How To Combat Workplace Stress One Conversation At A Time

In Fierce Resilience, author Edward Beltran, CEO of Fierce Inc., presents a groundbreaking approach to reducing workplace stress and building resilience through conversation.

As technology, isolation, and productivity pressures increasingly contribute to workplace stress, Beltran offers a science-based model that identifies and neutralizes individual stress triggers.

By leveraging the power of conversations, individuals discover:

their unique stressors.
how to master skills to neutralize stressors.
ways to build unwavering resilience that elevates their emotional well-being.

“This book is aimed at people who are part of any type and size of workplace: in-person, hybrid, or virtual,” says Beltran. “I share personal anecdotes, case studies, exercises, practical guidance, and actionable strategies.”

In the book, Beltran redefines resilience as the courage to self-assess and act. It is about being brave enough to face stress head-on, understand its roots, and take meaningful action to overcome it.

True resilience involves three key elements:

Courage
Self-awareness
Action

“Resilience is not something you're born with—it's something you build,” explains Beltran. With the right tools and mindset, you can turn stress into a source of strength, enabling you to adapt and excel, no matter the challenge.”

The book demonstrates for readers how to:

Address timely topics relevant to today's business and personal challenges.
Tackle the root causes of stress in relationships and interactions.
Explore the impact of human interactions and perceptions on organizational health.
Utilize modern biometrics to identify personal triggers and stress factors.
Navigate an improved work and life balance.
Demonstrate the power of structured dialogue in unraveling misunderstandings and addressing stress directly.

Finally, one of my favorite parts of the book is where Beltran explains how to give and receive praise. His best practices for these types of Feedback Conversations include for:

Giving praise

Experience: Look for the where, when and what.

When and where did you observe the behavior?

Give specifics and details.

Saying “Good Job” is not enough.

Explore: Get curious.

Ask questions that help you incorporate the feedback.

Have you received feedback like this before?

Where does this land for the recipient in his/her map of where they are and where they are going?

Explain: Clarify why it matters.

Articulate why they deserve to hear this feedback.

Tell how it impacts you and others in the best of ways.

Receiving Feedback

Experience: Look for what, when, and where.

Listen carefully to what’s being said and how.

Say, “Thank you.”

Decide what you can learn from the feedback.

Explore: Get curious.

First, be curious and genuinely open to learning.

Ask for clarification and specific examples. Ask when and where you have been observed doing that behavior. For how long has it been going on? What is the impact of that behavior on the person giving the praise, the team, and the organization?

Explain: Clarify why it matters.

Take responsibility for the impact and present your thoughts.

Reiterate gratitude for the feedback and share why it is important to you.

Articulate your future focus.

___

Beltran brings over 20 years of experience from big names like Arthur Anderson and PwC, the leadership development industry, and tech innovation to his new book.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

How To Be More Playful To Build Resilience, Navigate Challenges And Find More Joy

“Research reveals that playful adults excel at problem-solving and stress management and consistently report higher life satisfaction,” explains Piera Gelardi , author of the new book, The Playful Way . The Playful Way is a mindset that transforms how you experience everything from airport security lines to career transitions to navigating grief. More specifically, Gelardi says playfulness is: Finding humor and lightness even in tense moments. Staying open to possibilities rather than fixating on one “right” way. Experimenting rather than seeking perfection. Bringing an ethos of curious exploration to difficulties. Finding wisdom in the body when the mind’s tied up in knots. Tuning your attention to notice details and find wonder. Reimagining dull tasks through reframes and games. Improvising when things go sideways. Gelardi guides readers in uncovering the mental barriers and inner critics that restrict playfulness, offering practical techniqu...

How To Unleash The Most Powerful Force In Business

In Marcus Buckingham ’s latest book, Design Love In: How To Unleash The Most Powerful Force In Business , he details the one hidden skill at the heart of all the best leaders today—and what you can do in your own working life to cultivate it. The skill is leading lovingly —what Buckingham calls Design Love In (DLI). Being a leader, whom people say they love working for and for whom they’d walk through walls. A leader who gets the absolute best out of their employees and who builds the kind of team employees desperately want to be on. “Love fuels our resilience, sparks our creativity, and bonds us together as collaborators,” shares Buckingham. “Love means a passionate commitment to something or someone. Love means deep loyalty. Love is advocacy. And, of course, love can also be hard-edged, hence ‘tough love.’” Buckingham recommends leaders create experiences that: Make employees feel bigger. Allow employees to feel safe enough to open up. Help employees flourish. Further, Buckingh...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Uncover Your Blindspots To Become A Better Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. That's typical for many leaders. What we don't see is what we can't see: we have blindspots . Your blindspots prevent you from achieving your greatest success. “It turns out that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems,” explains Martin Dubin , author of the new book, Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader . “Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can't move forward. The good news is that you can learn to do your own blindspotting .” “Most of us understand the idea of blindspots in a general sense—areas we can’t see, to take the term most literally, or places we have gaps that we may not even realize, to be a little more abstract,” says Dubin. “But in the context of this book, I’m defining blindspots quite specifically: They are...

The Algorithm: The Five-Step Framework That Drives Business Success

From a former President of Tesla, Jon McNeill , comes The Algorithm —the first book written by any of Elon Musk’s direct reports—a transformative guide for leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators who want to emulate the paradigm-shattering approach used to launch Tesla and SpaceX to success. And that transformed Lululemon and General Motors. McNeill had already founded and sold six startups when Sheryl Sandberg introduced him to Elon Musk, who was looking for help at Tesla. McNeill was steeped in the lean principles that had made Toyota a global powerhouse—principles focused on achieving efficiency and optimization by incrementally improving existing systems and processes. What he learned at Tesla was an approach that required radical rethinking to explode the status quo, attack complexity, and set seemingly unrealistic goals. Elon Musk at Tesla called this five-step framework “The Algorithm.” 1. Question every requirement – “Question everything—from produ...

40 Timeless Lessons From Southwest Airlines

A few years ago, Southwest Airlines celebrated its 40th year and was kind enough to share in its in-flight magazine 40 lessons it learned since 1971. The lessons provide good tips for business leaders. If you missed the full list, here are some of the highlights of timeless lessons: Invent your own culture and put a top person in charge of it . A crisis can contain the germ of a big idea . Simplicity has value . For Southwest, simplicity means using 737s for most of its fleet, which makes maintenance more cost-effective and allows more efficient training for flight crews and ground crews. Remember your chief mission . Take your business, not yourself, seriously. Put the worker first . For Southwest, that meant being the first U.S. airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, in 1974. Employees now own 13 percent of the airline. The web ain't cool, it's a tool . Southwest was the first U.S. airline to establish a home page. By 2010, ...

Let's Meet At The Intersection Of Marketing, Leadership And Blogging! A Q&A With Debbie Laskey

Credit: iStock Photo For the past 16 years, I have relied on Debbie Laskey's Blog for expert leadership guidance and always interesting insights into marketing best practices and recaps of marketing trends. Fortunately, through the years, Debbie has also shared her expertise through a variety of postings on my blog, and I'm honored again today to feature Debbie with the following Q&A's: QUESTION: You've featured many leadership experts on your blog through the years. What is a common theme from all the Q&A's? DEBBIE LASKEY : Back in 2011, I met Mark Herbert, a leadership expert and author based in Oregon, as a result of our interactions on Twitter/X. I interviewed him several times, and he provided a quote that I will always remember and share often: "Leadership doesn't require you to be the smartest person in the room. It requires you to block and tackle for others." That quote has appeared on my blog countless times over the years because...

How To Reclaim Your Time And Be Time Smart

“Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it,” reports Ashley Whillans , author of the book, Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life . “These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy and less productive.” And, in one study, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment. Drawing on the latest science, Whillans teaches us how to escape the time traps that make us feel this way and keep us from living our best lives. She explains that the six most common time traps are: Constant connection to technology. Obsession with work and making money. Limited value placed on time. Busyness as a status symbol. Aversion to idleness. The Yes…and then regret it effect. Her playbook shows you how to : take back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. improve your "time affluence.” f...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive . “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries. Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach : Survive : Stabilizing ...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog