Have you ever had one of those days where everything you do, everything you hear, everything you read, and every interaction you have with others seem to point you in one direction?
I had a day like that the other day. Here is an account of what it looked like for me....
I will often start my day with a hot cup of coffee and some quiet reflection time. As a prompt for my reflection, I will often use the Bible as a meditation tool. I find a lot of wisdom and comfort in this as a start to my day. This particular day I am reading in 1 Corinthians and the 13th verse just stuck out to me: "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone." As I am reflecting on this I turn to the study book I am reading for the 3rd time...A 40 day Journey With Parker Palmer and the lesson for the day Palmer writes, "...we must learn, ...that the ultimate therapy is to identify our pain with the pain of others, and then band together to resist the conditions that create our common malady."
After my quiet time of reading and reflection and before my first client, I was reading a financial newsletter I subscribe to and there is this quote by Warren Buffet reflecting on a March 2009 Forbes article about the huge losses he and Bill Gates took during the bear market downturn, noting that now 11 years after that time, Gates and Buffet have never had more wealth; "The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect."
I had about an hour left before my first client so I did some prep work for a class I was leading in a couple of days. I was teaching an emotional intelligence certification course (see my website for more information if you are interested in becoming certified), and reviewing a pre-read book by Steve Stein and Howard Book called The EQ edge. I read this quote by George Vaillant "It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live."
Then I was on a video conference with a client who is working through some pretty tough organization feedback. There were some actions this guy took where his intentions were positive but the impact his actions had were perceived as negative; to the point where some had lost trust in him. We were reading an article together called The Enemies of Trust" published in Harvard Business Review. One of the main points in the article is "Don't be surprised when the things you say-including the most innocuous statements-are assigned deep, sinister meaning." The article goes on to comment that, "Under extreme stress, normally competent managers may fee! fragile, guilty, overwhelmed, and unable to cope." The authors then say sometimes, other than quit, all you can do is rebuild. All you can do is be resilient.
Then at lunch I am listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Dave Ramsey Show. It is a call in show where people tell Dave their financial problems and he gives advice on how to get out of whatever mess they are in. This lady calls in and says she and her husband have $250,000 in debt not including their mortgage; 3 cars, a boat, student loans, consumer credit cards. Dave has this amazing way of just calming people down and giving them a plan to get out of the crisis. He says to this lady, "I know it seems bad right now, honey, I have been there myself. I am going to give you a plan and if you follow it you can be out of debt in under 3 years." Then he said the thing that really caught my ear, "You are going to be OK. I want you to take a deep breath and really hear what I am saying...I know it seems terrible right now, but you are going to be OK."
After lunch I am reading in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and research an article by Robert Kaiser called Leading in an unprecedented global crisis: the heightened importance of versatility. One of the conclusions of the research is that during a crisis or disruptive change, versatility, the ability to read and respond to change with a wide repertoire of complementary perspectives and skills. The focus of versatile leadership is connecting the How one leads with What one leads ensuring there is synchronicity between them.
In the afternoon I led a group of people who have been certified in emotional intelligence as a way for them to continue their learning journey. One of the books we are reading together is Hardiness: Making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. There is a quote that just struck me as the group was talking about key learnings. A study of 186 million adults collected over a dozen years found that not all stress is necessarily bad. "Of the people who reported high stress levels, those that said the stress negatively affected their health had a 43% greater chance of premature death. In other words, people who interpret their stress as not having a negative impact on their lives have a better chance of living longer."
At the end of a long day, my wife and I will often sit on our back patio and reflect on our day together. With a glass of wine we will share what our day was like and even jot down some notes from time to time. It was during this light conversation that I noticed what I am writing about in this blog.
Let me recap:
Band together to resist the conditions that create our common malady.
The most important quality for an investor is temperament.
Effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live.
All you can do is be resilient.
I know it seems terrible right now, but you are going to be OK.
Versatility.
People who interpret their stress as not having a negative impact on their lives have a better chance of living longer.
There seems to be two common threads running through this for me and both of them have to do with emotional intelligence:
Empathy - Understanding and sharing and helping one another through tough times
Optimism - It is not if something bad will happen but when. What matters is how we respond.
Could it be that true caring for each other, and hope for the future, serve as meta competencies for leadership?