After a heart attack, a high-powered corporate manager was told by his doctor to unwind on a quiet farm for a few weeks. But within days, restlessness took over, and he asked the farmer for something to keep him busy. With a smirk, the farmer gave him the filthiest task—cleaning up cow manure—expecting it to take days. To his amazement, the manager finished it in one afternoon.
The following day, the farmer upped the challenge: behead 500 chickens. Once again, the manager completed it swiftly. But on the third day, he was given a seemingly easy job—sorting potatoes into large and small piles. Hours passed and nothing was done. The farmer, puzzled, asked why. The manager sighed, “I’ve spent my whole life dealing with crap and cutting heads—but this… this is decision-making!” The line was funny, but it hit home: it wasn’t the physical tasks that wore him down—it was the pressure of constant judgment calls. Ironically, the farm mirrored the very stress he had come to escape.
Similarly, in another story of leadership, a departing office manager left his successor three crisis envelopes. The first read, “Blame me.” The second: “Restructure.” The third? “Write three envelopes.” A clever cycle of survival, showing that in management, stress is less about action—and more about how you handle the heat when things go wrong.
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