Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

As I’ve said before in a previous post, when we become stressed our physical causes us to be reactionary creatures. During times of great stress and anxiety we tend to throw out the thousands of years of evolution and upper level brain function, in order to succumb to reflexive hormones rushing through our brains. Our bodies take over, and it takes time for our minds to catch up to create the right response.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University has a very interesting BOOK in which he analyzes, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.” Sapolsky is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, and has completed some rather fascinating studies in regards to how animals and humans respond to stress. In this study, he compares the emotional behavior of baboons and zebras regarding how they handle the stresses of their lives. You can watch a synopsis of his findings in the video below:

According to Sapolsky, humans are much like baboons as we are the main culprits for our own stress. Our lives have become easy, we do not spend much time foraging for food or avoiding predators, and we use this surplus time to let our minds wander and worry about things we cannot control. We have such an elaborate and amazing brain, but yet we put the same stress reactions we have for serious problems to even minor and insignificant problems.

The zebra never worries about stress, it has the potential to constantly be under attack, but can shed off these traumatic experiences with predators and return to a calm state rather quickly. Why? I would like to think (and I think Sapolsky would agree) it’s because their minds do not wander, they have brain function that allows them to better focus on the tasks at hand necessary for survival.

Think about how you have handled some of your most stressful moments. Did you yell at someone when you wish you hadn’t? Pushed or shoved to get someone out of your way? Did you flee from the situation when you wish you would have stayed and made things right? Maybe you just froze at that moment, and someone had to respond for you.

We all have these moments of clarity in hindsight, but it’s very difficult to maximize our emotions during these stressful “fight or flight” moments in our lives. Mindfulness is a reflective and clarifying process, that when exercised effectively, can allow you to have clear thoughts even during the most chaotic situations.

It’s been called many things. Michael Jordan and other athletes call it, “getting into the zone.” The moment when they don’t even notice the crowd around them, the ticking clock, or the stress of hitting a game winning shot, he simply felt the ball in his hand.

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We have all experienced those moments, when our concentration is hitting on all cylinders, every decision we make is correct, and your timing is perfect. Was it just dumb luck? Or were you finally able to block out the stressors and distractors in your life and put the full power of your brain toward the situation? I strongly feel it’s the latter.

Since practicing mindfulness I have had significantly more of these “in the zone” moments. It’s a skill that needs to be practiced, but my stress has greatly diminished during difficult times, and I find myself more adept at selecting the right choice for the problems I face.

As a leader, couldn’t you use more “in the zone” moments throughout the day? Making the space necessary is only a short meditation away.

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Mindful Moment

With a Positive Mind, it’s hard to let things get you down.

This week I had a wonderful moment of mindfulness that I wanted to share with you. My mother and I are both teachers, and we were excited when we found out our spring breaks lined up, and she could come visit my wife and I from Washington. I planned every activity this week, from hiking at Lake Tahoe, snowshoeing in Mt. Rose Meadows, and a two-day trip to San Francisco. My mother had never been to San Francisco, so I was very excited to show her all of the sights, and had several activities planned.

Our trip started out extremely well. We drove over to San Francisco early in the morning and decided to rent bicycles to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a spectacular time. The weather was absolutely amazing, and we made it to Sausalito and continued our adventure. In Sausalito we walked around the town, found a great lunch spot, and took the ferry around Alcatraz back into San Francisco.

It was an absolutely amazing day, and then this happened:

What a way to ruin a great day! I came back to my car to find a tire iron sitting on my front seat, and my driver’s side window in a nice pile on the parking lot floor. I walked down to parking lot attendant, and went to file a report about my car getting broken into. This “secure lot with cameras and security patrols” was a total joke. I asked to see the camera footage of my car being vandalized, but was told that guests were not allowed to view footage, or even seen the report they filed with the police. (Which leads me to believe they probably didn’t even file a report.)

Not only was our car broken into, the car next to mine was also broken into. We asked when did they notice our cars were broken into, and they couldn’t tell us for security reasons (or so they claimed). The only thing they would tell us (over and over again) was that they were not responsible or liable for any damages.

When we returned to my car, there wasn’t a single camera on the entire parking level in which I was parked, and their head of security was a total idiot. I have to imagine that you do not need a lot of training to watch cars for a living, but even still, this man seemed grossly under qualified. He called for a maintenance man to come help with the glass, and after waiting 45 minutes for him to show up, this comedy of errors progressed to a whole new level.

First, the maintenance man’s idea of cleaning the glass out of my car was to sweep the glass on the seat to the floorboard and celebrate his good job. I asked him if he would please sweep the glass out from under the car so I didn’t have to drive over it, and he thought it was an amazing idea! Next, the head of security picked up the tire iron used to break my window and dropped it on top of my car, having it fall onto the door, scratching the side of my car all of the way down.

During this whole debacle, my mother began to get angry. It’s hard to not feel violated and upset when someone breaks into your car, and with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum’s idiotic behavior in the parking lot, she began getting frustrated and impatient. It was at this time I had a well-timed moment of mindfulness. I didn’t get upset at all, much to the surprise of her or I. My mother asked me, “How are you not angry?”

I responded by telling her that yes, I was upset, but getting mad at these two workers wasn’t going to fix anything. I was able to focus on the present, keep my temperament, and not let one bad moment ruin what was an amazing day. In my mind I could see a crossroad where I had two choices:

1. I could get mad, yell at the inept security guards, get angry at the person who broke my window (who was long gone) or

2. Minimize my anger, focus on fixing the situation, and not let one horrible person’s act to ruin my vacation.

I chose the latter. I moved my car to the parking lot of my hotel, scheduled an appointment to get it fixed the next day, and was ready to go explore San Francisco even more.

After we cleaned up in the hotel room, and grabbed a cable car to go across town, my mom thanked me for handling the situation the way I did. She said it calmed her down, put her at ease, and it was what allowed us to have an amazing night.

Like I said before in a previous post, never let a bad moment lead to something more. It’s easy to be mindful and calm when life is easy, but with practice, even the most difficult and challenging situations can be seen with a clear and focused mind. Give it a try.

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The Fairness Rule

 

Sometimes Fairness Means Not Getting the Same

Being a teacher I feel I get to practice my leadership style on 25 test subjects each and every day. Over the past 7 years of teaching I feel I have greatly improved as a transformational leader. Many skeptics may say that leading children is vastly different than leading adults, but I disagree.

If you would like me to prove it to you, please volunteer to be an assistant in my classroom. We can see how well you can keep my students motivated through reading, writing, and math assignments. Have them line up in a perfect line, or be silent and focused through hours of standardized testing. Just try getting students excited about a book when they are now surrounded with video games, the internet, and other more entertaining technologies. Finally, make every student leave each day feeling happy and excited to come back tomorrow. If you easily manage all of this, then you can criticize my leadership skills.

10 Effective Qualities of a Team Leader

Although I feel I am strong leader, I have experienced my share of failures. One failure that soon became a triumph was when I learned the rule of fairness. When I was a new teacher I wanted a very fair and equal classroom. My goal was to not show favoritism, and to have the same rules and expectations for everyone. In order to be consistent with my students, I felt I needed concrete rules, with unbendable consequences if they were not followed.

WHAT A HORRIBLE IDEA THAT WAS

Leadership Lesson: Not everyone is the same, quit treating them that way.
In my example, when a student would forget their homework (regardless of the reason) they had to miss recess. Homework was due exactly at 9:30 a.m. without exception, and to miss it was a detention. Soon I began having two students that missed homework every day. They would try to tell me their excuse and I wouldn’t even listen to them, I just saw their excuses together with many of the other sad stories I heard from other students, and thought that this firm approach was going to help teach them to be responsible.

The truth is I was being very irresponsible. It was the lazy way out. It’s very easy to make a blanket statement and be unbendable, it allows you to be mentally dormant and ignore those upper level thinking skills of rationalization and compassion. What I didn’t know, and was too stubborn to learn at first, was that these students had issues they could not control.
The two students that were not getting their homework done every night didn’t have a home to do it in. One of the students was living in and out of random hotel rooms with whoever her mom could stay with that night. The second student was either spending his nights in a shelter or in his parent’s car. Who was being irrational, irresponsible and an overall jerk? Me.

After learning this, my approach changed. I minimized their homework or gave them extra time to do it before or after school. They only had to take work home that was really important, and I removed any assignments that were review. I realized that they were trying their best, but I was not putting them in a situation that would make them successful. With this new approach, I was seeing greater results as they were given an opportunity to do their best.
Soon after the other students saw that their classmates were not getting as much work, many of them cried out with, “That’s not fair!”

At that moment I had one of the best thoughts I ever had in my life. (I don’t know if it was a saying I have heard before, and I could remember who told me this, I would give them all of the credit.) My response to my students was:

“Fairness is not everyone getting the same; fairness is everyone getting what they need.”

After learning this lesson I have been a much better leader. Obviously there are situations in which everyone needs to be treated the exact same, but are you providing all of the people you lead and guide with the compassion, resources, and opportunities to succeed? Do you examine your leadership style, and make adjustments to maximize everyone’s potential? Or are you trying to make everyone the same, and hope for the best?

A Happy Staff is a Productive Staff, How to Motivate Employees

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