In this post, former Albury resident and international speaker and author, Rosie Pekar, shares her thoughts on stress.
Speaking with a good friend of mine and CEO of a major corporation that is now facing voluntary administration, I was reminded that success is not determined by where you are at today, more by how you handle today.
Having spoken with many individuals, especially men who face financial challenges, it somehow gets twisted and equated with personal worth resulting in the feeling of personal failure.
“We have a very misguided notion in western environments of what value is, how to amass it and how everyone benefits from it”
Yes, it’s a challenge to go from a significant annual salary to nothing, just as it is a challenge to work out how to get $$$ in many parts of the world- period! Money is subjective and very personal – I know.
I was personally challenged financially to an extreme several years ago whilst living in a foreign country with my son then aged only four who was in critical care.
I had two separate bank accounts fraudulently accessed and emptied and an account with another bank simply collapsed overnight losing 660 million dollars of everyone’s money as well as mine.
The irony was that travel insurance did not cover these incidents (as I stood there at the police station with $7 in my wallet.) Although I did discover that my humour remained intact as I found another $3 after scavenging through my handbag and told the officer, ‘wow I just increased my net worth by almost 50% in less than a minute’, how many business people can do that!
“Stress coaches are slowly being recognised as vital to business as blood is to a body”
Money alone is not a determiner of our value and worth as I quickly reminded my friend after his comment, ‘Rosie I am less than useful to me let alone you at this stage.’ (I was following up on a workplace proposal that inspired this reply.)
We have a very misguided notion in western environments of what value is, how to amass it and how everyone benefits from it. Value is not $$, $$ is a monetary value, a distinct difference.
Stress is a $10 billion dollar plus industry just in Australia alone which is one tenth the population of the US, where the figures we can safely multiply and still come out as staggering.
Stress and the options to combat stress effectively are sadly negated in many workplaces, where specialists are only called in post experiences and events, in other words way too late!
Stress coaches are slowly being recognised as vital to business as blood is to a body.
Stress is going to happen, every day, in a myriad of ways from insensitive to outright bullying bosses or colleagues, not to mention dealing with difficult and challenging experiences and personal pressures and life issues.
Wellbeing seems to be becoming the holy grail of work/life balance and today it appears that wellbeing is challenged more and more at earlier stages of development. Stress is a fact of life.
What is not yet a fact of life is the awareness, capability and understanding of how to handle stress and make it progress.
If you apply stress and pressure constantly to even the strongest element it will eventually, without additional support, crack and break. Repair then is immense.
Different skill sets of handling greater and greater aspects of stress develop and enhance both emotional intelligence and resilience.
This is psyche training with intentional direction of personal awareness. Somehow we forget that we are all unstoppable forces of nature and that force is moving.
The important question is whether it’s going in the direction you want or not.
Stressful circumstances are ever changing as the blood is in our body, however if its carrying a toxic load, then it’s only a matter of time before it implodes or explodes- as we haven’t directed it anywhere else to go.
If you want some psyche training head to www.kickbut.com.au there is plenty offered complimentary to give you a head start.
Life is filled with many moments, make as many of those moments count and that will be your value- your life that you enjoy… keep on kick’n BUT.
Rosie Pekar is Director KickBut Inc, International Speaker & Author. Born and raised in Albury, now residing on the Gold Coast. For more information visit www.kickbut.com.au
