Dr. Gary Carlson

Humor is important with stress relief. As long as the humor is not at the expense of someone else. Getting away from distractions will refresh your mind thoughts and give you a ew start to challenges.

Using a calming effect helps to clear the mind. This method prepares for better less emotional decision making.

Positive attitudes are contagious and helps performance with employees. Even when challenges are great a positive outlook keeps people on a winning road. The quickest way to not achieve at a high level is to be negative.

I have always advised my students that the best job is one that doesn't seem like a job. If you can get up each moring and love to go to work and and see it as work it is the perfect job. Stress levels are reduced but even when you have challenges they are met with a positive force rather than a fear factor. In John Medina's book "Brain Rules" he mentioned the 10 rules for a healthier work environment. The best motivators are the ones that touch you internally.

Creating a healthy work environment keeps some rationale into your day. By organizing your schedule in a healthy way with support systems can help you deal with stress in a calm sensible way. If a person can practice good physical, mental and spiritual balance you will deal with stress in a healthier manner.

Communication is truly a key to a successful managment career. We often focus on our verbal and written communicate which is important but the communication that makes a huge difference is listening. Research has shown us the bigger part of good communication is to listen. It accounts for about 97%. Talented leaders are great listeners and can become proactive from it.

This is what we often refer to is time/out. We all need these moments at some time. It is like getting a refresh for our thoughts and emotions. We can sometime see the issue much better after we take these steps. People who don't know how to do this are the ones we comment on as "they can't see the forest for the trees".

It seems stress for you is a motivator which is very encouraging to a leader. Positive stress may be the way to motivate you in the future to meet deadlines and achieve at high levels. Some people may retreat under high stress and this is when a different technique is necessary to move forward. Support team members will help this person to move forward with the mission in mind.

Good policy and procedure is the safety net for any distracability. Team members need some foundation to fall back on for clarity and communication support. Each person needs to have the ability to have a fall back person to clarify direction and expected outcomes. This person can be a support person to the mission of the organization.

Bad stress causes us fear and good stress motivates us in a way to extend us beyond where we have gone before in achievement. Your direction to your faculty is a strong message to keep stress in perspective and deal with it from an intelligent calculated manner if possible.