Here is a simple way to reduce one type of stress.
I used to get annoyed when people would show up late to meet me. I imagined them disrespecting me and such. One day I made a rule for myself:
Everybody gets fifteen minutes.
That’s it. If someone shows up anywhere less than fifteen minutes late, it’s fine. I don’t ask questions, I don’t ask where they were, I don’t suggest anything. After practicing the rule enough, I genuinely don’t care. It’s fine.
Before this rule I might have wondered if I would lose time, people would take more for granted, or other unintended side effects. The contrary has been the case. A huge source of stress and judgment disappeared. My feared unintended consequences never happened, but even if they had, the benefits are worth it. It’s like letting go of being right all the time.
In fact, when I shared the rule with someone who works at the David Allen & Company (David wrote Getting Things Done, guru of time management and productivity) she said she was going to implement it for herself.
About Joshua
Former rocket scientist now entrepreneur, leadership coach, speaker, and artist, Joshua Spodek (PhD ’00, Astrophysics; MBA ’06; both Columbia University) has succeeded at many big things that few people even try. More importantly, he loves everything he does.
A modern renaissance man, he studied with Nobel Prize winners and helped build a European Space Agency X-ray satellite to observe supernova remnants, then started a business now operating globally based on several of his patents. He coaches leadership with the Columbia Business School Program on Social Intelligence and taught at New York University and the New School. He earned five Ivy-League diplomas; has shown his art in solo gallery shows and museums and installed large public art in New York and around the world; socializes with Academy Award winners; ran five marathons; and competed at national and global sporting events.
He has been quoted and profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, CNN, and the major broadcast networks. Esquire Magazine named him “Best and Brightest” in its annual Genius issue.
More here:
http://joshuaspodek.com/about
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