My first job was as a journalist working in a highly-stressful editorial office of a leading English newspaper, in which we had to produce four editions of the broadsheet in eight hours. With the amount of news pouring in from the various news agencies and from our roving reporters, there was never any time to eat during the night shift. We survived on hourly cups of tea. I worked here for a decade.

When I became Vice President in a multinational, the pressure of never-ending torrents of emails, phones ringing, meetings and more meetings, videoconferences, recruiting, training and mentoring, took me to new heights, where I was able to operate in a highly stressful environment on a daily basis for six years.

Somewhere amidst these frenzied work environments I had imperceptibly begun to develop coping mechanisms, for example taking an evening walk after office to reflect on the day, before…