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For the past 200 years our world has been facing a "crisis of modernity". A crisis of stress. The need for stress management and stress reduction.

The Industrial Age with the advent of steam power, the printing press and mass transportation (via land) created what at that time was seen as a state of severe stress.

Information Age followed with newspapers, radio and then television raising the stress level to unprecedented heights.

But lets face it folks, the Electronic Age with computers, e-mail, the internet, downloadable information on almost anything imaginable, has made that seem like kids stuff.

As fast as we adjust to new circumstances they change again. And, the rate of change seems to multiply like a rabbit onViagra!

The instant availability of information on virtually any subject has destroyed our ability to pause, analyze and look for alternatives.

Most of the stress experienced by twenty first century leadership, may come from dealing with change.

We desperately need stress relief.

For stress reduction today many people use a stress ball and, while it may help, there is a better answer.

To be a change agent today you need to be an aggressive forward thinker. And, you have to be a change agent!

The only way to stay ahead of change is to get behind it! Those who promote change are in charge of it, those who oppose it are overwhelmed by it!

Those who must be dragged kicking and screaming into the next set of changed circumstances will be crushed. Stress anxiety can be a killer.

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perseverance." (Author H. Jackson Brown)

When we determine to become advocates for change we suddenly find ourselves in the position of pusher rather than pushee (we become the stream).

We are more relaxed, more self confident, more self assured and we find that others are more willing to follow our lead.

Peter F. Drucker summed it up this way, "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

It's also the easier way! If you believe you can hold back the snowball of progress, you are doomed to be swallowed up in something over which you can never hope to have any control.

By being a change agent you won't just cope with this epidemic, you'll turn it into a dynamic force for personal and corporate growth.

Len McNally

About the Author

Early in 2006 Len McNally's book Acres of Diamonds Revisited was published by Authorhouse. As a follow up Len's new ezine Acres of Diamonds Revisited will continue on many years of coaching, motivating, and mentoring people to become everything nature intended them to be. For additional information or to subscribe to Acres of Diamonds Revisited - the ezine - go to http://www.acresofdiamondsrevisited.com