People that can handle the most stress are often seen as great leaders, great sales people and seem to dominate life.

Why can some people handle so much, and more and more everyday and others crumble when the fire heats up?

How much you can handle often defines you in life.  Are you calm in the storm?  Can you “Keep Calm and Carry on”?

5 tips to work on expanding your emotional bandwidth:

1. Research has shown you can’t be thankful and stressed.  So think of things to be thankful for when you are stressed.  As an “old timer” told me recently, “Joel I didn’t sleep well last night, but I did wake up!”

2.  Pray.  Go to Church.  Take a walk in the woods.  Work on your spiritual well being, whatever that means to you.  Remaining calm in adversity is a sign of great spiritual strength.  No matter what’s going on in your life right now you will be able to “Hold your peace.”

3.  Be with family and friends.  A tree with strong roots can tolerate almost any storm, the ones with shallow roots perish quickly.

4.  Fail Forward.  Failing is part of growing and change.  Embrace the fall.  Just learn from it and get up quicker.

5.  Love.  Care.  Serve.  If we choose to help others, our own problems seem to go away.

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is the president & Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.  He has provided solutions for builders and their clients since 1996 and a whole bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t care about.