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Anxiety

The Science Behind The 4am Panic And How to Outsmart It

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It was just after I sent my last newsletter about the book Don’t Believe Everything You Think that I received a beautiful reply from my good friend Mattias Hulting.

Mattias and I met while working together on a tough and highly complex ERP and HR project designed to integrate the former Wella business into P&G across Asia. It was one of those projects full of highs and lows, and I came to admire Mattias’ ability to keep things light while still being deeply thoughtful and sharp.

The note he sent, which shares a very interesting perspective on overthinking during the early morning hours, was so insightful I wanted to share it with you here unedited:

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A change of switches as live-saver

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Photo: Airwolfhound, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Boeing B-17, known as the “Flying Fortress,” earned its nickname for its role as a fast, high-altitude bomber that delivered more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. Its exceptional capabilities were crucial in supporting the Allies’ campaign against the German army. Capable of accommodating a crew of 10, pilots held great affection for the plane. As one account goes: “She’ll not only get you to the target and do the job, but she’ll fight her way out, take terrific punishment and get you safely home.”

But there was one big problem with the “Flying Fortress” … the landing. [Read more…] about A change of switches as live-saver

Swimming with Men

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Eric sits in his glass office, utterly hopeless, bored, and confused. He is an accountant who has arrived mid-life in a job that makes him fall asleep. His wife is thriving in her career as a local politician and is rarely there for Eric. His teenaged son does not like him very much. He wonders what life is still about. He is stuck in a proper mid-life crisis. The only respite Eric gets is in the evenings when he swims in his local pool.

This is how the English comedy-drama, Swimming with Men, begins.

After finding his wife and her boss enjoying a glass of wine at his home, Eric loses it and moves out. Life from then on feels even more meaningless. During one of his swims, he sinks to the floor of the pool, wanting to end it all. This is when he discovers a strange group of men on the other side of the pool … under water … doing very weird things while holding hands.

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Please don’t let the good life pass you by

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It was one of these days when everything seemed to go wrong.

I had helped a client prepare for an important meeting with one of their major customers. Just before the meeting, we realised there was a substantial flaw in the presentation. It was so bad the meeting had to be cancelled and moved to the next day. An embarrassing and tricky situation. I dropped everything, frantically trying to understand the issue in our calculations. It was highly complex, but, by all means, we had to have an answer by the evening. Stress! Pressure! Anxiety!

While I was scrambling for solutions, an email popped in. And it pushed me over the edge. I had planned a large personal event in June. Suddenly, the hotel provider “had to sadly cancel all 22 room-bookings due to a technical error.” All other hotels were full due to a major sporting event. This meant we had to cancel an event for which guests from all over the world had made travel plans. A complete disaster.

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The answers are inside – not outside!

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It was the 3rd of September 2003 when Medical Manager CEO Michael Singer received a panic call from his division’s attorney.  The FBI was raiding his R&D facility, along with several other locations across WebMD, a publicly listed company in the field of health information services.  The FBI confiscated 1.2 million email messages, 1,500 boxes of files with more than 3 million pages of documents, and 830,000 computer files.

A few weeks later the reason for the FBI-inquiry became clear.  It turned out an employee, who was internally investigated for taking dealer kickbacks, had informed the authorities about his dealings, alleging the company board was fully aware of these illegal affairs. He was hoping to cut a deal for himself.

Despite Michael Singer’s career as the CEO of a division with more than 2,500 employees, he lived a quiet, spiritual life in “the woods” where he moved in his early twenties to learn “how to quiet the voice in his head.”  All his life, he had been practicing “how to surrender” and create “inner peace.”  This federal investigation offered a massive challenge to his inner peace.  If things turned out badly, he might end up in prison.

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