Earlier in my operator career, I did not know how to handle stress. Like… at all.

Early on, it felt like I was under pressure basically 24/7. Everything was urgent. Everything was important. And no matter how hard I worked, there was always more to do.

I’d try to cram as much as possible into the day, even if the quality wasn’t great, or it wasn’t actually the right thing to be working on. It felt productive, but it was really just me sprinting on a treadmill until I burned out.

Interestingly enough, once I started coaching, I realized I wasn’t unique here. This is actually super common, especially with high performers.

Sometimes it shows up as over-functioning, over-optimizing, over-scheduling … you know, all the “responsible” things that eventually run you into the ground and make you want to go into hiding, never to see another Slack message or unread email ever again.

With CEOs I coach, I also see the same pattern ALL the time:

As a company gets bigger, it’s normal to feel like you have less visibility than you did when it was tiny. And that loss of visibility often feels terrifying.

So what do a lot of leaders do? They try to get the feeling back by taking more action.

Instead of working through stress effectively by lessening the load on their plate, they fill it with more. MORE meetings. MORE check-ins. MORE quick syncs. MORE standing calls.

It’s almost as if the internal dialogue is, “If I just talk to everyone more, I’ll feel in control again.”

But it usually backfires.

Time gets even tighter. Teams get confused about why they’re being pulled into meetings. And the whole thing becomes a collective time sink.

…and of course, that creates even more stress.

And finally, because stress loves company, it spills into the rest of life too.

I’ve seen CEOs skip workouts, forget to eat, use drugs or alcohol to take the edge off, lash out at spouses / kids, or disappear into a cave until the burnout feels more manageable… and then they come back to repeat the cycle all over again.

Eventually, something has to give.

What is your stress signature?

A Stress Signature is the default behavior you fall into whenever you’re under a heavy load of stress.

Everyone has a Stress Signature, and it’s usually not your best self showing up. That’s because often times, it’s not a conscious choice.

Stress Signature behaviors barge in when your bandwidth is gone, and your nervous system has taken over into running on autopilot.

Many years ago, I had a coachee who was under intense pressure on an almost-consistent basis. During a session, we discovered that when he was under periods of intense stress, he would go underground. He stopped communicating, and would valiantly try to heroically solve every problem by himself, as an IC, even though he was a leader.

…in other words, being a tunnel-visioned, non-communicative IC was his Stress Signature.

We discovered that IC mode made him feel in control and capable. He would grind in silence for days or weeks, and eventually - because the silence wasn’t working, the stress wasn’t lessening, and he would feel unsupported - he would say something dramatic.

Did he actually want to leave the company? No. Did he want to throw himself a pity party? Also no! He thought Pity Parties were a waste of time.

That would lead him to feeling shame. That shame would make him spiral. And that spiraling would turn into more stress.

And the cycle would repeat.

Why you can’t see your own Stress Signature alone, and setting up a Protocol

The whole point of your stress manifesting as a “signature” is that it’s the series of steps that you take automatically, before your thinking brain has a chance to weigh in.

The reality of the Stress Signature is that the more stressed you are, the less able you are to recognize you’re in it. Or, even if you can recognize it, sometimes you don’t know what to do to shift out of it.

As a result, if you want to handle stress well, you have to have either outside help, or insane self-discipline. I recommend taking baby steps first and using outside help. Very few people have the self-discipline needed to shift out on their own in a healthy way.

Where can you find the help? Lucky for you, there are several places:

• a coach might know your Stress Signature well, and tell you what you typically do when under pressure.

• if you have a partner or spouse, giving them explicit permission to tell you when you’re in the middle of your stress signature can be helpful.

• a friend or teammate who you respect and who you trust has your best interest at heart is a great person to lean on, too.

If none of these are available to you for any reason, a recurring check-in you’ve scheduled with yourself that asks you, “Are you in a state of stress right now? How and why?” is more helpful than no check-in at all. No check-ins lead to spiraling and falling into bad habits.

With the coachee I mentioned earlier, we built a small, uncomplicated system. He set up the recurring check-in and made sure to ask himself daily: Am I in a stress holding pattern right now?

Then, together, we made a list of habits he tended to do when he was stressed. One by one, he would go down that list and answer “yes” or “no” to each habit. Here’s a sample list:

• tunnel visioning (y/n)

• not talking to people/retreating (y/n)

• trying to “do too much” to exert control (y/n)

• going down deep research rabbit holes to collect information and feel in control (y/n)

• withdrawing and scrolling on social media (y/n)

As he went through, that would help him identify if he was in a state of stress or not. I recommend you do the same.

Next, we’ll talk about what to do if you discover you are in a state of stress.

Doing the opposite

For every operator I’ve coached through stressful times, the protocol for handling stress is very simple (though it is difficult to implement.)

When in a state of stress, do the opposite of what you would normally do.

It’s that simple. I know it sounds glib, so let me be specific on the step by step instructions.

Conclusion

You are not weak for having a Stress Signature. Every operator I have ever coached has one, including the ones who look the most composed in public.

You are not failing as a leader when you feel stress, or even when you give into the Stress Signature on occasion. Just make sure you always repair. And do your best to interrupt the stress as soon as you feel it bubbling up.

Self-awareness is not a personality trait. It's a prerequisite to functioning at the level you're trying to function at. You can't lead other people through pressure if you can't lead yourself through it.

Until next time,

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