131: Modupe Akinola | Stop Passing Your Stress on to Everyone Else

2024-04-08

Modupe Akinola is a business professor at Columbia Business School, and coach to Chris Hemsworth in the documentary Limitless. Prior to pursuing a career in academia, Modupe worked at Bain & Company and Merrill Lynch. Modupe examines how organizational environments- characterized by deadlines, multi-tasking, and other attributes such as having low status- can engender stress, and how this stress can have spill-over effects on performance. Her work has been covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National...

Modupe examines how organizational environments- characterized by deadlines, multi-tasking, and other attributes such as having low status- can engender stress, and how this stress can have spill-over effects on performance.

Her work has been covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, WIRED, Scientific American, Forbes, The Economist, and The Huffington Post.

Modupe earned her undergraduate degree, MBA, and PhD from Harvard.

In this episode we discuss the following:

We have so much control over how we experience life, and it's within our control to find ways to manage stress so that it doesn’t negatively affect others.
If you’re feeling stressed, do a stress check on yourself to see how you can change and dial down that stress in a way that isn't contagious so that other people don't have a terrible day because you are having a bad one.
If Modupe snaps at herself or someone else, she pauses and asks herself, “What’s going on?” That often helps her realize why she’s stressed so that she can deal with it.
If you are stressed, pause, figure out why, and then ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”
Modupe learned a simple phrase that has improved her relationship with her Mom when she’s stressed: “I’m busy right now, Mom, but I’ll call you this weekend.”
Working as Chris Hemsworth’s stress coach reinforced for Modupe that everyone has stress, regardless of their fame or success.

Follow Modupe

X: https://twitter.com/ProfAkinola

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mnakinola/

Website: https://www.modupeakinola.com/

Follow Me:

X: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

Website: https://natemeikle.com

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