Human beings are an odd lot. We like to have things simple and clear – (Which is the best hospital? Which is the greatest band of all time?) Unfortunately, despite our desire for black and white answers, our world is hopelessly grey. The current wave of frenzy over the H1N1 virus highlights what happens when [...]
Category Archives: Stress
In defense of control freaks
CONTROL FREAK – such a pejorative term, isn’t it? After I wrote my last post, I had a client ask me, “I’m not a control freak, am I?” I said, “Of course you are, but that doesn’t make you a bad person.” People don’t control in order to dominate or to manipulate per se. They control in [...]
Control freaks
Sorry I haven’t written for a while but I occasionally get sidetracked by my actual job (or by my life, such as it is). Last week’s column was about control freaks. This is a phenomenon that occurs when the stress response meets perfectionnism and rigidity. The stress response is the body’s instinctive way of protecting [...]
Transferable skills
Here is something I published last week on the idea of skills being part of us regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. Personality is extremely stable. (This does not mean we can never change. It’s just that changes are difficult. This fact is not as discouraging as you might think. People can still [...]
The long and short of first impressions
Very few of us would want to give a bad impression to others, especially when we find ourselves in a new situation. That goes without saying. Unfortunately we cannot always guarantee that the impression we give others will be a good one. In general, while it is important to be aware of the effect we [...]
When everything is a priority, nothing is.
Here is a column I published last week. I have been giving a number of talks on burnout and stress recently. It seems that in our modern world of management by objectives, the number of people on the verge of a breakdown is rising dramatically. The source of overwork can come from others (superiors, public [...]
Depression and Burnout
The Douglas Institute Foundation recently ran a public education and fundraising campaign. One of the topics it chose was “Burnout.”It seems that everyone has a different idea about what burnout is and most people confuse it with depression (and with good reason because “Burnout” is not a well-defined term). In order to help shed some [...]
