If you’ve been in the transmission business for more than five minutes, you already know stress is as much a part of shop life as torque converters and coffee-stained work orders. You can smell it in the air when a customer calls for the third time before lunch. You can hear it in the tone of the service advisor who’s been juggling six bays, two tows, and a comeback all before 10 a.m.
Every shop I’ve ever walked into has a certain rhythm – a hum that comes from hard work, long days, and constant motion. That hum is the sound of stress doing its job, and yes, stress does have a job. In fact, it’s the difference between a shop that’s alive and one that’s flatlined. But like voltage, it’s useful only if it’s properly grounded.
Our nation was born out of the stress of many years of suffering the stress of tyranny. Today, as we approach 2026 and celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary, I want to talk about stress (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and what it means to your business. And, as an added twist, I’m borrowing the wisdom one of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis, and his concept of the “Law of Undulation.”
C.S. Lewis wrote about the stress of the ups and downs of the human condition, and it applies just as much to your shop life as it does to your personal, physical, and spiritual life.
Good Stress Sharpens
Let’s start with the good kind of stress, what psychologists call eustress. This is the healthy tension that wakes you up in the morning and keeps you sharp when you’ve got three jobs on the board, promised by 5:00, and a tech out sick. It’s the pressure that forces you to prioritize, focus, and perform at your best.
Think about the last time your shop had one of those “all hands on deck” days. The phones were ringing, the lot was full, and you had a big fleet account breathing down your neck for a Friday delivery. Everyone was working at full throttle, and somehow, by grit, skill, and a little luck, you pulled it off.
That’s good stress. It forges teamwork. It builds confidence. It disappears procrastination. It reminds everyone that they can handle more than they thought they could.
Here’s the irony; Shops that try to eliminate stress altogether usually end up creating more of it. When you remove the challenge, people get bored, sloppy, and disengaged. A healthy level of stress is like resistance training for your business muscles – it keeps them strong.
When managed well, stress gives your team purpose. It sharpens focus and helps separate the noise from the signal. It’s why championship teams practice under pressure. It’s why pilots train for turbulence. Soldiers train under fire. And it’s why great shops don’t fear stress – they manage it.
Bad Stress Drains
Of course, not all stress is good. Bad stress, the chronic, unrelenting kind, is like a slow leak in your air compressor. You don’t notice it at first, but over time it drains the energy out of everything.
In a transmission shop, bad stress often hides behind the same familiar faces. The tech who’s always behind but refuses help. The service writer who’s quietly overwhelmed but too proud to admit it. The owner who spends more time putting out fires than building systems to prevent them.
Bad stress thrives in disorganization. It feeds on poor communication, unrealistic deadlines, and lack of clarity about who’s responsible for what. It’s that constant feeling that you’re reacting to everything and controlling nothing.
I once visited a shop where the owner bragged about how busy they were. “We’re slammed every day,” he said proudly. “Can’t keep up with all the work.” But the longer I watched, the clearer it became that they weren’t busy – they were chaotic. Cars sat half-done because parts weren’t ordered on time. Techs wandered the shop looking for tools. Customers called for updates that no one could give. That’s not productivity – that’s chaos with a business card.
Here’s the real danger. In stressful situations, people don’t tend to rise to the occasion, but they often fall to their lowest skill level. Gun-safety instructors teach that principle to explain why even skilled shooters can fumble under pressure. The same applies in a transmission shop. When stress spikes and systems break down, your team will default to their habits. If those habits aren’t well trained, mistakes multiply fast.
That’s why strong processes, clear communication, and consistent training aren’t luxuries – they’re your safety net. They turn chaos into competence when the pressure hits.
Bad stress doesn’t sharpen performance; it dulls it. It leads to mistakes, comebacks, short tempers, and eventually, burnout. People don’t leave jobs because they’re tired; they leave because they’re exhausted without purpose.
As a leader, your job isn’t to eliminate stress but to direct it, managing it to turn panic into focus and chaos into clarity.
Ugly Stress Corrupts
Then there’s the ugly stress – the kind that goes deeper than exhaustion or frustration. It’s the kind that changes who you are.
This is the stress that turns good shop owners into cynical ones. It’s the kind that takes once-enthusiastic technicians and turns them into clock-watchers. It’s the kind that steals joy, dulls creativity, and erodes culture.
Ugly stress happens when we let pressure turn into resentment, and we start believing that the grind is all there is. It’s when we forget why we got into this business in the first place.
C.S. Lewis called this the “trough” – the low point in what he described as the Law of Undulation. He wrote that all humans go through cycles of highs and lows, peaks and valleys. The highs are when everything seems to click, business is good, morale is strong, customers are happy. The lows are when nothing seems to work, every decision feels uphill, and even success feels hollow.
According to Lewis, these cycles aren’t just inevitable, they’re essential. The troughs, he said, are where character is forged. It’s where real growth happens. But only if we understand what’s happening and don’t let the trough define us.
In shop terms, that means accepting that there will be seasons of plenty and seasons of pain. You’ll have months when the bays are full and morale is high, and others when you wonder if the phone still works.
The danger is when you mistake the low point for a permanent condition, forgetting that the stress of the trough is part of a larger rhythm, teaching you, stretching you, preparing you for the next rise.
When leaders lose sight of that, they make desperate decisions. They cut corners, compromise values, taking shortcuts that hurt the business long-term. That’s when stress turns ugly and starts to corrode your integrity.
Riding the Waves
If you accept Lewis’ Law of Undulation, you recognize that stress isn’t an enemy to be defeated; it’s a wave to be ridden. The trick is learning to surf the ups and downs without losing your balance.
Here are five practical ways to do that:
1. Normalize the cycle.
Remind your team that highs and lows are part of the process. When business slows down, don’t panic – prepare. Use the downtime to train, reorganize, or improve processes, building systems that will carry you through the next high. When you’re in a high period, don’t coast – deploy your new skillsets.
2. Build resilience into your culture.
People handle stress better when they feel supported. Encourage open communication. Reward teamwork. Model calm under pressure. When your staff sees you respond to stress with focus instead of fear, they’ll follow your lead.
3. Manage the controllables.
A lot of stress comes from trying to control what we can’t. You can’t control the economy, parts shortages, or a customer’s attitude. But you can control your response. You can tighten your systems, improve communication, and maintain professionalism even when things get messy.
4. Take care of your people and yourself.
Stress doesn’t just hit the bottom line – it hits the bloodstream. Encourage breaks, boundaries, and balance. And don’t exempt yourself from that rule. The shop doesn’t need a superhero; it needs a healthy leader.
5. Remember the rhythm.
The Law of Undulation reminds us that no season lasts forever. If you’re in a low, it’s not the end; it’s a transition. If you’re in a high; it’s not permanent either. The goal isn’t to freeze the wave; it’s to keep riding it with grace, gratitude, and grit.
The Stress Dividend
The most successful shop owners I know aren’t the ones who avoid stress. They’re the ones who use it. They learned to turn stress into strategy.
They let the pressure of competition sharpen their customer service. They turned the anxiety of slow seasons into motivation to market smarter. They used the discomfort of employee turnover to build stronger hiring systems.
They didn’t pray for less stress. They prayed for stronger shoulders. And maybe that’s the real difference between those who thrive and those who just survive.
When you look back at the growth of your business (the real growth, not just revenue), you’ll notice that most of it didn’t happen during the easy times. It happened when you were stretched, tested, and forced to adapt. That’s the hidden dividend of stress; it teaches you to be better in a way that comfort never could.
When Stress Becomes Your Teacher
C.S. Lewis wrote that “the safest road to hell is the gradual one.” In business terms, that’s the road of complacency – the slow drift that happens when we avoid discomfort at all costs.
Stress, in its best form, keeps us awake. It reminds us to pay attention. It pushes us to improve.
It also reminds us that we’re human, and that we can only push so hard for so long before something, or someone, breaks.
The key is to recognize stress for what it really is. It’s information and feedback from your business, telling you where the pressure points are. Listen to it, learn from it, and adjust.
Ignore it, and it will find a way to teach you anyway = usually the hard way.
Your 2026 Launch
The next time you walk through your shop and feel that hum of tension in the air, don’t automatically assume it’s a bad thing. That hum is the sound of life, the sound of people who care about doing good work, meeting expectations, and solving problems.
Your job as the leader is to tune it, not mute it.
When stress is balanced and directed, it can be your best ally. When it’s unmanaged and misunderstood, it can destroy everything you’ve built.
The challenge and the opportunity are embedded in how you respond to it.
So, the next time you find yourself in a valley, take a deep breath and remember what C.S. Lewis taught us, The valleys don’t mean the end; they mean something new is being formed.
Maybe that “something” is your next breakthrough. Maybe it’s your next lesson in leadership. Maybe it’s just the reminder that stress, like life, comes in waves, and the real art of running a business is learning how to ride them without losing your joy.
In the end, the measure of success isn’t how little stress you have, but how wisely you use it.
I didn’t address the health risks associated with stress because I’ll continue with this discussion next month. I’ll discuss the practical question: How do you keep and manage the good stress – the kind that sharpens performance – without tipping over into the bad or ugly kind that bums everyone out and can even lead to physical and mental illness?
