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www.HartfordBusiness.com August 7, 2017 • Hartford Business Journal 21 BIZ BOOKS How to succeed in high-pressurized workplace situations "W hen the Pressure's On — The Secret to Winning When You Can't Afford to Lose" by Louis S. Csoka (AMACOM, $24.95). When "it" hits the fan, dealing with the situation has far more to do with managing stress than your skills. In the workplace, "it" often results from stop-that-do-this, dys- functional teams, reorganizations and unre- alistic expectations and deadlines. All such situa- tions create stress because they involve decisions that were out of your control. What can you control? Your reaction. A threat reaction triggers emotion- ally based negative self-talk, which "affects your cognitive function, analytical abilities and the ability to think clearly and rationally." You spend more time worrying about things that can go wrong than about how to improve your situation. It's a self- defeating, woe-is-me-I-know-I-can't mindset that leads to inaction, not achievement. A performance reaction, on the other hand, identifies the things you can control and focus- es your attention and efforts solely on those things. With such a reaction, your emotions don't control you. You're self-motivating and thrive on doing things differently and doing different things. You recognize that dealing with discomfort allows you to push the bounds of your comfort zone outward. Csoka developed a 5-point program for achieving perfor- mance excellence: 1. "Goal Setting" — Knowing your mission (i.e. what you must accomplish) focuses on what you expect of yourself relative to where you want to be. Csoka quick- ly points out that simply having a list of goals isn't enough. You must affirm your goals with specific and measurable everyday actions. You must revisit them often to gauge prog- ress and remind you of what's left to be done. 2. "Adaptive Thinking" — When you become aware of a negative thought, mentally say "stop." Give yourself a few moments to think about how that negativity will affect your ability to achieve your goals. With no-progress- toward-goal in mind, "replace the negative thought with a positive counter-thought." Believing "I can" sets the tone for what you will do to stay on point. With practice, the counter- thought will come to the forefront quickly. 3. "Stress and Energy Management" — Peak performers "want the ball" when the game is on the line; they use pressure as a motivator. Where others see danger, they see opportunity. They're confident that they're up to the challenge. They also know when their candle burns at both ends, and can step back and take a breath. Actually, a few breaths: a two-minute paced-breathing exercise — four-second inhale and six-second exhale — calms the mind. To calm the body, you can tense (while inhaling deeply) and relax (while exhaling fully) each muscle group; regular exercise helps, too. There are numerous stress-man- agement apps available; you can incorporate them into your workday routine. 4. "Attention Control" — This deals with the myth of multi-tasking, which leads to the workplace version of attention deficit disorder. According to a Wall Street Jour- nal study, "office workers are interrupted — or self-interrupt — roughly every three minutes. When learning to deal with inter- ruptions, don't think about blocking them out because "blocking" will be at the front of your mind. Instead, remind yourself of what's important — the task at hand. 5. "Imagery" — Visualize what things will look like when you achieve your goals. The cool thing about a brain: It can't distin- guish between real and visualized events. "If the images are 'real' enough, they can pro- duce the same feelings or actions as the actu- al object or activity being imagined. Exam- ple: Have you ever awoken from a nightmare to find yourself sweating and trembling? By visualizing your goals, you begin living them. Advice: Take the "Peak Performance Skills Level Self-Assessment" (pp.27-29) before reading the book, and again after you've read it to reevaluate your initial thoughts. Then take it every 90 days until you can confidently rate yourself 4 or 5 in all categories. n Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer. Jim Pawlak OTHER VOICES CT's recession lasted much longer than you think By Fred Carstensen W hile many people consider the Great Recession to have lasted only two years, Connecticut's economic mal- aise lasted much longer. In fact, measured by real output or gross state product, Connecti- cut's economy actually shrank for seven years, even as the state regained jobs lost during the Great Recession. After losing 119,000 jobs during the downturn, the state began to add jobs back in Oct. 2010 and has added jobs every month (measured year over year) since — 69 consecutive months of job gains. That looks impressive, but it is deceptive. Total payroll employment in Connecticut remains below 2008 levels. More important, the state hasn't been adding well-paying jobs; critically, Connecticut's economy, measured in terms of real output, contracted for seven years, through the first quarter of 2015. In Jan. 2007, the economy generated, on an annualized basis, more than $247 billion in output; by April 2015, output had shrunk to $223 billion, a loss of nearly 10 percent. And it has not yet recovered: Connecticut's economy, measured in real output, is still more than $10 billion below its previous peak. Lower real output means lower wages and weak growth in income tax revenue. While Connecticut has not fully recovered the jobs it lost, more Connecticut residents now report being employed than ever — an all-time record of 1,836,000. Both Massa- chusetts and New York have enjoyed strong recoveries; Rhode Island has now replaced all the jobs it lost in the recession; presump- tively a lot of Connecticut residents are now commuting out-of-state for work. Because we pay income tax first where we work, not where we live, Connecticut's high employment numbers don't translate into improved income tax revenue for the state. Moreover, many of those households are likely to follow those out-of-state jobs to new homes closer to where they work; that is the dynamic that is in some measure driving Connecticut's static or shrinking population. The primary revenue sources for the state are the income tax and the sales tax. Because real output was contracting, the quality of jobs being added was relatively low, adding little to the tax base. Despite increased tax rates, income tax revenues from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2015 grew only $1.4 billion, modestly ahead of inflation. Connecticut was raising income taxes on a shrinking base. Sales tax revenue, in contrast, surged nearly 30 percent, up a full $1 billion from fiscal 2008's $3.2 billion. The poor qual- ity of job growth did little to improve income tax revenues, but the growth in employment, especially those out-of-state jobs, translated into more purchases subject to sales tax. Connecticut's weak growth in real out- put is the 800-pound gorilla few have seemed to notice. The challenges of unfunded com- mitments are daunting, but it is vital that we acknowledge Connecticut's seven-year reces- sion — which ended only two years ago — work to understand the anomalous factors specific to Connecticut that underlay that contraction, and adopt policies and make public-sector invest- ments that will help drive growth, not mere job creation. If we don't — and we haven't to date — the fiscal crisis will likely become a permanent feature of our state budget. The fiscal crisis is a symptom; the disease is a crippled economy. n Fred Carstensen is an economist at UConn. Fred Carstensen ▶ ▶ A performance reaction … identifies the things you can control and focuses your attention and efforts solely on those things. Send Us Your Letters The Hartford Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and guest commentaries for our opinion pages. Electronic submissions are preferred and welcome at: editor@HartfordBusiness.com.