TLDR: High achievers might be unaware of anxiety dependence.

Ball Four

There’s a book by old baseball pitcher Jim Bouton about retiring from baseball: Ball Four. It stuck with me given the parallels of pro sports and the military. ⚾️

I didn’t realize it, but I had gotten attached to the intensity and the rollercoaster of emotion.

This can happen in business, too, especially entrepreneurship.

Whether conditioned by family or school or work, we often conflate achievement and stress.

We not only get comfortable with stress and anxiety, but we start to crave them.

The big wake-up call for me was how I realized recently that when I’m experiencing resistance to an activity, I feel like a cup of coffee. ☕️

In other words, if I’m feeling anxious, my body and mind want to double down on that. 🤷🏽‍♂️

How crazy?

In addition to the normal methods of reducing anxiety, my recommendation is this:

Get comfortable with feeling comfortable. 🤯

I know that this flies in the face of all the latest advice, i.e. comfort with discomfort.

Heck, I even give that advice all the time!

But many Type-A people are stuck in a cycle where anxiety is… an old friend.

When you’re anxious, your mind is moving fast.

You’re vigilant.

And that feels… good. 😊

You’re turned ON. (Okay, not sexually, but still.)

Law & Order had this amazing episode with this schizophrenic guy. If you’ve seen this formula before, you’ll recognize the line where the guy tells his sister that he’s taking his meds — but he’s lying. He feels tired and bored and sluggish on the meds. 💊

He needs to be ON.

Except we all, as humans, need calm.

Deep work, long-term work, involving other humans necessitates focus and patience.

Anxiety prevents that.

Break the cycle.

Ball four. Take a walk.

🌊 All the way wet

(aka the footnotes)

Wait, no footnotes?

Oh yeah, speaking of Ball Four, it’s baseball playoff season.

Let’s go Mets!!!

Coda

“My Babylon 5 chatroom is never gonna believe this.”

The epitome of nervous energy: Mary Katherine Gallagher on SNL.

Outro

“Life doesn’t need a soundtrack. Life is a soundtrack.”
—Sri

I love songs that sound super retro yet not old.

Spotify tells me these guys are from Montreal and were doing stuff at least as late as 2015.

Cheers

Find me at thewarriorpoet.com and on LinkedIn.

Get unstuck, and crush it. Double period.