Sweat The Small Stuff To Avoid Big Stress!

Those of you who have been reading Monday Morning for any length of time have probably figured out that I focus these columns around ideas to help us all live more vibrant, confident and therefore successful (you define success yourself) lives. Since this week’s column is something of a departure from that norm, I debated over whether to use it, but decided to go ahead for two reasons. First, it deals indirectly with something that can affect our confidence, and second it therefore affects our short-term success (which logically can impact our long-term success).

Last Friday, at Tulsa’s Memorial Park Cemetery’s chapel, we held the funeral service for my 95 year old mother. She had lived at Oklahoma Methodist Manor for almost ten years and on Palm Sunday, she got out of bed, walked to the bathroom and fell, breaking her leg. The following Monday the surgeons fixed the leg and by Thursday, she was doing well enough that they told us we should feel no anxiety about making the trip to see our daughter in Texas for Easter.

The week following Easter, she continued (according to the doctors) to be coming along and on Friday, the surgeon called to say he was going out of town because he expected to release her within the next five days. He did say she had a touch of pneumonia, but felt that was being controlled. Imagine my shock, when another doctor called me Sunday morning to tell me that she was “fading fast.” The pneumonia had worsened and she expired on Tuesday, April 1 (I’m at a point now to say she hung on until April Fools day just to fool her surgeon!).

The rest of last week was a flurry of activity—trying to notify everybody that needed to be notified, making arrangements (thankfully, she had preplanned and prepaid her funeral service), and trying to remember everyone that needed to be included in her obituary. In addition, my wife and I also had to handle our business (and I had to deal with a couple of demanding clients).

Now, what does this have to do with confidence and short-term success? Let me share a few things I have become aware of (even though I knew them before).

First, no matter how “prepared” we are for a time like this (or a major setback of any kind in our lives), we discover that we aren’t as prepared as we thought we were. My wife and I thought we had all the bases covered, but discovered that while the major things were planned for or anticipated, small details became major stress producers. Like many families, mine has pretty well dwindled down to cousins. My two cousins living in Tulsa weren’t a problem—I knew how to reach them. The problem came from those cousins living in other states. A few years ago, I had carefully gathered everyone’s contact information—and put it in my computer. Problem—that computer crashed, wasn’t backed up properly and, you guessed it I didn’t have a hard copy.

The next thing we weren’t as prepared for as we thought was the obituary. I spent a couple of days listing my mother’s brothers and sisters. I kept telling my wife, “I think I’ve left somebody out.” After looking over the list several times, she said, “You forgot your Uncle Robert.” I added him to the list of those who had preceded her in death. As we went over it with the Funeral Director, I said, “I still think someone’s missing.” But we couldn’t come up with a name. The next morning (Thursday), after the paid obituary appeared in the paper, as I brushed my teeth it hit me—we had left my mother’s younger sister (who had never married) off the list of sisters who had preceded her. I felt really bad about that, and worried about what the rest of the clan would think of me for such an oversight! Then, after the service we began thinking of other people we hadn’t notified—more anxiety!

I think you get the drift—we had the big stuff taken care of (funeral director, cemetery, etc) before hand (we had planned for all the big contingencies—but not the small ones). Since everyone in the family had been though this same experience, they understood about mom’s younger sister (my cousin told me they left her out of her father in law’s obituary). And, friends we failed to contact prior to the service were also understanding of the situation.

The great “lesson” I hope we all gain from my misadventure is this: Don’t overlook the small details when you are developing your big plans, whether they involve a business deal, a project or something more personal. Had I made hard copies of the list of relatives and friends I compiled several years ago, I would have been spared a lot of stress. And, knowing that I would need a complete list of brothers, sisters, etc. for an obituary long before I needed it, had I taken the time to write it out—I would have avoided much stress and a sense of guilt.

In business and life, too often we try to live by the axiom, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” In truth, as my experience last week reminded me, we should remember that other axiom, “It’s the small things that always get us.”

Have a great and profitable week!
Robert Hidde
bob@confidentliving.com