Diamond in the Rough

Written by: Ken Berry

My friend Ken Berry will share some goodness with you for the next ten weeks. Pretty

exciting stuff, eh? I've never had someone guest post before. I think you'll love hearing his

insights on handling stress at work and all the other things he has planned to discuss. So without

further do, here's Ken:

Thanks, Jewell. I appreciate you hosting this blog session. Hello everyone. My name is Ken Berry. I am

a "Communications Professional" in the making. I reached out to Jewell and asked her if she would be

interested in interacting on this blog. Graciously she agreed, and here we are; introductions. If you

have been following Jewell, you probably know what I know of her. She's the consummate professional;

she's a housewife, a mother, a working professional, an entrepreneur, a writer, a blogger, and a

motivational speaker. She still wears the uniform of champions (By the way, congrats on the recent

promotion.)

Before I get too far into the thick of this blog, I think I should introduce myself and explain how I know

Jewell. It's an interesting dynamic. Her husband, Matt, was my boss in Iraq from 2008-2009. We both

got selected for a mission that was characteristically out of our regular mission. Big deal, right? I mean,

plenty of people work with each other overseas, and you're probably correct. What makes it a big deal

is that Matt was there for me at a time in my career when I needed some real mentoring. I'm talking

about some deep philosophical type of mentoring. He made a lasting impression on me.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016. I have been retired from the Army for about a year, and I came

across Matt through social media. It was nice to see him after all these years. That's when I found out

that he was married. I was excited for him. He's a good person. He deserves to be happy. One day, I

messaged him, Jewell replied, and over the last few years, we have gotten to know a little about each

other. Then this project popped up. I was asked to find someone I admire or respect professionally,

which was a "no-brainer." As I mentioned earlier, I asked her, and she graciously accepted, and here

we are. We exchanged ideas on various blog themes but agreed on talking about something that we all

have endured at one time or another. STRESS. I'm not talking about how you feel when you wear an

old pair of pants and find out they don't fit anymore. Although, I suppose that is an excellent example of

experiencing stress, especially if you haven't done your weekly laundry. I'm talking about workplace 

stress and how that affects us in our personal and professional lives.

Furthermore, how do we cope with it, avoid it, redirect it, and use it for our gain? No two people are

alike when it comes to dealing with stress. Some do an abysmal job at it, others try their best to deal

with it, yet others barely show it. How does that happen? Put two people in the same scenario under

the same conditions, and you will have two different responses. Take it one step further, toss in things

like upbringing, intelligence, environment, gender, and socioeconomic characteristics. Now you

have exponentially vast results to sort through. The fact of the matter, dealing with stress is, at the

very least, conditional.

Well, what do you think? Interesting to come back at least another week? I hope so. I know I am 😉. If

If you have something you like to share with me, please reach out via email to kenneth.berryl@live.com.

See you next week.