Detach, Pause, Recenter.....
From missing the parking orbit in Space to dissenting communities claiming that the SpaceX launch was a staged event, Elon's problems seem to be mushrooming over.
Most recently, Tesla proposes to recall 8898 cars in China.....Read more about that here.
This series of events also begs the question that a lot of people had been whispering about - does Elon Musk symbolize the tragic side of success?
The tragic side where you have such a driven lifestyle that you think faster than others can keep up, plan more meticulously than others can implement, and run harder than others can even aspire to catch up......driving ever harder until you hit a proverbial wall, resulting in failures!
More important than tragic systemic outcomes (i.e. for the organization), it is painful to try and understand what such driven lifestyles do to the protagonists - often producing disillusionment and denial....sometimes ending in burnout!!!
It also brings forth one of the harder questions that psychologists have been trying to answer - how do you tell a prodigal to slow down and course-correct? How do you make him listen and comply? How do you constructively intervene to facilitate a rebound?
Psychologists have proposed various steps to deal with burnouts in prodigal people. However, the essence of all such steps and recourses require the incumbent to be able to Detach, Pause and Recenter themselves.
Here's a brief how to on the same:
- Detachment: This requires that the incumbent "step away" from the ambient environment by putting physical distance and mental compartmentalizing between the environment and self. Inability to do so correlates directly with poor performance on repeated tasks. So, if news about Elon sleeping on the factory floor are correct, it might help to change that rather than indulge it.....
- Pausing: This is by far the trickiest part. This is because even when you have detached physically, the Mind has a way of going back to the battle zone. Then, even when you compartmentalize mentally, there are subliminal cues that keep the conflicts alive. Racing drivers that have retired often recount how they miss a "buzzing, tingling" feeling from their fingertips and hands- a buzzing that handles better with Relaxation techniques than a cigarette. So, to take a Pause, the incumbent must consciously CHOOSE relaxation over stimulus.....
- Recentering: When a Detachment and a Pause have been appropriately instilled, the incumbent should regroup with trusted individuals and realign goals. Preferably, there should be a steady, comfortable gradient leading from low-complexity (but high importance) tasks to the more complex - mind you, not difficult but complex. Focus on steadily increasing complexity while factoring in a plan to ensure a certain percentage of completion for previous tasks before even touching the next one. The effective habits advocated by Stephen Covey can help with this (Urgent Vs Important tasks matrix).
It's not as easy as the article reads but then Elon's a prodigal - he can handle and resurface.......here's hoping Elon wins!!!