“COACH ME!! :(” the text came across my phone as I was rocking out to “Dazed And Confused” by Led Zepplin while I was on the stair machine at the Gold’s Gym near my house.
It was from Karen, one of my most intelligent and uniquely dynamic coaching clients. It was not like Karen to reach out for help in between sessions, so I knew right away that something extraordinary must have been going on.
“Are you at the office?” I texted back in between intensity intervals.
“Yes, but not here!! ” she shot back instantly letting me know it must be a work issue. Karen is an upper level supervisor for a large healthcare company.
We agreed to meet at the downtown coffee shop after my workout. When I got there, she was waiting for me with an impatient, fiery look in her eyes. Her posture suggested that she was extremely frustrated and somewhat sad. Not being one for small talk, I immediately asked her what had brought us together that morning.
Karen’s manner of speaking was usually controlled and deliberate. She prided herself on her ability to choose her words extremely carefully. On this day, her emotions were on her sleeve and I got both barrels all at once!!
“We have an absolutely vital deadline on a major initiative coming up in less than 30 days, all of my managers are pointing fingers at each other for the constant delays and no one is working together. Plus, I am so angry at 3 of them in particular, that I can barely communicate with them without complete exasperation. My job could very well be on the line over this project, and I am failing miserably!! I don’t know what to do next, and I just want to scream!!” she blurted out all at once and then sort of dropped her head as if to say: “I’m completely exhausted!!”
I waited for several seconds to respond so as to give her a chance to catch her breath. When I did speak, I began by asking her a series of questions in order to gain a full understanding of the frustrations at hand.
Essentially, the problem boiled down to 3 core issues:
- Emotions were running high amongst her team members because the results of the project were going to be under intense scrutiny from the CEO of her company.
- Three specific department heads were black and white policy people who blamed the other departments for the setbacks that created the project in the first place. They were unwilling to help the other team members improve their performance because as far as they were concerned, it was not their issue.
- Karen’s emotions were a mess because although she cared deeply about those people, she was extremely angry with them for impeding her progress and indirectly threatening her job. She had become ineffective as an influencer and a motivator, she knew it, and as a result, she was scared for her future.
After I paused for reflection, I asked her what she had been doing to relax after work.
“Relax?!? Relax?!? How can I relax? I go home and think about it! My husband works out of town 5 days a week, and I am home alone just thinking about it, and I am getting nowhere. If anything, thinking about it makes me even angrier, and then I cannot sleep!!” she shot back at me.
This type of reaction was totally out of character for Karen. It was time for a pattern break!!
I reached into my notebook and pulled out a diagram I call “The Successful Thinker’s Triangle Of Influence” and calmly said with as warm and deep of a smile as I could muster: “Karen, you’ve got this!! All you need to do is to remember the 3 Vs from this triangle!”
“Is one of them Vodka?!?” she said with a frustrated nervous laugh that turned into a chuckle as she began to admire her own cleverness!
“Better than vodka!” I said with confidence. With that we talked through the three Vs one at a time:
1. Vibration:
The leader’s number one job in any organization is to manage the emotional state of her team. Obviously, that becomes extremely difficult to do when you are struggling to manage your own emotions. Everyone from Gandhi to The Dalai Lama has struggled to keep their emotions under control from time to time. What great leaders do, that average leaders do not do, is they develop systems and practices for creating inner peace in the midst of a crisis. There are three principle ways in which to do this:
- Practice Gratitude: I asked Karen to focus on all of the things in her life that she was grateful for. Her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her health, her home, etc. Then, as her spirits began to rise, I asked her to focus on all of the things she enjoyed about the three offending members of her team. I asked her to focus on the strengths they brought to the table and the qualities in them that she admired.
- Practice Forgiveness: The hardest (but also most rewarding) thing you can ever do is to forgive someone who has no intention of apologizing. I suggested that Karen visualize each of her managers standing in front of her as she actively and passionately forgave them, and as she asked for their forgiveness in return. I suggested that she imagined herself saying out loud: “I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me!” Forgiveness, I explained, has nothing to do with the other person, but it has everything to do with your own inner peace and sanctity. Studies of human brain scans have conclusively shown that actively forgiving others leads to a dramatic increase in the alpha waves of our brain. Alpha waves bring happiness and euphoria into our lives and make us feel better about everything. They have been shown to increase creativity and reduce depression.
- Practice Meditation: Controlling the human brain is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Everyone has thoughts that no one else should ever hear. Acting out irrationally in our imagination is completely normal, but not productive. Wise people cultivate the habit of clearing their destructive thoughts and impulses through active efforts to slow down their monkey brain thus creating space for smarter more productive thoughts to enter the picture.
I asked Karen to develop systems for living that included each of these techniques on a daily basis. “There are other paths to cultivating inner peace” I explained, “but let’s start with these three. As you master those, we will talk about other ways to harness your inner guru.” I said with a smile.
I gave her a printed copy of my latest Ebook “The Complete Guide To Inner Peace” which can be found on my blog “From The Mountains Of Tibet”.
You can download your own free copy here: https://www.coreyjahnke.net/p/the-complete-guide-to-inner-peace
2. Vision:
As I was discussing the situation with Karen, it became clear to me that when the emotions of her team began to escalate, the formation and articulation of a clear vision for the roles of the players and the key outcomes of the impending deadline took a back seat to her own emotional roller coaster. “Your team MUST know what your vision and expectations are for the project itself and for every member of the team. Your job is to compose yourself, generate a well thought out execution plan, and to communicate your expectations with tremendous clarity” I told her. This V, I explained, while not optional, tends to get skipped as roadblocks and distractions arise.
3. Value:
“It sounds to me,” I said with confidence, “that your three black and white managers receive value from pointing out the mistakes and shortcomings of the other members of your team. As odd as it seems, there are a significant number of people who feel smarter by pointing out PROBLEMS or the mistakes of their coworkers, family, and friends. Ironically, really smart people point out SOLUTIONS and foster win-win outcomes. Your job as the leader is to get them to see the value in helping their coworkers, and thus themselves, become more successful.”
As Karen took the last sip of her tea, she stared at me rather intensely, cracked a sly smile and said wisely: “Corey I FORGIVE you for not telling me about the three Vs sooner, but I am GRATEFUL for the time you have spent with me today. I am going to go home, draw a hot bath, light some candles, and MEDITATE on everything we talked about.”
A few weeks later, the deadline had come and gone. Karen’s team had managed to successfully meet all of their objectives, and of course, they were already working on the next corporate crisis.
“How could it have been that simple?” Karen asked when I saw her again.
“Most things usually are” I replied shaking my head. “It’s just that when emotions get involved, the human mind becomes prone to enormous distortion.”
“Amen brother! Amen!!” she replied as we clinked our coffee cups together.
Have you ever felt like Karen felt?
What do you do to express more gratitude in your life?
Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive, but pride is causing you to resist doing that?
Which systems for living have you employed for cultivating inner peace as stress builds up in your daily life?
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—Photo Credit: Flickr/Heather Kaweck
The best piece of advice I ever got was “slow down, relax!”. I also find it necessary to manage my emotions.
That is great advice!! The best leaders think carefully before they respond!!