – Be Prepared!

Like many other skills, being prepared and practice are the key to thinking on your feet. Here are a few quick suggestions for dealing with the above situations (in order):

1. Chance Meeting: Prepare several ‘Elevator Pitches’ which you can adapt on the fly.
2. Smart-assed Question: If you can answer it, do. Otherwise consider a) opening the question up to the rest of the team or b) offering to handle it offline or c) simply smile, say that it’s an interesting point, that you would like to give it some proper thought and come back to it later. You could also try what politicians do which is to thank the questionner, say how interesting it is and then give a completely different answer to publicise your own agenda!
3. Working with Experts: Have a clear and evidence-based methodology, set of frameworks and some cool tools and techniques.
4. Difficult People: Attend a good negotiating skills course (too complex to cover here).
5. Muggers: If they are dangerous give them what they want (i.e. the ‘light’ muggers wallet you carry when you use public transport). If they are harmless tell them to go to hell!

Your life is infinitely more complex than this and you probably face a wide range of different challenges. Think them through. Prepare in advance and practice if possible.

If you do this you can both handle stress better (thinking on your feet and worrying about it can be very stressful). You are also better equipped to future proof your career by seizing opportunities when you meet the right people.

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Good stress (‘ eustress’ in the literature) clears our minds and focuses us, quickens our reflexes and makes us very, very alert. Good stress places us in the eye of the hurricane, in a quiet place brimming with potential. We’ve all marvelled at musicians, sportsmen and performers of all types as they strut their stuff in the glare of the spotlight. We can potentially do the same.

So what’s their secret? How does the musician, the professional golfer and the athletics champion master the waves of fear that threaten to engulf the rest of us? What is their secret? How can we use stress to our advantage?

Contrary to logic, these people are no different from the rest of us. They are not somehow magically wired to handle stress in a way that allows their skills to flow flawlessly, fearlessly and rarely have an off moment. Moreover, this magic wiring doesn’t somehow allow them when they do make a mistake to just shrug their shoulders, laugh, learn and get it right next time.

No, they are just the same as the rest of us but they are conditioned differently. They have practiced their sport or craft for thousands of hours and delivered it in a ‘threatening’ environment on hundreds of occasions. They receive expert tuition and coaching. No wonder they are good at what they do and can manage stress to their advantage.

And then, of course, there are the rest of us. We do have real skills and talents, yet we are strangely fearful and lack confidence. 

There’s nothing wrong with the quiet life if that’s what you truly want. If so, retire to the country (if you have the cash), get a job (if you don’t) and certainly avoid anything as high profile and potentially dangerous as public speaking or setting up your own business.

However, if you want to get to the top of your professional game, whatever this is, there’s no point in hanging back. Go for it but you really need to put some effort into mastering stress to make the most of it. You’re going to have to become a champion at ‘stress surfing’.

What we can learn from the champions is that:

1. They practice a great deal (you can apparently become a genius at anything if you have a basic aptitude for it and are prepared to spend 10,000 hours practicing it!).
2. They are used to performing in public starting at small events and gradually working up.
3. They receive expert coaching and mentoring.
4. They use science and technology to their advantage.
5. They are prepared to fail, pick themselves up and try again.
6. They have a ‘Plan B’ i.e. something they can do when they retire or perhaps are injured

Here are some tips for how to surf stress:

• Develop a vision for where you would like to be, for example a world-class public speaker in your field.
• Be bold – throw yourself into it but start small, e.g. at a regional event organised by your professional association. The worst thing you can do to yourself and your confidence is to overstretch yourself and crash at a major public event.
• Find someone you trust to coach and advise you.
• Do some media training if you intend to appear in the mass media.
• Be enthusiastic and prepared to take small risks – you will be amazed by what emerges when they pay off.
• Practice, practice, practice. Polished performers have done hundreds of gigs before you see them.
• When you are about to perform, acknowledge and ‘welcome’ the feeling of fear – just this process alone normally melts it and allows you get on with the task.
• Imagine you are in a place where you have made a success of it before and recapture that feeling.
• If it goes wrong, laugh! This may not be easy but I have some great war stories where things went wrong . They get a laugh and seem to get people more on your side.
• Develop a ‘Plan B’ – something you can do if your primary plan does not work out for some reason.
• Above all else, really go for it – you only live once!

If you really can’t find a way through the fear barrier get professional help. Visit your GP, explain your problem and they will point you in the right direction. They may even be able to prescribe legal medication for your chosen activity.

Mastering fear is a terrific achievement. It allows you to achieve goals you would never have dreamed possible. It also significantly reduces stress and gives you more options allowing you to further future-proof your career. It may sound corny but the biggest fear is fear itself. Time to roll up your sleeves and tackle it head on!

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