There are more tools than ever to deal with workplace stress – expanded child care, family friendly benefits like gyms and flexible hours and yet workers are more stressed than ever.

Polls show over 50% of Millennials think anxiety is the major issue that they face and there is evidence that stress is not limited to any one generation.

• Separate work and personal – Digital devices allow workers to remain connected all the time.  That’s a big part of the problem.  Separate business from personal even if it means owning two separate phones.
• Cut social media – Again, because we have our world at our fingertips, we tend to live impulsively – responding to texts just because we got them or emails to keep our inbox clean or (and this is a big one) constantly check social media which is the number one place to look to cut stress.
• Turn off the phone – Yes, off like in powered down.  If you’re unwilling to turn your phone off then no matter how you rationalize it, you’re too connected and that connection invites more stress.

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The other day I saw a school bus stop in front of a house as a parent was driving out the driveway to avoid getting stuck behind the bus stopping and starting.

What they forgot to do is talk to the child even for a second, give and get a hug or open the window to ask how their day was.

What could have been more important?

Stress, anxiety, living on a schedule that never seems to end all contributes to more stress and anxiety.

The real losers are the people who love them.

Apple made us the phone, but we have to make it a tool that fits our life – not the other way around.

Employers give benefits that enable employees to work more collaboratively but that doesn’t mean it promotes real human interaction.

Let’s write some new rules:

• People before stressors – If a schedule is so tight that it causes anxiety and rushing around, choose people in your life over more angst.
• People before phones – Nothing commands more attention than a phone in hand that rings or vibrates.  Imagine how people feel when a phone steals the attention of others.
• Multitasking is a relationship killer – It doesn’t matter if it can be done well.  Multitasking requires some degree of distraction in order to accomplish your many goals.  And it causes more anxiety because studies have shown that people who multitask simply continue to add more things to do as they get proficient in checking things off their to do list.

Rethink multitasking even if you’re good at it.

Few people can multitask and interact at the same time.

All you need to do is imagine the look of these kids’ faces when this parent took off to accomplish another goal when the real priorities were standing right in front of them — on the sidewalk.

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Loss is not restricted to losing a loved one.

When we break up with someone who we have cared for, it is a major loss. 

A divorce is a loss that is institutionalized in court proceedings. 

As people age they lose youth and often feel a loss of opportunity. 

Hard times economically are a loss.

• Be grateful for what you had.  Expressing gratitude for something that you no longer have is a way of reminding yourself of what you are capable of. 

• Anticipate things you will find in the future.  They don’t have to be a replacement for someone who can’t be replaced.  Anticipate new friends, new adventures, accomplishing more things you have not yet done. 

• Fixate on the gains.  Mother’s recipes that you now possess.  The children that you had together with your ex.  The new job you just got that you would never have applied for if you hadn’t experienced the loss of your job.

Balance loss with gain.

Pain with pleasant memories.

Bad fortune with good fortune that has either occurred or that you expect will occur.

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Talking about a problem incessantly doesn’t lead to a solution.

Psychiatrists and psychologists know that even years of counseling may not lead a person to get beyond what bothers or gnaws at them.

Don’t waste time or energy on something that will bring you more pain.

Take the effort that is being poured into continued frustration and turn it into something that will bring you gain.

Do you have a dysfunctional family that consumes your efforts to love and help them? Redirect that negative energy to something that is more rewarding – teaching, volunteering, mentoring others.

Your employer is always cutting you out of meetings and the planning chain to your endless frustration? Take the skill that they are not using and redeploy it to a startup, a part-time venture or a charitable cause.

The one thing that all humans have is energy and the ability to focus that energy to things that make us happy and successful is absolutely the way around a nagging problem that hounds you.

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Did you see that Amazon is going to work on making Alexa smart enough to deal with suicidal patrons?

Ours is an artificial intelligence world – robots, Siri and Alexa on Amazon’s Echo.

So we’re now leaving suicide prevention up to artificial intelligence.

Suicides especially among young people are at the highest level ever and some blame their connected, digital world as a contributing factor.

We can’t go back.

Artificial intelligence is here to stay and so it is appropriate that these devices get smart enough to handle complex issues of the human condition.

But people need to get smarter, too.

Only real live people can sense when a person is in need

Learn to listen in a non-judgmental way

Be there for people 24/7 the way Alexa stands ready for the next command

When our phones get smarter and more prevalent, that’s our call to match them and raise them by living in the present totally focused on others.

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We’ve got Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, What’s App, chat and endless ways to communicate with people without having to be there in the present.

Obsessed with “likes” and “follows” – feeding the monster with new and creative posts.

This plays out into direct contact with real people face-to-face in crowdsourcing situations.

At the country club – group contact.

The pool – cover many people in the time you would have to spend on one.

Girl’s (or guy’s) night out – group therapy in one place with everyone together.

Anywhere we don’t have to be one-on-one focused on an individual in real time.

Crowdsourcing friends is an avoidance of such contact and allows less significant contact with more people – kind of like the principles behind online social media.

If you have made one real friend in life, you are a special person.

If you have one real friend who cares about you enough to focus on your life, you have been blessed many times over.

You’re not a real friend if you’re absent and social media doesn’t count.

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7 out of 10 people basically between 18-34 prefer to text rather than talk according to a new LivePerson study of 4,000 in Western nations in that age group.

Large majorities in that age group think it is fine to use their phones during dinner (42%) or in the middle of a conversation (28%).

You don’t need a survey to know how distracted we are becoming.

But parents are teaching the wrong thing by example.

The parent in the doctor’s waiting room buried in the phone invites their children to do the same.

Taking a call during dinner by an adult is the green light kids need to mimic the same behavior.

Endlessly checking the phone to see if you missed something is a rehearsal for your offspring to also do it.

No child under teenage years should have a phone (and that includes parental excuses that they need to check on their whereabouts and safety).

A screen is not a sitter even though most cars are now wired for backseat video.

What parents do does matter.

There is a new Comcast commercial running that shows a mom pausing the Wi-Fi during dinner to the chagrin of her children and husband that hits close to home.

We don’t have to wait for robots to take over — we are creating them.

Balance the phone as a tool not a way of life.

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When we say there are no words that can express my feelings, we are speaking the truth.

What people facing adversity need is someone to listen to them not speak well intended empty words.

The depth of how long and how intense to listen is in direct proportion to how long and intense your friendship is.

Even poor listeners can rise to the occasion and look the other person in the eyes and just listen.

It doesn’t even take a major crisis or loss to console another.  Just lend them your ear and listen.

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1. No one can give you their drama and angst without your permission.
2. Remember the number 50 that represents the percentage of people who suffer from anxiety health issues. This way you are constantly aware of the price you will be paying if you are not mindful of the effects of stress.
3. People and digital devices cause the most stress. Disconnect from email, texting, the internet and social media as often as possible.
4. Meditate, exercise, conduct deep breathing or pray to keep from internalizing the stresses of life.

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Disappointment is a test to see how badly we really want something.

If you don’t want it, you won’t be all that disappointed in the long run after the initial reaction.

But if you do, channeling disappointment to further your resolve is a hidden gift.  After all, we often don’t know what we want and when we get it, we are over it quickly.

Don’t overlook the power of disappointment.  It is a hidden motivator that drives us closer to our goals and dreams.

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Rudeness is now being baked into our society. 

We are distracted from others. 

Unavailable. 

Focused on our devices not the present. 

We Yelp when we are angry and ignore everyday life.

Try to be an icebreaker.  Start conversations.  

Smile and look approachable even among people you see every day. 

Don’t judge.  

Digital life is an addictive distraction.  Anything you can do to offer someone a break from it will be more welcomed than you think. 

You don’t have to be rude.

Or upset because someone else is.  

You can be the friendly alternative.  

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Email is not a replacement for a conversation.

Any attempt to use email as a “shorter” conversation will end up creating more email.

Yes, even a phone call can cure endless emails back and forth.

We’ve all seen many types of email from what looks like a snail mail letter to incoherent and misspelled phrases.

There are many programs that claim to manage email but the real secret is how it is used.

1. Do not ask any questions that you are not prepared to have to answer. 
2. Ask what would happen if you called that person or didn’t send the email.  
3. If you must email, start off with the main point and stick to it.
4. Email (like texting and social media) is addictive even when we say we see it as a burden.  Putting it off or having email assigned automatically to predetermined files may not help.   
5. See email as a tool, the way texting is a tool. 

I am an Apple Watch user and handling email on it is better in my opinion than on a phone or laptop.  The watch lets you dictate a response and even for a long-winded radio/TV guy like me, it’s amazing how quickly you can get to the point and move on to the present.

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Just saying the words dignity and respect makes you straighten up and feel proud.

It gives us positive reaction just hearing the sounds of words that are power packed.

U.S. Air Force General Jay Silveria, the superintendent of The Air Force Academy told his young cadets:

“If you can’t treat someone with dignity and respect – then you need to get out”. 

It’s arguable as to whether the person being treated with dignity and respect or the one doing it benefits most.

Aim high.

Think big.

Be proud.

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Everyone wants to change – get better, be happier, make more money – but it’s just talk.

Change grows out of gratitude for what we already have.

To turn words into action, try this.

When you awake in the morning, spend five minutes before you get out of bed or as you are showering to name 5 people you are grateful for and 5 things you are grateful for.

You may repeat the same people and things often or daily, but you must say why.

Your spouse because they are supportive of you.

Your parent(s) for instilling special qualities in you.

The person who gave you your first break because without them … 

The doctor that saved your life or made it better.

Your children for keeping you young and exuberant.

After you’ve recalled 5 of each, return to the real world.

But wait!

Don’t be surprised if you can’t stop at 5 – and if you add more later in the day.

I start my days like this and I find it almost impossible to do only 5.

Impossible to do only 5 minutes.

And impossible to stop.

Gratitude is the change agent that eludes everyone that is right in front of our eyes.

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Already – just a few weeks into the 2017-18 NHL hockey season, one of the league’s top stars found himself in a slump.

Toronto Maple Leafs Auston Matthews had a great rookie year last year but as with all athletes (and the rest of us) slumps happen.

In hockey, the players grab the stick harder and bear too much thus continuing the sub-par performance.

In baseball, players pick up bad habits trying to get rid of bad habits that came out of nowhere. 

• Repeat this positive phrase – This slump will not last forever.  I will beat it.  Outlast it.  Won’t let it wear down my confidence.  I will look at a slump as a test of my will.
• A winning streak usually follows a slump – True of athletes who once they break through make up for the lost time.  Also, true of the rest of us who may feel we’re frustrated to perform at our best level when we are feeling pressure.
• Learn from a slump – When what we want or are accustomed to producing evades us, a slump can be a benefit if it tests our will to succeed.  Nothing is more valuable than to deeply believe that we have the will to succeed.  A slump lets us show it.

No one says you have to like a slump in your work or personal life, but it is not the end of the world.

In fact, it’s the beginning of a new winning streak once you test your will to persevere.

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43% of U.S. employees work remotely all or part of the time according to a new Gallup Poll.

IBM pioneered telecommuting but now has had a change of heart citing new research.

So IBM is calling their workforce back to the office to collaborate face to face on problem solving.  40% of IBM’s workforce was working remotely in 2009.  Whether reverting back is a more productive solution, time will tell.

But for employees who resist (including me as I work 80% remotely), there are hidden benefits.

Telecommuting often runs into personal hours and has been accepted routinely as part of the territory.  But in France there are laws that forbid employers from requiring their employees to answer work emails after hours.

Personal and work get mixed together.  Just check Instagram for any person you know who is working remotely and don’t be surprised to find that they have commented or posted content (same with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks).  You can see their “likes” even if they don’t publicly post.

Family and inter-personal time gets compromised.  How many dinners or night time hours are interrupted by someone on your team working virtually?

The answer may not be in banning virtual work platforms although the research clearly favors the results when people work together face to face.

More importantly, be cognizant of how working remotely leaves your life more remote from the people you care about.

Then fix it.

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I’m looking out the window at the tee box for the eighth hole.

Golf is no longer a game of 100% concentration.

While a man’s wife was teeing off, he was scrolling through his phone messages in his cart.

When a group of teenage boys passed through, they checked their phones before hitting the ball and then again, every time they walked to their ball to hit.

Really?

Is that the way we want to live addicted to our phones so much so that we can’t put them away for fear of missing something while we are golfing.

I suspect you can plug in any sport or for that matter any other activity and find a prominent role for a smartphone.

The phones are smart but using them like this, the owners are not so smart.

The phone is a tool not a substitute for living in the present.

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The brain works in two ways.

The default setting is one in which our minds wander.

The second is focused in an undistracted way.

Why is it increasingly hard to focus?

Too much self-absorption – the inability to be in the now 100% laser focused on something other than ourselves. 

A lack of sincere gratitude even for bad things that happen to us that will eventually become transformative.

And the absence of kindness to other people even those who may not appreciate you.

The brain can be trained.

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Anxiety is a very tough condition to conquer.

Pills, therapy, meditation and many other solutions have been tried.

One additional tool is to push off anxious feelings to only certain times in the day.

Anxiety hour may be from 8 to 9 pm if you choose so when the feeling of anxiety comes over you, time shift it until the time you have reserved to deal with it.

Then for that hour and only that hour, feel free to ruminate about what is eating you but only for that hour.

Most people are surprised to find that when they time shift their worries and anxieties, they dispense with them sooner than they thought.

And free themselves up to live a fuller, less anxious life for the other 23 hours.

Anxieties don’t always go away even when problems are solved but time shifting trains us to be less obsessed and therefore happier and more productive.

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If you make your focus talking about the other person and their interests, they will become more interested in you.

Even in the digital age of self-absorption, selfies and competing for likes and follows, no one can resist a person-centered conversation.

Conversation starters …

How are you? (being careful not to also chime in with how you are unless asked)

What do you think?

Why?

A person-centered conversation with the focus on the other person should sound like you’re doing an interview.

It is amazing how responsive people will be to anyone who masters the art of being person-centered.

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