If You're Not Stressed, You Will Fail.

This is the story of two creators, Bob and Mike.

Bob isn’t stressed.

He spends his life in his comfort zone, never pushing himself to be any better.

“I want to be comfortable and happy”, he says to himself.

He works only when he feels like it and constantly indulges in bad habits.

This is the mindset that keeps most people broke, sad, and average.

It’s pathetic.

Now let me take you to the opposite side of this…

Mike is heavily stressed.

He spends his life overworked, always pushing & demanding more of himself.

For 2 months, the growth was life-changing. Everything seemed to be going well.

Then, the inevitable hits…

He burns out & crashes into a wall like a race car going 200 miles per hour.

The next 3 months he becomes miserable & upset, trying and failing to pick up the pieces…

So how can we find the middle ground? How can we use stress to our advantage?

How To Use Stress To Your Advantage. (Stress x Performance Curve)

It’s 1908 and psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson are on to edge of a major breakthrough.

The experiment was testing on Japanese dancing mice and forcing them to make one simple decision…

White box or black box.

If they made the wrong decision, an electrical current would course through their body.

This electrical current was set at 3 different levels - low, medium, and high.

What they found would forever change the way we view stress…

At both the low and high shock levels, the rats would take longer to learn to pick the correct box.

The medium level, however, learned to pick the right box in record time.

Why ‘Optimal Stress’ Is SO Important.

So if low and high stress levels make us unproductive, how do we find our optimal stress level?

If you’re able to consistently handle high amounts of pressure & stress, your “baseline” will become higher.

This will allow you to accomplish more than 99% of people.

Outworking vs. Outperforming

You can’t win by “outworking” everyone else, only by “out-performing” them.

“Putting more hours in than the competition” is an outdated expression of effort.

Instead, it’s about what you actually can accomplish - nothing else matters.

The 3-Step System to Achieving Optimal Stress. (And Beating Out Your Competition)

#1: Push Yourself.

To get a rocket ship to space, it must first launch.

Then, once it reaches a certain point, everything is optimized to allow the ship to reach new heights.

The first step to hacking personal growth getting stressed out, then we focus on optimizing it for sustainability.

Which brings me right to the next step…

#2: Master Recovery.

A car cannot drive forever without taking time to refuel.

Recovery is the same way. Our body and mind need time to recharge in order to operate at peak performance.

Example: 

• I get 8 hours of sleep every night.

• I have a mandatory 30-minute - 1-hour block at the end of the day dedicated to “defocusing”

• I take 1 full day dedicated to recovery every 3 weeks.

#3: Unlock Your Potential. (And Train Your Stress Muscle)

Just like progressively overloading in the gym, you can progressively overload yourself and your ability to handle stress.

What do corporate lawyers, Fortune 500 executives, and Goldman Sachs bankers have in common?

They all are able to handle 12+ hours a day of high-stress work.

It’s not because they are simply “better at handling stress”…

It’s because they have spent years training their “stress muscle”.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this week’s letter, send me a message and let me know!

Sincerely,

-Matt “Optimal Stress” Harriman

PS:

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

1. Grab my FREE self-reflection guide to break your burnout & make consistent progress in life & business easy.

2. Check out my Consistency System which I’ve used to build amazing habits that have helped me scale my personal brand & add several pounds of muscle in the last 5 months.

3. Book a 1-1 Strategy Session to gain clarity on your routine, habits, and systems.