Stay well during the leasing process

Over the years I’ve seen many very capable, smart, driven folks succumb to the malady of “well-being deficit disorder”.  It’s a rarely talked about unanticipated risk of having a full time job on steroids running your business - and then adding the decision making process for a business space lease on top of it. What are the symptoms and remedies, you ask?  Well…

One early sign is an increase in those moments when your brain seems to be taking an unauthorized break from doing what you want it to do.  The basic cerebral processing stalls out, and often all the trying to power-through-it push does is make it worse.  Since it’s an issue with how our brain is designed to a large degree, cut yourself some slack and take a mini-break to allow your brain to reboot.  The barista a couple blocks away would love to see you now, especially if you’re a generous tipper.

When your key managers and stakeholders are concerned about you, don’t ignore them.  They are often a path to dealing with the process in a way that spreads some of the thinking and processing load, and you will likely benefit from their participation as a valuable side benefit.  Building a team helps you make more informed decisions, building ownership by those participants of the final decision along the way, and you get to spread around some of the processing work load.  You really should not be the one getting information on new copiers, moving services and researching the B&O taxes in the various places you may be looking – you have a company to lead.

Another critical indicator to pay attention to yourself in the middle of the chaos is when your spouse, significant other, kids or for some people your dog or cat or best friend look at you like they don’t recall who you are.  Even in the midst of extraordinary hours of work, we need to stay in touch with those closest to us.  I know for me personally that the proverbial “date night” has been a relationship saver.  You have other solutions to keeping your important relationships alive through the trials of adding a major project on top of an already very full set of responsibilities – just don’t forget to schedule them and honor those blocks of time.

Diet and exercise get to be secondary, but your body doesn’t know it’s supposed to just suck it up – it actually believes and acts like it’s really important.  One of the worst “wake up” calls I’ve seen is a serious health issue exacerbated by not taking care of himself.  A client of mine recently was limping pretty badly and it was after he took some pain medicine.  When I asked what was going on, he said he’d done a ½ marathon and for the first time in doing these 13 mile runs he really injured himself.  As we talked a bit further it came out that he’d stopped his regular training out of schedule overload.  Since the training runs both helped him de-stress and kept him prepared for the longer runs, the extreme pain in his lower leg was a pretty uncomfortable way to get his attention, ensuring he takes some time out for himself during the heat of the negotiations process to go for a run.

So, the “take a ways”, as my old econ professor would have said, are:

·         Pull together a good decision team to support you in making an informed decision, of course with a great tenant representative broker as a key member
·         Stay in communication and engaged with your key people - family, business and personal – maintaining your social connections will keep your mind clear and you more content
·         Keep up your activities – it will  pay big physical and psychological benefits (and help you avoid injuries!)

Overall, you’ll need all your attention and intention skills to juggle the extra issues.  Cut yourself some slack by letting others on your team do some of the worrying and together you’ll get what you need to support your organization well going forward.  You’re smart, you’ve heard this all before – sometimes it’s just good to have a reminder.

Kevin represents businesses in their lease negotiations for office, flex-tech, and light industrial spaces in the Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond markets.  For complex projects he represents businesses as far away as Vancouver, Spokane and Bellingham.  His clients report they especially like the time he takes to listen and really understand their organization and help them to get the right deal at the end of the process.