RABBI EZRA MAX PCC, MHMP
HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCED STRESS OR SELF-DOUBT? STRESS IS KNOWN TO BE A KILLER. IT CAN CAUSE MEDICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS THAT CAN LEAD TO HEART ATTACK, STROKE, AND DEATH.
What if you could live a stress-free life? What would it be worth to have no stress? How nice would that be? Perhaps there’s a way of managing stress so that it doesn’t kill us. What if we could understand stress differently, making it not all bad and evil. What if there are benefits to stress? What if there’s some value in being stressed?
One of my clients was doing really well. Millions of dollars in revenue with a decent-sized team when they hit a “speed bump,” which then created a few more bumps, and he was completely stressed out. Constant challenges, constantly putting out fires is how he described it.
“Oh, so you’re a fireman?” I asked.
He said, “No, I’m a businessman. I have a business, a team, customers, clients and vendors.”
I said, “It sounds like you’re a fireman.”
He replied, “I don’t know, fireman, businessman, fact is, I’m a very stressed out man, and I heard you can help me. Can you help me?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” I said, “I understand it, I get it. You have a tremendous amount of demands and you have constant emergencies. There are urgent situations that require your attention, and you feel like you’re not even breathing half of the time. At this point, you want to pull your hair out, escape, sell the business, or run away, but you can’t. You’re too invested here and you need to do something. I get it. Your life is mega stressful.”
He said, “Yeah, but can you solve it? Can you fix the problem?”
I answered, “Well, I don’t know if I can fix this for you, but I might be able to help you improve things. I can help you redefine your stress. If you allow me, I can coach you through a process of shifting, how you address your business, how you put out fires and help you become a fire chief instead of a fireman. I might know something about this from my years of experience in EMS (Emergency Medical Service) leadership.”
We began with understanding stress and its purpose. What I helped him recognize is that the stress and tension he was feeling was a message for him. True, it created a fight or flight type of response and this was becoming traumatic for him. Through coaching, he began to see benefits in feeling stressed because it was helping him notice potential problems and make improvements.
The ParenTEEN experience, an online program for parents to teach them the skills and tools I’ve been using to help families for over 20 years, was created from stress. Because parents keep telling me; we’re overwhelmed, we can’t handle this, we’re frustrated and need you to “fix my teen.” There are not enough hours in the day to help everyone, and I wanted to give back and make these tools accessible for people who weren’t able to pay $1,000’s for 1:1 coaching.
To be less stressed, we must begin to understand stress from a different perspective and perhaps even embrace it. Dr. Danny Friedland teaches that the essence of stress is when the perceived demands upon us are greater than our resources. When the demands upon us feel overwhelming, we react in fight or flight, triggering a downward negative spiral leading to feeling trapped. This can lead to collapse, depression, feeling extremely overwhelmed and burnout.
What are you to do, when the demands upon you are greater than the resources that you have?
You can use the tools and redefine your relationship with stress.
It’s not so funny, but when we’re feeling stressed, we’re stressed and that’s the most significant stress. Because we’re stressed about our stress and don’t know what to do, which creates more stress.
In the “Manage Your Stress 2.1” workshops, we encourage you to think about stress as information. You learn to pause, ground, breathe, notice and choose your response. Here are some possible reactions and ways for you to understand your stress.
REACT: This is usually an automatic fight or flight type reaction.
TEND & BEFRIEND: Tend to the distress and get curious about what it’s telling you.
HARNESS the ENERGY: Employ the energy and channel it to your advantage.
25 years ago as a young man starting out in the business world, I switched jobs planning to make more money and accepted less weekly income with long-term commissions. Meanwhile, I was going broke, and the fear of failure, the fear of not paying my rent, the fear of not being able to pay my bills, and the shame of not earning enough money to care for my family appropriately weighed heavily upon me because I was making less than what we needed. My income was less than my expenses and my savings were dwindling. As I looked at these negative numbers, my stress increased and the fight or flight instinct kicked in. The fear of failure was paramount, and yet this also created a particular fuel of desire. It fired me up and generated tremendous drive.
Instead of shutting me down and causing me to collapse, this fueled a tremendous drive and desire. Over the following 10 months, I doubled my income. Not once, but twice. You can do the same.
Remember, you have the most incredible resource for any demand. Hashem loves you and you can rely on Him to help you navigate your stress for your benefit. Stress can actually be a gift.
Rabbi Ezra Max, PCC, MHMP, Xchange Guide & Creator of “The Max Method” assists businesses and professionals deal with stress and achieve success. Rabbi Max has witnessed 20 years of results helping executives, parents and teens overcome struggles, improve communication and thrive. He lives in New York with his wife and five children.
