Introduction to The Executive Essentials™ Series
It is one of the realities of executive life: It can be lonely at the top.  I know that as a consultant to leaders of corporations, and I experienced it firsthand during the years when I was an executive.

Regardless of the size of the company, as you rise to the executive level,  there are fewer and fewer people who can relate to the challenges that you face  everyday. By its very nature, life as a leader is isolating. Why? There are fewer people at the top of any organization, leadership positions can be very competitive, and, not surprisingly, not everyone who gets to the top is interested in sharing the secrets of their success with others. Especially with those who might replace them.

Many executives regularly read leadership books and periodicals for advice  on how to succeed. However, there are so many books and articles about leadership  and management available today, that executives often say they don't have time  to sort through all of what's available to find what is relevant to them. If they  do find something on a subject of interest, it's often either too long or too  short to be optimally useful. Perhaps you feel that way, too.

The Executive Essentials™ Series responds with concise, information-rich  guides that address the most important issues you face. And each volume is a ready reference of effective, proven ideas that you can use today to improve your executive  life.

The information is presented in a clear, easy-to-follow format that highlights  the essential aspects of the core topic. Vignettes are used to illustrate common experiences, the issues are discussed in plain language, and the recommendations  are common-sense solutions that are easy to execute. It may be lonely at the top, but now someone is providing targeted information that gives you exactly what you need to succeed. The Executive Essentials™ Series.

Introduction to Managing Stress
The Executive Essentials™ Series was created to address the core  challenges that you face by providing thorough and practical guides. Why was Managing Stress chosen as the first in the series? Numerous sources have referred to  chronic overstress and burnout at the executive level as an epidemic. Reports  from major health services and surveys in business publications regularly report  alarming statistics about the health consequences of chronic stress, and the cost  to organizations of stress-related absences, accidents, poor productivity and  morale problems.

Stress is part of life. Due to the nature of executive life, however,  it happens to be more of an issue as you gain more responsibility. For example,  as the size of your staff increases, you are aware that there are more individual  lives and families that depend - directly and indirectly - on your  leadership and decisions. That dependence can be a stressor. Also, expectations  are higher for your performance, and the consequences of not meeting goals will  be greater. Not surprisingly, your ability to handle stress will impact how successful  you are.

Stress is a complex subject.  For example, there's good stress,  the kind that motivates you in a healthy way to get out of bed in the morning  and go to work. And bad stress . the kind that leaves you feeling tense  and anxious, awake at night ruminating about the day or eating antacids two at a time because your stomach is upset.

In terms of sources, stress can come from external sources as well as internal ones. External sources might include deadlines, aggressive goals, a long commute to and from work or conflict with your peers.

Internal sources include how you think - what you tell yourself - when you're in a stressful situation. That's right. Your way of thinking about the people and events around you determines, in part, how stressful the situation seems.

In addition to your own typical way of thinking, your general physical health, your physiological response to stress, even your posture have implications for how well you'll meet the external stressors you face every day.

Finally, many executives experience stress regularly over such a long period  of time that they may become accustomed to it. So accustomed, in fact, that it  may take a serious negative life event - a failed marriage, ruined friendships, a serious alcohol or drug problem, or a heart attack - for the executive  to be forced to confront the fact that he or she was overstressed for an extended  period of time.

In that sense, stress is like thirst: Experts say that by the time you experience  thirst, your body already needed water. By the time you feel overstressed, it's likely that you were overstressed for quite some time.

Getting started. The fact that you purchased this volume and that you  are reading it now means that you are either concerned that you're overstressed, or you know someone who is. In this volume, I'll be discussing stress with you as if we were meeting one-on-one. It's a conversation you and I will have about stress.

• First, we'll take a look at a vignette together  that illustrates some common signs of an overstressed executive.
• Then, we'll talk about what stress is and how to recognize it in yourself.
• Next, I'll give you some specific recommendations on what to do to manage stress at the executive level.
• Finally, I'll provide a list of resources that you can use to continue to learn more about how to reduce and cope with stress successfully in your life.

The first two sections include bulleted summaries entitled "Key Discussion  Points." Think of them as a post-meeting review of what we discussed, the key information you want to take away from that section. You might even glance at them first as a survey of what will be covered in the section.
Let's get started.

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