Thrive with Stress, Don't just Survive it!

I’ve always prided myself as someone who is ‘cool under pressure’.  I played elite basketball growing up and relished the physical and mental challenge of competition.  I helped build business from the ground up in Sydney, London and New York, working into the wee hours of the morning countless times, and always delivered.  Stress wasn’t something that got the better of me, until recently.

For 4 years, while living a fast-paced, high-pressure life in New York, I experienced the dark side of stress.  After several specialist appointments (and a scary colonoscopy), I was diagnosed with proctitis. I won’t go into the symptoms but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.  It turned out there wasn’t any particular dietary reason for the onset of this condition. I was told that I would be able to manage it but it would never go away.  As far as the gastro was concerned, this was my new normal. I should stop drinking and eat a clean diet (so no social life) and most importantly, reduce my stress levels. 

Stress had, quite literally, started attacking my body.

My story is not unique.  Everyone seems to be “stressed-out” these days. In fact, when I researched stress levels in New York I found some startling facts. In 1999, Nicholas Christenfeld, a professor at the University of California, examined the rates of death by heart attack across the U.S. In New York, he found the rate of death was 55% higher than the national average. 55%!!! A more recent study showed that New York women are far more stressed out than other women across the U.S.  New York really is an exceptional place.

Well, I’m pleased to say that I have not experienced a symptom in over 3 years. I know what you’re thinking - I moved to the beach and live a completely stress-free life. Ha, I wish. 

My symptoms actually stopped while I was still living in NYC, and I didn’t have to give up the small indulgences in life, nor did stress go away.  In fact, it increased. In the last couple of years, I moved to the other side of the world, back to Sydney.  There have been serious illnesses, and death, in the family.  I got a dog with a stronger will than mine, bought my first house, wrote a book – all while doing challenging work and figuring out how to make a remote working situation work for me and the people I work with. Believe me, there was PLENTY of stress.

But something shifted for me and my relationship with stress changed.  Stress is just a thing – it’s not inherently good or bad. It’s the bodies attempt to get us ready for action or drive a particular behaviour. It’s actually there to help us, not hurt us.   It’s our experience of stress that makes it positive or negative. 

Stress, if leveraged, can help us perform in high pressure situations, connect with others and grow, both personally and professionally. I think of this as a STRESS POSITIVE state. On the flipside it can create divide and conflict, cause us to withdraw from the things that matter to us, and eventually burnout.  This is a STRESS NEGATIVE state, which can, and should, be avoided.

There are very simple mindset interventions that can shift individuals, and teams, from a STRESS NEGATIVE to a STRESS POSITIVE state.  Believe it or not, mindset interventions even have the ability to impact the bodies physiological response to stress, releasing different levels and combinations of hormones – making it less harmful on the body.  In fact, it can even contribute to positive health outcomes.

Stress isn’t going anywhere but we need to learn new skills and ways of thinking to transform our experience of it from something that drags us down to something that energises us. We have a choice.

It’s become my goal to help more people thrive with stress and not just survive it.  So, I thought it was only fitting to put my training to the test in the city where I experienced the dark side of stress; New York, New York. I spent a month in New York and worked with three completely different companies - a New York advertising agency, one of the fastest growing bio-pharmaceutical companies and the planets largest social network platform – to tackle different aspects of STRESS POSITIVE including performance, connection and growth. 

No matter what the environment, stress is probably one of the most universal human experiences.  It was hugely satisfying to share this learning with so many amazing people.

I am co-hosting a morning seminar on this topic with the amazing Chelsea Pottenger in Sydney, Australia, this October.  Please contact me if you’re interested to join and I’ll make sure you are first to know the details.