This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get. 

If you, like me, are wondering about resolutions for the new year… wait! Take a time out and click on the link below to read Seth’s new eBook “What Matters Now” where he and his blogger/author friends share what they think matters most in 2010. And if you think you know what to expect, you will be pleasantly surprised. I was.

What Matters Now

Creating ways for people to solve their own problems isn’t just an opportunity in 2010. It is an obligation. 

Until Fear is gone, (and realize he may never completely leave) make the decision to be courageous.

You read that right, I’ve compiled all of Seth Godin’s free ebooks in one big awesome list. Seth Godin is a fantastic source of  constant information and wisdom.

Josh took the pain to search his collection and make this list for us. For us bloggers, this is a X’mas treat. So, click on the link below to view a post that should be a valuable bookmark for 2010. Merry X’mas!

All of Seth Godin’s Free ebooks in one place

Manual: Competent Communicator
Project/Assignment: Speech #4 “How To Say It”
Comments: I won the Best Speaker award at the Let’s Talk Franklin toastmasters club for this speech.

I was 6 years old when my Dad took me to the sporting goods store to buy my first Lefty’s glove. My father played semi-pro ball until he was drafted into the army. He grew up with a tremendous love and passion for the game. It seems only be natural that he instilled his love for baseball into his children .

My father was my softball coach from Kindergarten to 8th Grade. Girls of course were not allowed to play baseball so softball was just great for Dad and I. He was a great teacher, great motivator, several of my teammates registered every year requesting my Dad! Coach Freddie. No special treatment for me though.

About the age of 13, about 1981, I would call myself, “The Kid To Know”.

Season tickets/Box Seats to watch the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium! We had season tickets every year after that. NO more baking in the sun, no more waiting for “dirty water dogs (hot dogs)”, comfortable seats, a great view of the game.

But at this time, my interests were changing. I was a freshman in high school. Boys no longer had the cooties. I had to go to a game because DAD SAID SO!

July 4th, 1983 it was over 100 degrees that holiday. One of those games where Dad said we all had to go. He really wanted the family to be together. History was made that day!

It was 4-0 yanks were winning. Dave Rhigetti, Rookie pitcher for the Yanks had 2 strikes on the Red Sox batter. One more strike and Dave would have pitched a NO HITTER WINNING THE GAME!!!! Silence in the stadium. It was like someone hit the mute button on the TV. Not a sound from anyone or anything. Dave threw the pitch and STRIKE 3! Game over!!!!! The crowd went crazy. The team charged Dave, the crowds jumped on to the field. The roar of cheers went through the stadium like a title wave from the ocean. The noise was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.

Let me freeze that moment! Watch with me as I turn and look to see the excitement on my father’s face. I truly can only remember one other time that I saw my Dad so proud and happy. That would be during our Father/Daughter Dance at my wedding! He grabbed my brother then my sister and screamed so loud, “ Who’s luckier than me! I Have my family, I have season tickets”, and then he grabbed me! “ Laurie, Magic Moments I tell you! Magic Moments”!!!

This Sept, I registered my two sons Benjamin and Evan for fall baseball for the first time.

My 7 year old, another lefty wore my first glove that my Dad bought for me. During one of his games he reached up and caught his first pop fly!! As he looked down in his glove and realized he caught the ball. He turned to the bleachers screaming, “Mom, Mom, Mom, I did it, I did it!!” MAGIC MOMENTS! I cried like a baby so proud of my little man.

I almost forgot how much baseball means to me. Now when the family is home and the Yankees are playing, Evan sits to my left, Benjamin to my right, popcorn is popped and we cheer for the Yanks! The spirit of baseball lives on!

Continued from Part 1: Stress in Leadership Roles – Identify It

TURN-DOWN

When you were younger, Mom and Dad most likely taught you the phrase “JUST SAY NO” as a response to being peer-pressured into something you knew was bad. As you grow older and take more control of your own choices and consequences, you start to forget this rule. Suddenly your “NO” becomes “YES” or “OK” even when you know full well that you’ll probably regret making the decision later. One of the most common myths is that leaders who look and act busy must be important and competent. However, effective leaders usually master the art of working smarter, not harder. Conquering this step is a little tricky, because it requires subjective analysis on your part to decide what to delete from your schedule. Before enforcing the JUST SAY NO policy, make a list of the general categories requiring time during your day, which may include work, family, church, sports, vacation, etc. Rewrite these categories with the first one being the most important to you and use this list as a guide for every decision you make when scheduling new activities. Your list will probably be different from others who demand your time, but the point is to have one and stick to it. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish by saying NO to activities on the bottom of your priority list.

RELAX

Why list this step separately from SLEEP? Sleep and relaxation are really two different activities. Sometimes normal amounts of sleep do not leave us feeling relaxed the following morning, but it is possible to relax during the day without sleeping. This is a step that is best accomplished by scheduling “rest breaks” for your mind. For example, someone who finds reading as a relaxing pastime may schedule time to read for fun at certain points in the day (ex. During lunch break). Sleep quiets your body and relaxation calms your mind, but both feed off each other. Sometimes it is difficult to discern whether you need more sleep or more relaxation time. Before trying to analyze the situation, just begin scheduling consistent times for each step and watch how your body responds. As your body adjusts to YOUR new schedule, you will start to associate specific stress-induced symptoms with certain behaviors.

EXERCISE

This step is often the hardest, because you tend to group exercise in the same category as grocery shopping or cleaning house. You don’t necessarily enjoy doing it, but it just has to be done. However, there are many benefits to following and maintaining a consistent exercise program, one of which is stress reduction. By now you’ve probably noticed that the first three concepts involve controlling our daily schedules, and exercise is no exception. Motivate yourself to make it a regular part of your life by scheduling specific days and times for exercise. Long-term exercise not only improves physical health, but also mental and emotional health. In many cases, physical symptoms of stress are directly related to changes in mental/emotional health. 3 The key to sticking to your exercise program is to pick activities you enjoy. Think of exercise as “scheduled recreation time” rather than a chore.

In addition to reducing stress, these four words share something else in common: they are verbs requiring ACTION on our part, not merely emotions or state-of-mind. Action distinguishes leaders from the rest of the group. Remember that taking on leadership roles also means taking on responsibility as a role model. Stress-reduction will not only benefit you, but also your organization. As a Toastmaster, you seek to improve public speaking skills, but that is only the beginning. You also learn to apply the communication and leadership principles to every aspect of your life. The sad part about stress is that you cannot eliminate it, but you can control how you respond to it. Rather than spending wasteful hours trying to eliminate every problem in life, think about your priorities and place them ahead of your problems. Live each day one hour at a time according to your priority schedule, but still anticipate interruptions. You only have one life to live and as a leader, you have power to improve the quality of your own life and the lives of your team members.

STRESS – You hear this word a lot lately; so much so that it seems to be an excuse for everything that goes wrong in life. Take this sample conversation:

“Hey there, how’s it going?”
“Oh, okay I guess. I had a pretty stressful week at work, and I’m just really tired.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I had several stressful things happen this week and it seems like my mind is always thinking about something. And even when I’m finally able to rest, I still worry that there is something I forgot to do!”
“Wow, I can relate to that completely! It’s so frustrating too, because I slept 10 hours last night and still feel tired this morning…”

Sound familiar? If you are a leader of an organization, whether at work, home, sports, volunteer activities, etc. you probably have learned to accept stress as a necessary evil in your daily routine. But does this have to be the case? A recent article published by the American Heart Association says that more research evidence suggests a relationship between the risk of cardiovascular disease and environmental/psychosocial factors. Factors contributing to stress may include job strain, social isolation and personality traits. While there is not conclusive evidence identifying stress as an “independent” risk factor for cardiovascular disease, it can contribute to high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, smoking, physical inactivity and overeating. Even with rapid advancements in medical care, cardiovascular disease still remains in the top three causes for death worldwide according to statistics from the World Health Organization.

Understanding the problems related to stress is pretty straightforward, but how do you find a simple solution for reducing stress in your life? Go to the self-help section of the bookstore and you will find a plethora of how-to-reduce-stress-in-your-life books. While most of these books present good tips based on quality research, you often end up adding more stress to your day just finding time to sit down and read the book! Unfortunately there are very few things in life under your complete control, mainly the actions of people and events that happen to you. You can however, control to an extent some of the people and events you allow to affect daily life.

Open up your PDA or personal calendar and take a look at all the people, places and times that you have willingly entered into your schedule for this week. Being a strong and effective leader requires careful time management. Since you have become so skilled at managing your schedule, why not take the same approach for managing stress?

To make it easy to remember, take the word S-T-R-E-S-S and develop an acronym:

S – Sleep, T – Turn-down, R – Relax, E – Exercise, S – Sleep, S – Sleep

SLEEP

Notice that the word “stress” has three S’s followed by the same word – sleep. Why? If you can learn to conquer this step, you are half-way toward winning the battle against stress. The hardest part about this step is that sleep and stress affect each other in a cyclic pattern. Worry from stress causes sleep loss, and lost sleep increases stress levels and the cycle continues. How do you break it? Try putting it into practical terms. You typically work five days a week for eight hours a day at the office, and you receive compensation for your time spent. If you must take off work for personal time, you compensate those hours in some other way, such as using sick/vacation hours or working overtime. Why not take the same approach with sleep? Most studies show that adults need about 8 hours of sleep per night, depending on age and gender. A daily work schedule might be 8am to 5pm with lunch break between 12 and 1pm. In the same way, develop a daily sleep schedule for eight hours (ex. 10pm to 6am on weekdays) and enforce it. Now let’s say you have a project deadline that requires more time outside of your normal 40-hour/week work schedule to complete. Your supervisor may ask you to stay overtime until the project is complete, and take off early that Friday. In the same way, tailor your sleep schedule accordingly to make room for unexpected activities (ex. 9pm to 5am or 11pm to 7am). Finally, one day you start feeling some stress-induced symptoms: headaches, fatigue, higher blood pressure, etc. Imagine that these symptoms are the body’s way of saying, “You have an important project that will require extra stress management. You need to sleep overtime this week.” Which part of your schedule will you cut to get those overtime hours in?

Part 2: Stress in Leadership Roles – Defeat It