Decompress from the Stress of Business

Long title, short blog.

I am indeed writing this on the fly on the way to a training / marketing event I have put together for one of the companies I am consulting for right now.

Today, with a little less than three hours sleep under my belt, I drove through insane traffic this morning, whilst my partner was visibly stressing in the seat next to me. It's been a rough few months (actually, well... it's been a rough year) for him, for me, for us. The stress of the long days and burning the candle at both ends has taken its toll on his health and on both our moods.

Suffice it to say, with this morning fast shaping up to be a scorcher in Sydney, he was very concerned that we wouldn't get to his meeting on time. It was a very important meeting, indeed, with a potential VC for Gooru.

So he sat there, barely saying a word and when he did it was to exclaim that all he was really concerned about was making it to the meeting on time.

So I sat there, in the driver's seat, thinking that today of all mornings, the scene was set-up for me to get cranky at a moment's notice. In fact, I caught myself a few times musing about how strange it was for me to be looking at him and accepting that he was really stressed and, for once, not letting it get to me. I mean, the traffic was BAD... I let it flow through. His conversation was a bit strained and stress-centred... I let it flow past. I was running late myself as a consequence with a thousand things to do, it seemed, before the event this afternoon... I let it go and hummed along to Gershwin playing on the radio.

I remember reading a blog by Joe Kraus a month ago on potting plants. I couldn't seem to emulate the spirit with which he wrote it back then, but today, happily, I can say I 've taken a leaf out of those potted plants and I feel so much better for it.