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Observing Your Stress Responses

Summary

This episode of Developer Tea presents a short challenge focused on how developers can use stressful moments, particularly those involving differing opinions, as opportunities for self-observation and growth.

The host introduces the concept that our true character and operational patterns are revealed not just during major adverse events, but during any kind of stress. He uses metaphors of a room’s echo and a mattress’s response to pressure to illustrate how we each have unique ways of responding to stress that may not be visible in our resting state.

Specifically, the episode focuses on the stress of dealing with differing opinions in development work—whether from teammates about technical approaches or from managers about priorities. The host suggests that instead of immediately advocating for our own perspective, we should pause to observe our internal response patterns: whether we become defensive, shut down, or quietly dismiss others’ viewpoints.

The challenge encourages recognizing that others typically share the same goals and intentions, even when opinions differ. By observing our stress responses and shifting from a competitive mindset to a collaborative one, we can transform stressful moments into opportunities for creating better solutions through integration of diverse perspectives.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to busy week and episode format — The host acknowledges it’s a busy week for developers, especially with Black Friday sales cycles. He announces this and the next episode will be short and presented as challenges. He teases new content coming in the new year similar to today’s topic.
  • 00:00:52 — Sponsor message from Linode — The host thanks sponsor Linode for providing Linux cloud services with data centers worldwide. He mentions their 20 credit using code DeveloperTea2018 at Linode.com/developertea.
  • 00:01:47 — Reframing advice about character under stress — The host challenges listeners to change how they think about the common advice that character is revealed during difficult times. He suggests our operational patterns come out not just during major adverse events, but during any kind of stress, particularly the stress of differing opinions.
  • 00:03:06 — Metaphors for stress response: room echo and mattress — The host presents two metaphors for understanding stress responses. First, a room’s unique echo signature when sounds get louder. Second, how mattresses that look identical respond differently under pressure. These illustrate that our true response patterns only emerge under stress.
  • 00:04:07 — Developer-specific stress: differing opinions — The host identifies differing opinions as perhaps the most common stress developers face—whether from teammates about technical approaches or managers about priorities. He explains this stress reveals character not in terms of good/bad, but in terms of the uniqueness of our contributions.
  • 00:05:00 — The challenge: observe your stress response — The host presents today’s challenge: when encountering a differing opinion, instead of immediately advocating for your own perspective, pause to recognize how your character responds to that stress. He lists potential responses: buckling under stress, becoming defensive, shutting down, or quietly dismissing others.
  • 00:06:00 — Shifting perspective on others’ opinions — The host encourages remembering that others typically have reasons for their opinions and share the same goals. By understanding others’ perspectives, we can shape our stress responses for mutual benefit rather than personal benefit, moving from seeing opinions as offenses to opportunities for integration.
  • 00:06:53 — From competition to collaboration — The host challenges the competitive mindset that someone must ‘win’ in disagreements. Instead, he suggests looking for ways to combine efforts for better solutions than either could achieve alone. Stressful moments then become important opportunities to decide between collaboration and destructiveness.
  • 00:07:30 — Recap of the simple challenge — The host reiterates the simple challenge: when hearing a stressful differing opinion, pause and observe your internal response first. This observation creates space for more thoughtful, collaborative engagement rather than reactive defensiveness.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2018-11-21T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:08:14

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] It’s a very busy week for most of us as developers.

[00:00:08] Many of us are working at companies that have major sales cycles, especially in the States.

[00:00:16] There are a lot of companies doing Black Friday deals this week.

[00:00:19] And so we’re going to keep the the next two episodes, today’s episode and Friday’s episode

[00:00:24] are going to be short episodes, and we’re going to do them in the format of a challenge.

[00:00:29] Now, I mentioned in the last episode of Developer Tea, I mentioned that we’re going to be releasing

[00:00:36] a new thing coming in the new year.

[00:00:40] I can’t tell you everything about it, but it’s going to be very similar to the type

[00:00:45] of content that you’re going to hear in today’s episode, and I’m really excited about it.

[00:00:49] But I want to go ahead and jump into today’s topic.

[00:00:52] Before we do that, though, I want to thank today’s awesome sponsor, Linode.

[00:00:57] If you’ve listened to Developer Tea for very long, then you know that Linode provides

[00:01:02] industry leading Linux in the cloud services.

[00:01:06] They do this with your choice of Linux distribution resources and no location.

[00:01:11] You can get that up and running in just a few minutes.

[00:01:13] They have 10 data centers worldwide, so it’s going to be super fast no matter where you

[00:01:18] are located.

[00:01:19] Your plans are going to start with a gigabyte of RAM.

[00:01:23] That’s their lowest sized plan in terms of RAM, and that’s only $5 a month.

[00:01:28] Now, they’re going to give you $20 worth of credit for being a Developer Tea listener,

[00:01:33] so that’s equivalent to basically four months.

[00:01:36] Go and check it out, Linode.com slash Developer Tea, and use the code DeveloperTea2018 at

[00:01:42] checkout for that $20 worth of credit.

[00:01:44] Thank you again to Linode for sponsoring today’s episode.

[00:01:47] So you probably have heard this kind of advice before, that you are really tested when the

[00:01:53] difficult times come, when you face a problem.

[00:01:59] And that’s true, and often we think about this type of advice in terms of when a problem

[00:02:05] occurs in our world, when we face some kind of adverse condition, like for example, we

[00:02:14] get in a car wreck or we get laid off from our job or some other kind of event that occurs.

[00:02:23] But I want to challenge you and change the way you think about this advice, the idea

[00:02:27] that a lot of who you are, a lot of the way that you operate in the world is going to

[00:02:33] come out.

[00:02:34] It’s going to be exposed and expressed not only when you face some adverse condition,

[00:02:40] but when you have any kind of stress at all.

[00:02:44] And specifically today, I want to talk about the stress of differing opinions as a way

[00:02:50] of showing and expressing your values and your way of dealing with the world.

[00:02:56] When you encounter a different opinion, how do you typically respond?

[00:03:03] I like to imagine this through a metaphor.

[00:03:06] It’s kind of like a room, the way that the room responds to sounds.

[00:03:12] And maybe initially, the quiet sounds, there’s not really much of a response, but as they

[00:03:18] get louder, a room will echo.

[00:03:21] And usually that echo has its own kind of unique signature, depending on the shape of

[00:03:26] the room.

[00:03:27] Another good metaphor might be a mattress.

[00:03:30] No, this is not another ad read.

[00:03:34] The way that a mattress responds when you put pressure on it.

[00:03:38] You can look at two mattresses and they may look exactly the same.

[00:03:41] They may have the same shape, the same contour, even the same claimed features.

[00:03:46] But then when you put stress on them, how those mattresses respond can be entirely different

[00:03:53] from each other.

[00:03:54] And so it’s important to know kind of what our resting state shape is.

[00:04:00] This is important.

[00:04:01] But it’s also perhaps even more important to understand how we respond to stress.

[00:04:07] And the particular type of stress that developers face, perhaps the most often, is the stress

[00:04:13] of dealing with differing opinions.

[00:04:16] When you’re negotiating with other people’s opinions, for example, if you have another

[00:04:19] developer on your team who thinks that things should be written differently than you do.

[00:04:25] Or perhaps you have a manager who believes that you don’t need to spend as much time

[00:04:31] doing X, Y, or Z, and you believe the opposite.

[00:04:36] This kind of stress, and forgive me for the cliché, but it reveals your character.

[00:04:42] And when I say character, I don’t necessarily mean it reveals how good of a character you

[00:04:47] have versus how bad of a character you have.

[00:04:50] Instead, it also reveals the uniqueness of your contributions.

[00:04:57] So here’s the basic challenge for today’s episode.

[00:05:00] What I encourage you to do today when you encounter this kind of stress, because you

[00:05:05] will at some point encounter a different opinion from yours.

[00:05:10] Instead of immediately taking your own side, in other words, instead of immediately fighting

[00:05:17] for your own opinion and advocating for your own perspective, take a moment to recognize

[00:05:26] the way that your character is responding to that stress.

[00:05:30] The way that you kind of echo back when you hear a loud noise.

[00:05:38] Do you tend to buckle under that stress?

[00:05:41] Do you tend to immediately move into a defensive posture?

[00:05:46] Do you have a shutdown mechanism?

[00:05:49] Do you respond by listening but quietly writing off what that person has to say?

[00:05:57] These are all things that are pretty normal for people to do.

[00:06:00] But if we can learn new ways, if we can remind ourselves that other people have the opinions

[00:06:08] they have for a reason, that when they approach a conversation, typically their goal is not

[00:06:15] to sabotage that conversation.

[00:06:19] We have the same intentions, the same outcome in mind, the same success in front of us as

[00:06:25] our goal.

[00:06:26] So if we can understand other people’s opinions, then that stress that we respond to, that

[00:06:33] character that comes out, can be shaped for mutual benefit rather than for personal benefit.

[00:06:42] And instead of seeing other people’s opinions as some kind of offense, something to fight

[00:06:49] against, you can start to integrate your opinion with theirs.

[00:06:53] You see, we have this mindset that one of us has to win, but if instead we can think

[00:06:59] about ways that we can combine our efforts and come out with a better solution than we

[00:07:06] would have come out with on our own, then we can start to realize that those stressful

[00:07:11] moments are indeed one of the most important opportunities that we have in our day.

[00:07:17] They’re the most important opportunity because they are the moment when we decide if we want

[00:07:23] to collaborate and cooperate or if we want to be destructive.

[00:07:30] So the challenge once again is very simple.

[00:07:32] Take a moment, pause whenever you are hearing an opinion that feels stressful to you, that

[00:07:38] is differing from your own opinion.

[00:07:41] Instead of immediately responding, pause and observe.

[00:07:45] Observe how you’re responding internally first.

[00:07:50] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:07:53] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Leno, go and check it out, leno.com slash developer

[00:07:58] tea.

[00:07:59] You’re going to get $20 worth of credit at checkout.

[00:08:01] Use the code developer tea 2018.

[00:08:04] Thank you so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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