Posts tagged as:

Health

How to Burn Yourself Out in Three Quick and Easy Steps

by Andy Wood on October 27, 2008

We pass a word around our office that my associate once used to describe me, and it stuck:  Crispy.

He used it a few years ago when he and our office manager decided they’d seen enough of me in the state I was in and informed me that I was taking my wife on an R & R trip to the mountains.  My reservations had been made, and they weren’t taking “no” for an answer.

I hope to God you have somebody who looks out for you like that.  I wasn’t aware of how emotionally and physically fried I was.  The sad truth about stress, crispiness, and burnout is that often others see their effects on us before we do.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve been crispy, and it probably won’t be the last.  But there’s a further step that can be devastating.  Burnout, in a clinical sense, means you have completely exhausted every form of energy necessary to continue.  More than just losing interest (“I’m sort of burned out on jazz these days”), I’m talking about those times people go to their wells and find them completely dry.  Times when people shock those who know them best by walking away from relationships, careers, or wisdom.

“Stress makes people stupid,” a management consultant once told Daniel Goldman. Burnout reveals it to the world.

So how do people get in such a state – past stress, past crispy, all the way to emotionally nuked?  Let me suggest three quick and easy recipes for complete emotional, mental, or spiritual exhaustion: [click to continue…]

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Laughing at the Future

by Andy Wood on April 23, 2008

LaughterI mentioned in my previous post that it’s possible to live in such a way that laughs at the future. Just so we’re clear, we’re in “life hack” territory.  We’re talking about what to do with your money, your time, your relationships, your attitudes, and your spirit.

Look at this biblical description:

“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” (Proverbs 31:25)

What is it about this woman that put her in a place where she wasn’t wringing her hands every time somebody predicted the end of life as we know it? 

1.  Establish trust in those who know you best.

“Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm,all the days of her life” (v. 11-12, NLT).

For years I assumed that her husband trusted her in a moral sense, but this is much deeper.  This man trusted her with his business, his family, and his money.  She had earned his trust.  How?  By adding value to his life. 

By doing a little more, being faithful to tasks assigned, or by keeping the trust of those who know you best, you create a compelling future.  Take it from somebody who has both earned and betrayed trust:  it takes months and years to earn trust, and you can destroy it – and your confidence in the future – in a matter of minutes.

2.  Buy like an investor, not like a consumer.

[click to continue…]

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