- 'The 5 Big Lies About American Business'
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 'Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'
- When You And Your Company Face a 'Crisis of Character'
- The Dollar Meltdown: The New Greek Tragedy?
- 'Blood and Business Don't Mix' — A Family Business Survival Guide
- Meet The Leaders of the New Retail Revolution
MOST SHARED
- Commercial Property Fears Are Overblown: Zell, LeFrak
- US Manufacturing Grew Less Than Expected in November
- Pending Home Sales Have Record Rise; Construction Flat
- Oil Companies Look to the Future in Iraq
- Schork Oil Outlook: What's Worth Fighting For
- Farrell: Forget About Dubai—Worry About This
- Retailers 'Friend' Facebook as Marketing Budgets Shrink
- S&P Stocks Trading at New 52-Week Highs
- US May Raise Rates Before Jobs Recover: Fed's Plosser
- Ford Says November Sales Rise; Crossover Cars Do Well
- AIG Slashes US Debt Under Deal With New York Fed
- Pending Home Sales Have Record Rise; Construction Flat
- Commercial Property Fears Are Overblown: Zell, LeFrak
- Trump: Time to Force Banks to Start Lending
- Accused Fraudster Rothstein Arrested
- Seamstress Fined $5.7 Million for Insider Trading
- What to Expect From Obama's Afghanistan Speech
RSS FEED
Bullish On Books
Text Size 
This Guest Blog is from Greg Cootsona author of, "Say Yes To NO"
 |
Say Yes To No |
Sometimes the best lessons—the ones you need to remember—happen at age 10.
At least that’s true for me.
I was down four games to five in the third set at my junior tennis match. I knew I had to perform at my peak. My opponent was bigger and stronger. (My December birthday always put me as the youngest in my age bracket.) At that moment, when I hit the forehand down the line, it needed to be winner. Not just something safe. It had to be special, something that would be sure to take the point. So I was nervous. Even at that age, I’d lost matches where I got too stressed, too uptight and anxious, and I’d missed key shots when I really needed to make them. I knew the feeling of losing that last game. Match and tournament over. Loss to Cootsona. Time to pack up and go home.
With the economic match tightening up, that’s where we are today.
The margin for error has become razor thin.
Some might have a tendency to play it overly safe. But for those who are geared toward optimal performance, more often we just keep working harder and harder. We refuse to take a break. We assume more work and more activity is better. The result is usually not more efficiency. Rather, we find ourselves overstressed and making bad decisions.
It turns out that the key for me at that moment in that critical match was actually two minutes of not playing. Before serving at 4-5, I took a short, but necessary rest when my opponent and I switched sides. To gain some energy, I ate a few caramels my mother had carried in her pockets (the ‘70s equivalent of Power Bars). As best I could at age 10, I focused my attention—not on not losing, but on winning. My opponent was back on the court way before I was. But I waited until I felt ready to return to the game.
I won the match, and I’m sure the brief respite had everything to do with it. I followed my shaky start with my best work.
In a tight business climate, where we feel like it’s all pressure all the time, we might make the mistake of not taking that break at a critical moment. The match in front of us is urgent, but there is nothing more urgent than strategic breaks. Because when we rest, we can go deep. And we need to dig down when the match gets tough. It’s at the depths that we find creativity and innovation. When we want a new insight on the pitch we’re about to make, the speech we want to write, or managing that challenging employee, we need to move into the deeper functions of our brain. When we are constantly pushing ourselves, it’s simply impossible to do our best work.
Harvard Professor Herbert Benson has called these moments in everyday life “breakouts.” I call it “saying yes to NO”. Using research from brain mapping, Benson describes that up to a point, stress helps us think and act better. Beyond that, however, it simply frustrates us. If you keep pushing yourself when you’re at a dead end, your “primitive brain” (the deep core that drives basic functions and raw emotions) goes berserk. That’s when we feel fearful, frustrated, and forgetful.
At moments of key stress where we know we need to perform, but can’t, it’s time to change pace. Breathe deeply. Beat a drum. Walk around the block. Listen to U2 or Mozart. There are countless possibilities, but the key is to do something completely different. Then the stress function is relieved and creativity emerges. Function Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies suggest that deep meditation and creative activity lead to “coherence”—a synchronizing of the logical left brain with the intuitive right brain.
In a tight market when we’re tempted to keep working and in the process simply get more stressed, let’s learn when not to work, to say yes to NO.
For More Executive Strategies, Check Out CNBC's Blog, Executive Careers
_____________________________
 |
Greg Cootsona |
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes