You think it's your customers, your suppliers, your banker causing that knot in your stomach. More likely, it's the way you're running your company.
IT WAS JUST HOURS BEFORE UNDERgoing a heart procedure that Fred Gabourie, successful entrepreneur, finally came to terms with how to run his company.
His doctor's words resounded in his ears. "You're a very fast-track guy," the cardiologist had said. "But the fact is that you are trading years of existence for this perceived need for more and more success." Gabourie had certainly been successful, starting his own insurance agency and building the annual sales volume to $1 billion in just seven years. But he had paid his own steep premium: an increasing level of stress that had destroyed his first marriage and caused a host of physical problems leading to heart disease.
As the doctors prepared him for the procedure, Gabourie was starting to understand how difficult it would be to change his ways. Only a few days before, he had tried to keep the agency running smoothly from his bed in the hospital's cardiac-care unit. He had broken hospital rules and dialed the phone. In a whisper, he had asked his assistant all the standard questions: How many applications for policies came in today? How many premium checks arrived in the mail? What problems are developing?
Now, Gabourie was making his own silent vow. If he lived through the next few hours, he would make some big changes. I loved the success, I loved the validation, and I loved the strokes I got from my business," he says.
"But I also loved living. I decided I would have to find a way to balance that out."
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO much stress. At least that's what Fred Gabourie thought. And judging from the way they work, so do most executives of fast-growing companies. They ignore such symptoms as clammy hands, an upset stomach, a tight chest, or sleepless nights. They keep pushing themselves because stress is not as real as, say, meeting this week's payroll. "American businessmen are taught to put everything on hold until they make a lot of money," says Elaine Willis, president of Foundation for Wellness, a research and television-production organization. "We're losing a lot of them because of that."
Stress, in itself, is neither good nor bad. It means that the body is in an alert state because it is responding to change. But stress turns to distress when that level of alertness is exaggerated or extended for too long. Headaches and upset stomachs may not sound serious, but chronic stress contributes to such illnesses as heart disease, arthritis, drug addition, and alcohol abuse. Distress shows up in many ways: dizziness, inability to concentrate or sleep, frequent fatigue, irritability, and depression, to name a few. And the executive isn't the only one affected; spouses, children, and employees suffer the shock waves. "At some point, which is different for each person, stress become counterproductive," notes Dr. Kenneth Pelletier, an associate professor at the University of California School of Medicine.
The only was to control these symptoms is to break the cycle of stress. Dr. Herbert Benson's 1975 bestseller The Relaxation Response focused on the physiological effects of stress and identified methods of relaxation. Since then, the stress-management industry has been on a tear, with leagues of reconstructed burnouts preaching various great escapes. Some companies offer week-long cruises and rafting trips. Spas and retreats lure executives with promises that they can attain, affirm, and explore until their stress melts away. One California retreat offers some unusual extras: natural hot baths and instructors who help you deal with the leftover stress from previous lives. There are consultants, newsletters, and books vying for a piece of the stress trade. Some work in the time-management niche, laboring to expand the number of hours in a day. This may be a helpful approach, but the expert I called was too busy to fit me into his schedule.
Not all stress-reduction programs are expensive or exotic. And some actually work (see boxes, following pages). Most hospitals and health-maintenance organizations offer courses that teach relaxation methods, such as biofeedback, in which you learn how to control your heart rate, blood pressure, and skin temperature. Of course, many entrepreneurs prefer to think of themselves as givers rather than takers of stress. "These are action-oriented, take-charge people," says Dr. Stuart Rosenthal, director of psychiatry at Newark (N.J.) Beth Israel Medical Center. As a result, they tend to opt for individualized treatment.
Entrepreneurs feel stress in their own ways. For executive at big corporations, stress often arises from a conflict between the company's goals and their own. But a founder is usually in sync with his company. His or her stress comes from a different source. It may be from the strain of trying to pay the bills on time. Or from having personal financial assets on the line. Or from managerial failings, such as the refusal to delegate responsibility when the company becomes too big for one person to manage. For the founder, managing often becomes all-consuming. "Entrepreneurs start forgetting about having any balance in their lives," says Kenneth Blanchard, a consultant and co-author of The One Minute Manager.
Any successful plan to combat stress is tough going. It requires a basic shift in life-style and in management techniques. A week-long vacation may make you feel hearty, but it's not going to change the way you face the daily grind. "A lot of entrepreneurs say, 'I'll take a trip down the rapids if you promise that will take away my stress," says Blanchard. Many executives believe that they can drain their stress simply through a daily walk, run, or bicycle ride. "The reality, though, is that they have to deal with changing their day-to-day life," says Blanchard.
FRED GABOURIE THOUGHT THAT A jog at six every morning would alleviate his stress. He found out too late that it wasn't enough.
He first went on his own selling insurance to brokers and agents when he founded Employee Marketing Systems Inc. in 1969. A few year later, Gabourie met executives from Sovereign Life Insurance Company of California. The agency that represented Sovereign to agents and brokers in southern California posted a disappointing $11 million in new sales volume that year. Gabourie, the executives thought, was just the man to energize sales. The agency handed him around $35,000 to cover his start-up costs and guaranteed him exclusivity in the region.
Gabourie's splashy direct-mail campaign stood out among his many competitors. Brokers wanted to know: who was this marketer who used color, while most insurance mailings were dull and gray; who employed dramatic graphics, such as a fistful of dollars ripping through a page; and who teased them by sending playful "Gabourie-Grams"? Curiosity lured them in. In 1979, Fred Gabourie Insurance Agency Inc. wrote about $77 million in new policies, then more than $330 million in 1980, and double that a year later. But Gabourie was ridden with anxiety. "The more we did, the more pressure I felt," he says.
