Business Without the Bullsh*t

by Geoffrey James

  Regardless of which scenario plays itself out, there’s a unifying element: you’re outta there. But let’s suppose that it’s the worst-case scenario. As a very wise man once told me: “Everyone I’ve ever known who got laid off was upset when it happened but within eighteen months was saying it was the best thing that ever happened to them.”

  SHORTCUT

  COPING WITH LAYOFFS

  KNOW when a layoff is coming and plan accordingly.

  MAKE certain you’ve got some other options.

  WHEN it happens, don’t panic. Make yourself useful.

  IF possible, move into a group that’s unlikely to bear the brunt.

  IF you’re offered a voluntary severance package, take it.

  ACCEPT a job elsewhere as soon as you find a good one.

  SECRET 40

  What to Do If You’re Stressed Out

  Stress can result in headaches, muscle tension, muscle pain, chest pain, fatigue, upset stomach, insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation, lack of focus, irritability, depression, eating problems, addiction, and social withdrawal—here’s how to avoid it:

  1. WORK FORTY HOURS A WEEK (OR FEWER).

  Many companies and industries have cultures that encourage salaried employees to regularly work unpaid overtime (i.e., more than forty hours a week). Unfortunately, if you let that culture determine your behavior, you’ll end up wasting time and adding stress.

  It’s a myth that you can consistently get more done by working longer hours. In the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran dozens of tests on workers and discovered that working sixty hours a week (rather than forty) provides only a short-term increase in productivity. After three to four weeks of working the long hours, people working sixty hours a week end up getting less done than when they were working forty hours a week, because they become stressed out and start making avoidable errors.

  Workaholics may think they’re accomplishing more than the less fanatical, but in fact, long hours result in stressed-out people who get too sick to work, and who produce sloppy work that must be either scrapped or redone.

  2. AVOID STRESSED-OUT PEOPLE.

  Your brain is programmed to reflect the behaviors of those you see and hear. This is a neurological phenomenon resulting from the mirror neurons in your brain. In other words, you can “catch” stress from other people.

  So although it may not be possible to avoid stressed people all the time, you should try, as far as possible, to limit your contact with such people—at least until you’ve conquered your own stress.

  At that point the opposite effect kicks in, because the calmness you will have achieved is also contagious—provided you’ve made it into a strong enough habit. In other words, reducing your own stress can help everyone around you do the same.

  3. CREATE AND VISIT AN OASIS.

  In the past, people worked nine to five; in today’s business environments, there’s pressure to work (or at least be available) 24-7. Needless to say, that pressure generates oodles of stress.

  An absurdly easy way to reduce that stress is to shut down your computer and your cell—not just while you sleep, but also an hour before and after you sleep. This takes discipline, because you’re probably in the habit of checking e-mail, texts, and so forth all the time.

  Doing this also takes self-confidence, because you must believe that you don’t need to be at the constant beck and call of your boss, colleagues, and customers.

  4. DISCONNECT FROM THE UNCONTROLLABLE.

  If you’re like most people, a huge amount of your stress comes from worrying about events that you simply can’t control: the economy, the weather, traffic, politics, other people’s thoughts and emotions, customer decisions, and so forth.

  While it can be useful to observe and predict such events (in order to know how to react to them), once you’ve decided how you’ll deal with them, it’s stressful (and, frankly, a little nuts) to obsess about them.

  Worrying about stuff you can’t control isn’t going to make any difference either in the short or the long run. It’s wasted energy and extra stress you don’t need. Change what you can change and shrug off what you can’t.

  5. RENEGOTIATE YOUR WORKLOAD.

  Unreasonable expectations about what you’re capable of accomplishing are a huge source of stress—regardless of whether those expectations come from yourself, your boss, or your customers.

  The cure for this kind of stress is a dose of reality. Look at how much time you’ve got to spend, assess the amount of work that needs to be done, and, based on that, be realistic about what’s actually going to get done.

  If you’re expected to accomplish A, B, C, and D, and there’s only time to achieve three of the four, decide—or force your boss to decide—which three will actually get done and which one will not.

  6. TURN OFF THE NEWS.

  The news, like every other form of entertainment, makes money by producing strong emotions in its audience. Outside of business news, those emotions are almost exclusively negative: anger, fear, anxiety, dread, and frustration.

  While those manufactured emotions do provide momentary distraction from work stress, they do it by adding more stress. Watching or listening to the news in order “to relax” is like having a beer to dull the pain of a hangover.

  So whenever you come upon a news story that starts to make you angry or upset, change the channel—unless it’s 100 percent relevant to your life—or click to another page.

  7. LEARN TO SAY NO.

  Many people feel stressed because they “have way too much work to do.” That sounds perfectly reasonable, but in fact it’s not the work that’s creating the stress. It’s worrying about what might happen if all that work doesn’t get done.

  I once heard that when you commit to 10 percent more than you can actually accomplish, it feels as if you’ve got 50 percent more, thereby creating even more stress. I don’t know whether that’s true, but I have observed that taking on too much work makes me feel as if things might fall apart if I (gasp!) take a day off.

  It’s not enough to be able to say no to your boss and your coworkers. Sometimes the real challenge is learning to say no to yourself when you’re tempted to over-commit. Like any good habit, this becomes easier over time.

  8. REMAIN IN THE HERE AND NOW.

  Probably the biggest source of stress is worrying about the future. While it’s a good idea to have a plan, you’ll be better able to execute that plan if you don’t think all that much about that future.

  Being focused on the present eliminates stress even when disaster strikes. Suppose, in the middle of your workday, you get news that your biggest customer is jumping ship. You could react to the news by freaking out, of course.

  Or you could remain in the moment, note that the event happened, continue with whatever you’re doing—and then, when you’re relaxed and feeling creative, devise a step-by-step plan to win the customer back or find some new customers.

  9. NEVER ARGUE WITH FOOLS OR STRANGERS.

  When you’re driving, you’re going to see people driving in ways that are stupid, dangerous, and annoying. Even so, you’re wasting your energy getting upset about what they do, to say nothing of reacting to it by honking or flipping the bird.

  Similarly, getting into arguments with people online (such as in the comments sections of blogs or underneath controversial articles) is a colossally foolish way to spend your time. Do you really care what some stranger thinks?

  I’d venture to say that in the entire history of the Internet there has not been a single time when anybody online has changed the opinion of anybody else. Online squabbling is always a waste of time.

  10. AVOID MULTITASKING.

  Trying to do multiple things at once gives you the illusion that you’re getting a lot of things done, when in fact those things are getting done badly. The result is stress, not just because you’re trying to do too much at once, but because you know (in your heart) that the work you’re doing isn’t (and can’t be) your
best.

  By contrast, focusing on one thing, getting it done, and doing it well gives you a sense of accomplishment and mental serenity. It puts you, rather than the demands of everything else around you, in control of your life.

  SHORTCUT

  REDUCING STRESS

  WORKING more than forty hours a week quickly becomes unproductive.

  STRESS is contagious so avoid people who won’t control theirs.

  FIND a place where you can get away from work activity.

  DEVELOP the patience and perspective to let go of your results.

  IF you’re overworked, make your workload more reasonable.

  OTHER than business news, news saps your energy.

  AVOID projects that you can’t do well.

  FOCUS on what you’re doing now rather than the results.

  ARGUING with fools and strangers is completely useless.

  MULTITASKING is tiresome and prevents you from doing any task well.

  SECRET 41

  What to Do If You’re Fearful

  Most people aren’t as successful as they might be, simply because their fear is keeping them from taking action.

  Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of the boss’s temper, fear, fear, fear… it doesn’t matter what scares you: if you’re afraid, you don’t take the risks necessary to make you successful.

  Fear is normal and useful. It’s a signal that you need to be careful and think things through. More important, it can create the energy and excitement you need to push yourself to the next level. Here’s how it’s done:

  1. INCREASE YOUR FAMILIARITY.

  The more you do confront and deal with something that scares you, the less frightening it becomes. For example, psychologists who treat debilitating phobias (such as claustrophobia) expose their patients to what’s frightening them, gradually and with increasing frequency.

  The same principle applies in the workplace when you must do something that frightens you. For instance, many beginning salespeople who must cold-call to develop opportunities begin with a fear that they’ll be rejected.

  Over time, however, the salespeople who become good at cold calling overcome that fear because they’ve experienced the rejection and realize that it’s no big deal.

  Another common workplace situation is a fear of saying no when asked to take on projects, even when those projects are unreasonable. As I explained in “Secret 6. How to Handle Unreasonable Requests,” saying no gets easier the more you do it.

  The wonderful thing about increasing your familiarity with a fear is that it’s automatic. As long as you don’t allow fear to paralyze you, you end up dealing with it one way or another, thereby making it less daunting.

  2. REHEARSE COURAGE MENTALLY.

  It’s a physiological fact that your brain can’t differentiate between emotions that emerge from your imagination and emotions that are produced by events in the outside world. Emotions are what you’re doing, not what’s being done to you.

  Therefore, if you repeatedly imagine something that you fear, while at the same time visualizing yourself as calm, confident, and collected while dealing with that fear, you’re training your mind to act the same way when real-world events take place.

  For example, suppose you’re afraid of speaking in public. If you vividly imagine yourself giving a speech that’s articulate and interesting, feeling the emotion that comes from the imagined applause, that confidence will reappear when you’re actually at the lectern.

  3. REFRAME YOUR FEAR.

  The frame of a picture creates a boundary that puts the picture into context and tells you what’s important in it. For example, a frame that cuts out all but one person in a group photo changes it from a group photo into a portrait.

  The same thing is true with emotions—the “frame” you build around them determines how you experience those emotions.

  For example, imagine being trapped, helpless, in a tiny metal box, with only your head, shoulders, and arms sticking out, falling over a cliff. Imagine the feeling of falling faster and faster, and the hard, cold ground coming up at you, faster and faster. Pretty scary, eh?

  It’s called a roller coaster. The “reframe” involves understanding that you got on the ride of your own free will, you almost undoubtedly aren’t going to hit the ground, and, most important, you’re having fun!

  Or take the common fear of public speaking. Most performing artists feel similar “butterflies” before a performance, but they turn their nervousness into energy just before going onstage. After all, you’re nervous only if you care about your results.

  4. MAKE THE FEAR USEFUL.

  Finally, far from being debilitating, fear is an enabling emotion. As I mentioned previously, fear is a signal that you must take action. It may sound trite, but there’s real truth to the old saying: “Feel the fear, then do it anyway.”

  This applies to a vast range of business situations. For example, if a salesperson is afraid to ask for the business, it is a sign that the conversation is getting to the point at which it will be necessary to ask. That’s useful information.

  Similarly, if you feel afraid of losing an oxymoronic “secure job,” it’s a sign that the job to which you’re clinging is no longer serving your needs.

  I went through that myself when I left the corporate world to become a professional writer. I was terrified but I knew what I wanted. I laid the groundwork and then did what I had to do—quit. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this book!

  SHORTCUT

  HARNESSING FEAR

  THE more frequently you confront a fear, the less power it has.

  IMAGINE dealing with the fear to make it less daunting.

  REMEMBER that fear is just excitement in disguise.

  USE the fear to give you energy to perform.

  SECRET 42

  What to Do If You Feel Rejected

  Every significant business endeavor involves other people, and that means a risk of rejection, because when you put yourself out there, you’re setting yourself up to get turned down.

  Because of this, the fear of rejection prevents many people from taking action that could greatly improve their circumstances. This chapter explains not just how to take the sting out of rejection, but how to use it as a means to your larger goals.

  1. REALIZE THAT REJECTION IS AN ILLUSION.

  Rejection is an emotionally loaded term that people unwisely use when they fail to achieve a goal that involves another person. Nobody feels “rejected” when they set a goal to, say, run a four-minute mile, but then end up running it in five minutes.

  The concept of rejection implies that there’s something personal about the failure, but that’s just an illusion. What’s actually happened is that a goal wasn’t achieved because the two people involved had different rules about life. This is an impersonal fact.

  For example, suppose you make a cold call and the other person swears at you and hangs up. Suppose the call starts out good but you say something the other person thinks is stupid and he or she hangs up on you.

  While those outcomes aren’t ideal, they’re only “rejection” because you’ve decided to feel bad about them.

  Stuff happens. Often other people are involved. Sometimes you might have done something differently and gotten a different outcome. But in every case, the “rejection” happened because you accidentally violated the other person’s rules. In other words, the sense of being rejected is just a weird trick that your emotions are playing on you.

  2. EXTRACT THE STING FROM THE REJECTION.

  Every time I’ve pointed out the simple reality in Step 1, somebody has come back with something like, “But I still feel rejected.” Usually in a whiny voice.

  People do feel rejected, and it’s always for the same reason: they’ve invested their time and energy into creating a negative mental picture of what it means if they don’t achieve a particular goal with a particular person.

  So think about it: why do you feel rej
ected? What’s so important about this event that you’re treating it as something that threatens your opinion of yourself and indeed your own identity?

  If you step back from the situation, you’ll find that the sting of rejection comes from your rules about other people.

  “After about the fifth bad cold call, I’m ready to call it a day.”

  “If I’m close enough to ask a customer for a favor, rejection would hurt.”

  “C-level job holders are important, so their opinion of me matters.”

  You feel “rejected” (i.e., bad) because you’re treating your rules as if they’re incredibly important, while discounting the fact that the other person has rules too, which you can’t possibly understand completely.

  To remove the sting of rejection, question those beliefs and, ideally, replace them with better beliefs that inspire confidence rather than fear. Examples:

  “Every cold call is a new opportunity; the past is the past.”

  “A relationship that’s not worth risking isn’t worth having.”

  “Coping with cranky executives means I’m playing in the big leagues.”