the possibilities to become

Jesus believed in his followers, not alone for what they were, but for what they had the possibilities to become. While others would have seen Peter as a fisherman, Jesus could see him as a powerful religious leader—courageous, strong—who would leave his mark upon much of mankind. In loving others, we can help them to grow by making reasonable but real demands of them. Jesus gave people truths and tasks that were matched to their capacity. He did not overwhelm them with more than they could manage, but gave them enough to stretch their souls. Jesus was concerned with basics in human nature and in bringing about lasting changes, not simply cosmetic changes.

Spencer W. Kimball

"Jesus, The Perfect Leader" January 15, 1977. From an address delivered to the Young Presidents organization, Sun Valley, Idaho. 

stop searching for certainty

When you stop searching for certainty, when you quit trying to make sense of everything, a lot of your stress will simply melt away.

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself 2023 Day-to-Day Calendar: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. August 18

name it to tame it

Name It to Tame It is a technique that involves noticing and labeling emotions as they’re happening. Identifying an intense emotion (“naming”) has the effect of reducing the stress and anxiety (“taming”) in the brain and the body that that emotion is causing.

In addition to in-the-moment relief, this practice also strengthens our capacity over time to be with big emotions when they arise, without getting swept up in them.

This technique was first identified by Dr. Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist, writer, and professor who is also the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA...

Practicing this technique effectively involves being aware of your body, speaking compassionately to yourself, and using deep, slow breathing.

When you think of a typical cycle of reactive thoughts, it might go like this:

1. Something happens
2. Your body responds: tension, rapid heart rate, faster breathing
3. You might have thoughts like, “This is unbelievable!” / “How could they do this?” / “This isn't fair!”
4. You feel angry, frustrated, rejected, humiliated, afraid, etc.
5. If you’re trying to stop or deny the emotion, you might speak to yourself in reprimanding ways: “What’s wrong with you?” / “Get ahold of yourself!”—which doesn’t work
6. Your body responds with more tension and stress hormones
7. You act out physically or have an emotional outburst

To gently interrupt this cycle, you initiate Name It to Tame It right after you notice your body’s first response. It might look like this:

1. You notice what your body is telling you: that you’re feeling angry, afraid, sad, etc.—and you take a deep, slow breath in
2. You recognize the fact that this situation is upsetting you—without reprimanding yourself—and you slowly exhale
3. You honestly name what you’re feeling: e.g., “anger, anger, anger” or “fear, fear, fear”—and you take a deep, slow breath in
4. Your notice your body slowly calming itself—and you exhale
5. You keep naming and breathing until you feel your body regulating

Naming the emotions creates a kind of healthy distance between you and the reaction. You recognize an important truth: you’re experiencing an emotion, but you aren’t caught up in or controlled by it.

"Name It to Tame It: Label Your Emotions to Overcome Negative Thoughts," by Mindfulness.com. Accessed on April 4, 2023

verbal judo

Verbal Judo is a means of using language to get someone to comply voluntarily with your original request. Unpleasant confrontations are more likely to occur if an officer talks, without conscious thought, to someone on the street. "Stop doing what you are doing!" Get over here now! Stay calm and be reasonable!" These are all natural ways to speak in a tense and difficult situation. However, by using a demanding voice or loaded words, you may only further escalate the tension, which could result in violence.

It's no wonder, then, that an individual who has been yelled at by a police officer would turn around and start cursing at the officer, even making derogatory remarks about the officer's mother. Once riled up, they may start moving around in unpredictable and threatening ways. Once someone starts acting or speaking abnormally or becomes threatening, we've been instructed on how to use an appropriate level of force when justified, even up to nonlethal weapons like pepper spray or a baton if the circumstances move to that level. I've been pepper sprayed at the police academy, and it's simply not pleasant. Anything we can do to avoid this or the use of any weapon is certainly preferable. 

So we learned how to avoid this unconscious kind of speaking by relying on Verbal Judo, which seeks voluntary compliance through a deliberate way of speaking that's actually quite unnatural to most of us. For example, we were instructed to say, "For your safety and mine, you need to stop doing what you are doing." Depending on the situation, we may say, "Is there anything else I can say or do to get you to do A, B, or C?" or, "I would like to help you here, so let's talk through what just happened." We were also taught to give people options. "You can stop doing what you're doing, or here is another option: I will put you in this police car, take you to the station, and book you. You will probably miss work tomorrow. Or remember the other option - you can stop doing what you are doing." These are more engaging, less threatening methods of interacting, but they definitely take practice and deliberate, conscious thought.

Laura A. Liswood

The Loudest Duck: Moving Beyond Diversity While Embracing Differences to Achieve Success at Work by Laura A. Liswood. Wiley. 2010. p.115, 116

video fatigue

 “Video fatigue” comes from many factors, such as the difficulty of making real eye contact with meeting participants (known as “gaze awareness”). Research by Microsoft shows that concentration begins to fray about 30-40 minutes into a meeting, and that stress begins to increase after about two hours of videoconferencing. 

Scott D. Anthony, Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker

“3 Steps to Better Virtual Meetings,” Harvard Business Review. February 19, 2021

our collective addiction to meetings

Attending too many [meetings] can be  highly stressful and tiring, and both productivity and quality take a hit when employees tune out, become demotivated, and lose valuable heads-down work time. As such, it’s hardly a surprise that managers in one survey reported 83% of the meetings on their calendars were unproductive, or that US-based professionals rated meetings as the “number one office productivity killer.”

But despite what seems to be an overwhelming consensus, endless check-ins, debriefs, all-staffs, and Zoom calls continue to plague the corporate world. What will it take for us to break free from our collective addiction to meetings?

Ashley Whillans, Dave Feldman, and Damian Wisniewski

“The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload,” Harvard Business Review. November 12, 2021

an absence of stress

The worst form of stress is an absence of stress, because the feeling that there is no life before death gives rise to a despairing feeling of emptiness in the face of the void.

Boris Cyrulnik

There are a few things that human beings must do to live well: breathe, sleep, drink, eat, and love. To this list I’d add: struggle. We need challenges to master and problems to solve.

If we are trapped in a life where everything is provided for us, our minds fail to grow, our relationships atrophy, and our spirits deteriorate.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.16

great necessities call out great virtues

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed... The Habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties... Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the Heart, then those qualities which would otherways lay dormant, wake into Life, and form the Character of the Hero and the Statesman.

Abigail Adams

John Adams by David McCullough. 2001. Simon & Schuster. p.226

resilience like a muscle

There is an inherent fallacy in the way people view resilience, believing it to be a trait rather than a skill. Thus, people operate under the false mantra that “you either have it or you don’t.”

The truth is that resiliency is much like a muscle — over time it grows stronger through effective leadership. That’s not to say a workforce constantly exposed to adversity will eventually become more resilient. Rather, leadership needs to create a culture where hardships can also be seen as an opportunity to evolve both the individual and the organization.

Resilience can also be misinterpreted as overconfidence. People who are resilient are often seen as tough, self-reliant, and unaffected by the same stresses and negative emotions others might face. This can lead others to believe that resilient individuals don’t need any help. Not only does this stifle collaboration, but it can have a negative effect on the mental wellbeing of resilient individuals.

It’s important that leadership understands how these misconceptions can be detrimental to their organization. Furthermore, leadership has to realize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to building resilience in the workplace. Rather, it requires a robust strategy.

"5 Ways to Build Resilience in the Workplace" FTI Journal. October 2020

the difference between emotion and passion

Team members need a keen awareness of the difference between emotion and passion. 

“You don’t want an emotional team; you want a passionate team,” [Coach Herm Edwards] said. “When the pressure mounts the most, you want poise and this sense of, ‘We’ve been here before. We know how to handle this.’ There’s this calmness of when things go crazy … what makes a winning team is to get players that hate to lose more than they win. Teams that have discipline, that are tough — those are the teams that win.”

Anna Katherine Clemmons

"ASU Coach Herm Edwards is Preparing Athletes for Football Season - and Life." USA Today.  November 2019

a call to solitude

Jesus modeled for us the spiritual discipline of solitude as an essential habit for spiritual renewal...

Here are some examples when Jesus engaged in external solitude as a means of fortifying His inner solitude of peace and purpose:

• When preparing for the tests of leadership and public ministry, He spent forty days alone in the desert. (Matthew 4:1-11)
• Before He chose the Twelve, He spent the entire night alone in the desert hills. (Luke 6:12) 
• When He had to choose between continuing to heal the sick or move to another place to teach the Good News. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed (Mark 1:35).
• When He received the news of John the Baptist’s death, He withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. (Matthew 14:13)
• After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, Jesus “went up on a mountainside by himself...” (Matthew 14:23)

By “solitude” we mean being out of human contact, being alone, and being so for lengthy periods of time. To get out of human contact is not something that can be done for a short while, for the contact lingers long after it is, in one sense, over.

Silence is a natural part of solitude and is its essential complement. Most noise is human contact. Silence means to escape from sounds and noises, other than the gentle ones of nature. But it also means not talking, and the effects of not talking on our soul are different from those of simple quietness...

Solitude and silence give us some space to reform our innermost attitudes toward people and events. They take the world off our shoulders for a time and interrupt our habit of constantly managing things, of being in control or thinking we are.

One of the greatest of spiritual attainments is the capacity to do nothing. Thus, the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal insightfully remarks, “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they are unable to stay quietly in their room.”

“The cure for too much to do is solitude and silence, for there you find that you are safely more than what you do. And a cure of loneliness is solitude and silence, for there you discover in how many ways you are never alone.”

Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges

The Servant Leader: Transforming You Heart, Head, Hands & Habits. 2003. J.Countryman.

the healing potency of emotional ties

Perhaps the most telling testimony to the healing potency of emotional ties is a Swedish study published in 1993. All the men living in the Swedish city of Göteborg who were born in 1933 were offered a free medical exam; seven years later the 752 men who had come for the exam were contacted again. Of these, 41 had died in the intervening years.

Men who had originally reported being under intense emotional stress had a death rate three times greater than those who said their lives were calm and placid. The emotional distress was due to events such as serious financial trouble, feeling insecure at work or being forced out of a job, being the object of a legal action, or going through a divorce. Having had three or more of these troubles within the year before the exam was a stronger predictor of dying within the ensuing seven years than were medical indicators such as high blood pressure, high concentrations of blood triglycerides, or high serum cholesterol levels.

Yet among men who said they had a dependable web of intimacy--a wife, close friends, and the like--there was no relationship whatever between high stress levels and death rate. Having people to turn to and talk with, people who could offer solace, help and suggestions, protected them from the deadly impact of life's rigors and trauma.

Daniel Goleman

Emotional Intelligence. Random House LLC, 2006. 358 pages, p.179

calm is contagious

[Commander Rorke T.] Denver told the story of his final training exercise as a Navy SEAL, where students in training have to plan, organize and execute a mission all "under the watchful eye of the lunatic Navy SEAL instructor." His team was behind the clock, and they were in trouble.

He recounts how his ranking officer (also a student in training) was "screaming his head off like the Tasmanian devil," and added, "The fevered pitch level of everyone's behavior was just unsustainable."

Amidst the chaos, the master chief petty officer, the senior ranking enlisted man in the United States Navy — who Denver said is a basic training "god" — came over and told all the officers to gather.

He told them:

"As officers, at a minimum, the boys are going to mimic your behavior. In our line of work, based on our personalities, they're probably going to amplify your behavior, and athletes are the exact same way. As leaders, as captains, as officers, if you keep your head, they'll keep their head. If you keep it together, they'll keep it together. And if you lose it, they'll lose it. 

So I'm going to share with you the best thing I learned as a master chief when I was a new guy from a master chief in Vietnam: Calm is contagious."

And as he walked away, Commander Denver heard him say, "Because if you keep your head in our line of work, you keep your head!"

Catherine Rice

"A former Navy SEAL shares the No. 1 leadership lesson he learned in military training" Business Insider. Feb. 19, 2017

be energizing, not energetic

Here is the paradox: You can actually speed things up by slowing down. There is no doubt that being energetic is contagious and therefore a short-term source of momentum. But if you lead by example all the time, your batteries will eventually run dry. You risk being drained at the vey point when your leadership is needed the most. Conveying a sense of urgency is useful, but an excess of urgency suffocates team development and reflection at the very point it is needed. “Code red” should be left for real emergencies... with [a] co-drive mindset, [we need] to widen [our] sights and recognize and reward people who are good at energizing others. Energizing behavior is unselfish, generous, and praises, not just progress, but personality too.

If you lead by beating the drum, setting tight deadlines, and burning the midnight oil, your team becomes overly dependent on your presence. Sustainable speed is achievable only if the team propels itself without your presence. Jim Collins wrote that great leaders don’t waste time telling time, they build clocks.

Self-propulsion comes from letting go of control, resisting the urge to make detailed corrections and allowing for informal leadership to flourish. As Ron Heifetz advocates, true leadership is realizing that you need to “give the work back” instead of being the hero who sweeps in and solves everybody’s problems.

Resist the urge to take the driver’s seat and allow [yourself] to take the passenger seat instead. Leading from the side-line, not the front line will change [perspectives]. Instead of looking at the road and navigating traffic... monitor how the driver is actually doing and what needs to improve. In [your] mind...fire [yourself] — momentarily — and see what happens to [the] team when [they are set] free, [taking] charge instead of looking to [leaders] for answers, deadlines and decisions.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

bosses feel less stress

[R]esearchers have... found that bosses feel less stress than their employees do. Bosses’ perceptions of stress are offset by factors such as status, autonomy, and job security, which are generally higher for managers than for their employees. While I’m not about to ask everyone in my company to participate in a daily cortisol readout, I have to operate under the assumption that even if I do feel pressure, my employees may feel more. Which is even more of a reason to understand how to reduce the tension my colleagues feel.

Karen Firestone

"How Leaders Can Push Employees Without Stressing Them Out" Harvard Business Review. May 23, 2017

the ultimate measure of a man

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"50 Inspiring Quotes on Leadership for Everyone" Time. July 1, 2015

perceived control

Everyone knows it’s important to keep employees in the loop, however, few employers are very good at this.

If you’re serious about keeping employee morale high and building organizational resilience, you need to shift this idea from “know it” to “act on it.” The more employees know what’s going on, the less time and energy they spend wondering — and worrying — about what they don’t know.

Research on stress and control shows that when we know what is going to happen — even if it’s bad — we feel less stressed than when we are faced with the unknown. Psychologists call this phenomenon “Perceived Control” because even though they don’t technically have control, knowing what’s going to happen creates a sense of control.

So, find out where employees feel left in the dark and how best to keep them in the know.

David Lee

"How To Build A Resilient, Stress-Resistant Workforce" TLNT 2/24/2014

unnecessary sources of stress

Smart employers ask employees “What do we do that drives you crazy?” and “What do we do that gets in the way of you doing your job?” Employee energy squandered on overcoming bureaucratic hassles and other obstacles is not available for innovation and productivity.

It’s also energy that could make the difference between employees facing challenge with a “Bring it on!” attitude rather than an “I can’t handle another thing on my plate!” perspective.

So, to remove unnecessary sources of stress by asking employees about which rules, red tape, need to go. Ferret out and remove any and all unnecessary obstacles. Doing so will recover a massive amount of employee energy that can be channeled to productive use.

David Lee

"How To Build A Resilient, Stress-Resistant Workforce" TLNT 2/24/2014

don't throw me out of the boat!

When I think of crisis I think of the story of Louie Zamperini as told by Laura Hillenbrand in her book, Unbroken. While on a rescue mission, Louie’s B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara) end up in a life raft with minimal food, trying to make landfall. One night, in an act of panic, Mac ate all of the chocolate bars (approximately 6) as the other men slept. Mac’s actions put the other two at significant risk. Louie and Phil were discouraged by Mac’s actions, but they didn’t throw him overboard.

Later, the three men are spotted by an enemy fighter pilot, who strafes the small raft – puncturing the boat. Hillenbrand writes:

Phil’s raft had been slashed in two…. [T]he ruined raft… didn’t sink, but it was obviously far beyond repair…. Each time one of the men moved, air sighed out of the chambers and the… raft sat lower and lower in the water. The sharks whipped around it, surely excited by the bullets, and the sight and smell of men in the water, and the sinking raft,

As the men sat together, exhausted and in shock, a shark lunged up over a wall of the raft, mouth open, trying to drag a man into the ocean. Someone grabbed an oar and hit the shark, and it slid off. Then another shark jumped on, and, after it, another…. As they turned and swung and the sharks flopped up, air was forced out of the bullet holes, and the raft sank deeper. Soon, part of the raft was completely submerged.

If the men didn’t get air into the raft immediately, the sharks would take them…. The men hooked [a pump] up to one of the two valves and took turns pumping as hard as they could. Air flowed into the chamber and seeped out through the bullet holes, but the men found that if they pumped very quickly, just enough air passed through the raft to lift it up in the water and keep it mostly inflated. The sharks kept coming, and the men kept beating them away….

Louie began patching… As Louie worked, keeping his eyes on the patches, the sharks kept snapping at him…. Hour after hour, the men worked, rotating the duties, clumsy with fatigue. The pumping was an enormous exertion for the diminished men…. All three men were indispensable. Had there been only two, they couldn’t have pumped, patched, and repelled the sharks. For the first time on the raft, Mac was truly helpful. He was barely strong enough to pull the pump handle a few times in a row, but with the oar he kept every shark away.

I think of those three men, struggling to survive in the boat. Surely, if Louie and Phil had thrown Mac overboard for eating all of their food, they wouldn’t have survived the sinking raft and attacking sharks. Mac had the opportunity to act during this crisis, and his heroic efforts saved the lives of the men. Mac was necessary to avert disaster.

While we’re in crisis situations, stress levels rise and it’s easy to find fault with one another. Encouragement is more important than criticism when the team is truly up against it. Are you inspiring the troops, or busy trying to throw them overboard when the going gets tough?

Adam Dibble

"Don't throw me out of the boat!" leadershipYES 2/24/2016

and make sure to read:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House. 2010.

crucibles of leadership

[O]ne of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to find meaning in negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances. Put another way, the skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leaders…. 

We came to call the experiences that shape leaders “crucibles,” after the vessels medieval alchemists used in their attempts to turn base metals into gold. For the leaders we interviewed, the crucible experience was a trial and a test, a point of deep self-reflection that forced them to question who they were and what mattered to them. It required them to examine their values, question their assumptions, hone their judgment. And, invariably, they emerged from the crucible stronger and more sure of themselves and their purpose—changed in some fundamental way….

So, what allow[s]… people to not only cope with these difficult situations but also learn from them? We believe that great leaders possess four essential skills, and, we were surprised to learn, these happen to be the same skills that allow a person to find meaning in what could be a debilitating experience. First is the ability to engage others in shared meaning…. Second is a distinctive and compelling voice…. Third is a sense of integrity (including a strong set of values). 

But by far the most critical skill of the four is what we call “adaptive capacity.” This is, in essence, applied creativity—an almost magical ability to transcend adversity, with all its attendant stresses, and to emerge stronger than before. It’s composed of two primary qualities: the ability to grasp context, and hardiness. The ability to grasp context implies an ability to weigh a welter of factors, ranging from how very different groups of people will interpret a gesture to being able to put a situation in perspective. Without this, leaders are utterly lost, because they cannot connect with their constituents….

It is the combination of hardiness and ability to grasp context that, above all, allows a person to not only survive an ordeal, but to learn from it, and to emerge stronger, more engaged, and more committed than ever. These attributes allow leaders to grow from their crucibles, instead of being destroyed by them—to find opportunity where others might find only despair. This is the stuff of true leadership.

Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas

"Crucibles of Leadership" Harvard Business Review. September 2002