"Stress to success,” a topic continuously researched by Texas based Dr Adil Dalal (pictured), featured as his chosen subject when addressing three distinguished sets of audiences. In the first week of April 2024 he was the opening keynote speaker at the Global Business Leadership Forum at The Club Mumbai. In the last week of April he was in London, invited to the Global Business Conclave at the House of Lords and at another event hosted by chef Cyrus Todiwala of Café Spice Namaste when he addressed members of the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce.
The notion of "Zoroastrians being fun loving and stress free is no longer valid. Just like all, we are running a rat race,” observed Dalal when responding to queries from Parsiana. He mentioned that he has been "intermittently involved with Zoroastrian associations in Austin, Houston and Dallas.”
In his speeches and writings on stress, Dalal, an author, consultant and a member of the Forbes Coaching Council, reminds that acute stress could lead to poor decision making and even memory loss with the destruction of newly created neurons in the hippocampus, the brain region involved in memory and learning. As he emphasized, "A toxic combination of stress, anxiety and mental disorders fused together form the modern-day social atomic bomb which is debilitating billions of people on this planet… To diffuse this impending doom, leaders must learn to incorporate subtle humanistic technologies of the eastern and western world in their daily lives… Self-care is not self-indulgence or a luxury, it is a necessity for self-preservation as also preserving the well-being of your employees, customers and the organization.”
According to the latest Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statistics he cited, women experience 50% higher stress levels compared to men. Among women entrepreneurs, several factors were identified as contributing to their increased susceptibility: challenges of work-life integration, gender bias and stereotypes, financial pressures, multitasking demands, navigating business challenges and higher expectations.
Once stressors are identified, to modulate one’s response to them, among the simple techniques Dalal recommends are adjustment in sleep schedule, regular exercise, developing an attitude of gratitude, meditation, creative visualization, finding one’s purpose in life. "When all else fails you need to trust the process of discomfort-acceptance-growth… (to understand) that not all battles need to be won in life; sometimes lessons learned from disappointments can become a fuel that can ignite bigger successes,” he continued.
More advanced technological approaches may also be required to handle stress. In his book The 12 Pillars of Project Excellence he refers to a new model he developed called the Pinnacle Performance Zone. "I worked with a partner to develop the model into a bio-feedback software. I primarily use it for leaders in Fortune 500 organizations as stress levels are very high and also for my workshop Stress2success4leaders. The market for this includes individuals, health clinics and health practitioners,” mentioned Dalal.