Marvin Heemeyer - Proof that Micro Stresses Can Cause Severe Destruction

On June 4, 2004, a muffler repairman named Marvin Heemeyer said goodbye to his repair shop in the manliest way possible. He drove a custom-fitted armored bulldozer through the wall. Then he turned his homemade tank on his mortal enemy, the man who had fought and won the rights to build a concrete mixing plant on Marvin's property.

Marvin destroyed the concrete plant while the owner and his friends tried to shoot stab, and ram Marvin's destruction machine off its treads, but Marvin's killdozer couldn't be stopped. Throughout the next two and a half hours. Marvin would use his armored bulldozer to wrecked 13 buildings around the small town of Granby, Colorado. He would also damage a truck, destroy part of the utility service center, and knock out the natural gas to the center of town. All told, Marvin would incur approximately 7 million dollars in damages. Police, sheriffs, and SWAT tried to stop the rampage multiple times, but the armor Marvin used to modify his bulldozer was impervious to bullets and conventional explosives. As far as SWAT could tell, there was no way to get inside the tank, and no way to pull Marvin out.

That's because Marvin designed his revenge machine without any doors or hatches. Once the armored shell of tool grade steel and concrete were lowered over the bulldozer body, Marvin had no way to get out again. For Marvin, this was going to be a one-way mission, a mission for revenge.

Later, as the news of Marvin’s rampage circulated, his machine would be dubbed “KillDozer." Today, we're talking about the stresses that led to Marvin's breaking Point, all the way to the first moment when he drove his killdozer through the wall of a shop and into the town of Granby, population 1864.

Bonus: Check out the documentary, Tread on Netflix.

Today we're talking about micro stresses, the little insidious day-to-day stresses that can add up to deplete you emotionally and challenge your values. We’ll mostly focus on identifying \ micro stress for this episode, but if you want to hear about stress management and how stress affects you as a leader, I encourage you to check out Episode 5 in our archive, Franklin Roosevelt and Stress.

When we complain about stress, we tend to focus on significant stress events in our lives, such as getting fired, breaking up with a partner, or getting bad news from the doctor. But overall life stress, the stress that saps us and leaves us unmotivated and cranky, comes from thousands of little stress cuts that we receive throughout the day, doesn't it?

·         Myth 1: If you find yourself wishing you had more time or more energy throughout the day, that's a motivation problem. Right?

·         Myth 2:  If you find yourself snapping at your spouse or being impatient with a client, that's an emotional problem, pure and simple.

·         Myth 3: If you find your values or your identity feeling eroded, that is a moral failing, right?

Most of this episode's facts are coming from a Harvard Business Review article called "Don't let micro stresses burn you out." This article helps you define your micro stresses, and once you define them, you can start changing them. To put it back to Marvin, if Marvin had charted his moments and interactions that slowly killed his soul, he might have been able to prevent blowing his lid in such a magnificent fashion. However, it would have been less entertaining for us.

Micro stress is a subject that everyone almost immediately sees the value in without quite being able to identify it.  If I talk to people about micro stress without this article on my hip, they will nod. But then I ask them where their micro stresses come from, they struggle. They don't know how to describe the micro stresses in their life. And it is because it is a collection of little things that all add up.

In human history, more personalities equate to more ways to be stressed out, right? I read another article that talked about how Millennials are facing something called errand fatigue, or errand paralysis. Micro stresses can come from errands and being sent to do useless tasks. Any time somebody takes time from you or adding social friction into your day makes those micro stresses. Now the worst part about micro stresses is that once you identify them and realize how many of them you have, most just accept and dismiss. It's instinctive for us to want to ignore them because they're too small to complain about.

“Traditional advice on coping with negative or stressful interactions doesn't work because micro stresses are deeply and invisibly embedded in our lives.” -HBR.

The idea is that micro stresses are such a small, consistent part of our interactions; they are really too small for us to give them the proper attention. We don't usually recognize them when they happen. We just move past them.

On the Harvard Business Review, they researched and put this article up after studying tech companies' biopharmaceuticals, finance, and manufacturing to identify the sources of micro stress. And they separated those sources into three categories.

1.      Micro stresses that diminish personal capacity (time and energy)

a.       Micro stresses that drain your personal capacity. These are the unspoken tensions, and a lot of these come from the misalignment of roles and priorities. For example, your boss doesn't put you in the right role, or you're not given the correct position for something. Even regular poor communication can be very draining.

2.      Emotional reserves

a.       These are micro stresses are things that diminish your emotional reserve. Usually, these are worrying for people we care about, uncertainty about the impact of our actions, feeling responsible for other people, and mistrust in your network. These can be confrontational.

3.      Micro stresses that diminish identity and values

a.       This one diminishes identity and values through interactions that challenge your sense of self. The pressure to pursue goals outside of your values, etc. These seem like the most damaging.

Tips to Diminish Micro Stress

So first off, as the Harvard Business Review puts it, talking about these micro stresses may not be helpful because it's just complaining, or as we put it, whining. It can take 30 minutes to describe the history and context for something that may or may not make you feel better. Instead of dragging our spouses into boring unending stories that rollover from one day to the next, Todd and I will solve this right here in real-time. 

So, here we go: Write out your micro-stresses to isolate and act on. Two or three are fine. I think you're going to be surprised when you break down the kids, the spouse, the job, the friends, etc. how many you have. In your life, pick two or three, identify them, and start planning to deal with them. Tackle a couple at a time, and then that list will slowly diminish as you do this. Once you can start working on those individual pieces per list, your life can become less stressful in a meaningful way because these tiny parts get cut out.

Final Thoughts

Small Things add up. Yet we tell ourselves to ignore the little stresses, to put up with the tiny pressures put on us by others. As if being an adult means accepting the micro frictions of our daily interactions.

When a boss gives us extra work without warning or explanation, we roll with it, as if it's our turn. When a co-worker talks about skirting our duties, or a friend wants to stay out late partying, we accept it as if it's a social tax we have to pay. And when someone, especially family or friends, undermines our confidence, we assume they're doing it out of love or positive intentions. We accept micro stresses from all corners of our lives because we believe it is a part of being a grown-up, part of the package deal we signed, like micro stresses are inevitable. But they're not.

Micro stresses are identifiable, quantifiable, and you can buff yourself from them and prevent them if you've identified their source.

Micro stresses may seem small and light like feathers, such as a nasty comment from a co-worker, a tasteless social media post by a friend, or a boss who disrespects your time. These are practically weightless as far as stress goes. But you know how they transport bulk feathers cross-country? The exact same way they ship nails or bowling balls.

Take the extra time to identify micro stresses in your life. Make an action plan to avoid damping or buff yourself from the causes. And remember, anything you can do to reduce your life's overall stress will be reflected in your physical and mental health.

However, if your coping mechanism of choice is to build a bulldozer tank hybrid, then there isn't much we could tell you about stress reduction, except avoid the potholes.