Sunday Musings - Conquering Stress and Anxiety, Perfect is the Enemy of Good, Harvard for Free?
January 14th, 2024
Happy Sunday Friend!
Here is 1 quote I’m musing, 2 Ideas, 3 of my favorite things from the week, and 1 question. If you find it useful or interesting, please feel free to forward this along to some friends or others!
One Quote I’m Musing
“The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you’ll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus.
The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”
-Marcus Aurelius
Hey friends, I’m in the midst of a whirlwind quarter of interviewing people for positions, reorganizing two of my organizations, interviewing (and now prepping) my replacement, rounds two and three for some great opportunities in my primary course of work as well as my startup, Clipt, being picked up by 757 Studios Startup hub and starting with an accelerator (My partners, especially Amy, have been absolutely killing it!). All while still doing my actual job of leading several hundred folks who are crushing it as we continue to grow and push the cyber edge in 2024.
Woof.
All of that to say, I have a lot of stress and anxiety from many happy burdens on my plate. I say that to identify that, while they are burdens, they are happy ones.
I was feeling a lot of that anxiety building and started to find myself reacting negatively to routine, mundane things that never even caused so much as a blip before. As leaders, entrepreneurs, creators, we have a lot on our plates. I like to think of it as too little butter spread over too much bread.
So I decided to take a step back and examine what was going on. You professionals might think of this as introspection, reflection.
Part of that was finding Dr. Julie Smith and her book Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? It’s got just over 9.5 thousand reviews (reviews, not just downloads) and a 4.6 star rating… so I figured there are definitely a good idea in here.
Nope.
I took away five evidence-based practices to help identify and mitigate stress and anxiety. I’m going to share them with you in an order I think works as a system. First, to give you a bit of a prep ahead of reading it yourself. Or secondly, so you don’t have to.
Early Feelings - This can be an early warning system. It may not be the “one truth” but they’re (early warning) indicators of what possibly reality may come. We can entertain the thought/idea/feeling and use it for mindfulness as we remain open to other perspectives and experiences. Which helps us with practice number two.
Get Distance From Our Thoughts - Write down the feelings and thoughts you’re experiencing using concepts that distance you from the feeling and prime your mind to analyze the thought, rather than experience a fact. Recognize the thought exists, see it for what it, is and remove the power from it.
It’s Not All About You (Stop Personalizing) - When things happen, it’s easy to make it our fault. Dr. Smith has a great example of waiving to a friend, and they don’t waive back. Rather than think they didn’t see us, we think that something we said or did must have made them dislike us, and we must have done it in a group setting, so the group must think we’re terrible also. Now everyone hates us, we’re unlovable, we’re going to die alone. I think this is also part of catastrophizing. If we zoom out, there are countless reasons they may not have waived back. We’re taking an event that’s pretty neutral and perverting it in a way that makes it negatively about us; which makes us miserable.
Adjust The Mental Filter - This is when our filter is sized to let all the positive little things fall through and hold onto the negatives. This makes us feel bad, or much worse, about something that is likely a good thing, but at its worst, neutral. Dr. Smith has a fun video on X (yeah, that’s weird to not say twitter) about it.
Mindfulness - Yeah, the gurus on TikTok will say you should go take a hot bath and light some candles or burn some scents. You can do that if it works for you. But the idea is to find a practice that hones your ability to focus on the present, blocking out negative thoughts and just be in the moment, give your brain a break. I like to hit the rower or swim. The sound of water (yes, I have a water rower, stop smirking) flowing helps me wash (lol) aside extraneous thoughts and focus on just the sound of my strokes. It’s a constant choice of where we’re going to focus our attention, notice where our mind is at, identify if it’s helpful or negative, and then bring it back to the present.
There are five evidence-based ideas from a real psychologist to manage our stress and anxiety and maintain our productivity as leaders in this fast-paced world.
Side note: I’ve been taking the twins to the trampoline park weekly. It’s great fun for them and for me. Turns out I can still do my flippy things! Flipping is scientifically proven (not scientific) to produce happy feelings (true).
Two Ideas From Me
Anytime someone lists off reasons why your idea wouldn’t work; ask them for for three reasons why it would.
Often, it’s not more information we need, it’s decision. The good days are sacrificed in search of the perfect days.
Three Favorite Things From Others
Harvard’s CS50 courseware - Want a springboard into computer science in the from of Data Science, Programming, AI, and more? Start here. It’s from Harvard, it’s up to date, and it’s free. | More
Scaling vulnerability management across thousands of services - Stephan Miehe of GitHub does a great job breaking down how one of the largest open-source platforms manages vulnerabilities at scale. Hint they follow some core principles and then align actions and practices behind those. He also talks key requirements and best practices as well as implementation. | More
“How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” - bell hooks in conversation with Maya Angelou
One Question
If you could create anything you want, regardless of cost, what would you bring to the world?
Shoot Me Your Feedback!
Which is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.
Have a wonderful week,
I’ll see you Sunday.
-e
