Responding vs. Reacting: How Emotional Awareness Protects Your Leadership and Your Career

For me professionally in my clinical setting, that's probably one of the toughest things for people to do is share how they're feeling in the moments. What do you see in me? What is your awareness of me and how I'm coming off? Like I think I'm coming off one way.

Notice when I'm responding versus reacting to very different things. When I'm responding, I'm coming from that calm space. When I'm reacting, I'm coming from my emotional self. Welcome to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, where professionals learn to navigate challenges at work through the power of leadership principles.

I'm Ralph Owens, Chief Information Officer in the financial services industry alongside my cohost Terry Baylor, the CEO of a healthcare tech startup. Together we've spent decades building teams, transforming organizations and coaching individuals through the moments that define their careers. We unpack the mindset, strategies and habits that help you lead with confidence, expand your influence, get promoted and increase your income. Now let's dive into today's episode.

And for men, there may be additional things that men can do. Football, that's a big one. Sports, that's so important. It's a game, but it's part of self care, immersing yourself in that.

But while you're doing that, think about your five senses. What am I doing? Not just watching the game, but how am I enhancing my capacity through this game? I'm yelling and screaming and hollering.

That's important. But we do that at home, but how can we do that at work? What can we put into place? So those are some ideas on what you can do to enhance that area.

I love that framework. Love that framework. Love that framework. Yes.

Yeah, Nick, you got me thinking, I'm like, man, how am I gonna do this? Yeah, yeah. It takes It takes time to relearn, to think about what's needed for yourself individually. Gotcha.

So as we wrap up, let's talk about the leadership mindset for 2026. Can you walk us through the I noticed micro skill that you mentioned in the other conversation? How does that one phrase help a leader stay aware enough to catch burnout before it starts? Some of what we just talked about, it goes into the I noticed part because it's how we intentionally slow down our system.

And those five senses are key even when you're noticing, I noticed the bird out on the tree. And I always challenge people, when was the last time you stopped and washed a bird? It's been a long time. Your system is catching that data.

It's telling you you're treating yourself well. It's telling you you're taking time for it. Because if you think of the opposite, if you think negatively all day and I think one of you said perception, that perception is built upon the data that we catch every day, right? That's how people build perceptions.

So if I'm in an office with a window, I'm upstanding, looking out the window, I'm noticing if it's raining, but I'm actually sharing that with somebody. And that's where the conversation comes in. So noticing creates an intentional pause. It creates an intentional hibernation every day.

We're not bears, we don't go hibernating, but it creates the hibernation effect so that we are rejuvenated. Noticing what habits I have that are healthy, that are not healthy. Notice when I'm responding versus reacting very different things. When I'm responding, I'm coming from that calm space.

When I'm reacting, I'm coming from my emotional self. I'm coming from happy mass and glad. And that's another thing too. I always say, get an emotional wheel.

That's a good way to really understand where you have developed emotionally. Because we talk a lot about happy, mad, sad, glad, angry, those top five, right? But there are thousands of emotions that we have to tap into in the boardroom, athletes, and for me professionally in my clinical setting, that's probably one of the toughest things for people to do is share how they're feeling in the moment. So noticing is, want you to look inside and notice how you're feeling.

How are you feeling today? And that's often very difficult for a team, for a client to really voice. Again, versus what I can see, So here's a team setting, here's a team activity. You get this big wheel, emotional wheel, put it in the middle of the table or at the board in front.

I want everybody to share how you're feeling and allow them to look at this wheel or give them each one of them a wheel. I want you to share how you're feeling. You're gonna get so many different feelings coming out of people that you didn't see with them just being honest. So that's how I, I guess foster the idea of noticing by what we see in our senses and activities like that emotional wheel so that you can understand in a vulnerability way what's going on internally and with your team.

That is so powerful. You also talked about a situation where you gave the example of ask somebody who's close to you, what do you notice in me? Talk a little bit about Yeah. That Definitely with somebody that you trust.

Okay. That's definitely a team building activity as well. But that comes from just, I mean, I think that came from me personally and I'm married. So me and my spouse just making sure we do check ins.

It's not easy for men in particular to share their emotions. Again, men weren't necessarily conditioned to share their emotions. I feel happy today, that's probably not gonna happen too much. But you see it happening, right?

You see it happening. But when it comes to the idea of relationships, marriage, business, you want to hear that, right? So that feedback, that connectedness comes from both parties sharing, what do you see in me? How do you see this?

Someone said awareness today. What is your awareness of me and how I'm coming off? Like, I think I'm coming off one way. It's kind of like the Jahar's window effect, meaning there's different views.

If I have a window over here, you all can't see that window, right? Why? Because it's out of view. I have a door over here, you can't see that, it's out of view.

So I want that person to share what's out of view, out of my view. Right. Because I don't know what can come from that way and so that's really what I meant by that and how I apply that in my sessions, to apply that in my own life. Sure.

Tell me from the view that you see, how well I'm doing. You get a lot of feedback, you get some good feedback, you get some bad feedback. But you take that data and you can improve who you are. Again, character and capacity both can be improved through that information that you get from that trusted person.

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's so good. That is so good.

That is so good. Man, well, covered a lot today. It's been a great Yes, been really good. It's been really good.

It's been really good. Well, as a closing reflection, final thought or insight, do you have any final thoughts or insights that you would like to share with leaders that they can carry with them as they go about protecting their mental, emotional, and physical capacity for the year? Yeah, I would just reiterate what we've talked about today and know your capacity, understand your condition better. So if that's going to therapy, if that's getting with a trusted person, if that's you just reading a book, reading a book is still good, audio books, learning more about who you are and how you connect to this world, knowing that it's an inside job as well as an outside job when it comes to emotional intelligence and that that is reflected differently in men and women, that's reflected different in the boardroom versus an athlete versus the clinical room.

Burnout is real and it's not going anywhere. So do something about it. You know, it's predictable and it's something that we can currently do something about. So your capacity, your condition and your encourages is just so important in this season.

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. So Amethyst, if someone wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do that? First and last name, amethystroberson dot com. Yep, that will be the best way to go to the website.

I have a lot of resources and current events that I'll be doing in the near future. Awesome. Awesome. And are you taking new clients right now?

I'm taking clients. I'm actually starting a group therapy session soon. So all of that information will be on my website as well. But keep in mind also, am licensed in Florida and Missouri.

So for clinical purposes, clients are only, they have to live in Florida or Missouri, but for coaching, pretty much every state. All right, awesome, awesome. Any social media platforms you're on? You know what, if you just Google my name, you'll see all of them.

All of them popped up. Everything's under Amethyst Roberson. Okay, perfect, perfect. We'll make sure that we put that in the show notes as well so that everybody knows how to get in contact with Shinriqiu.

But fantastic, fantastic show. Great way to start off the new year, working on ourselves internally so that we can be the best for other people. So thank you so much for sharing your gift with the world and being a guest on our podcast. Yes.

Thank you all. Thank it so you. All right. Thank you.

McClure. I'm a little mad at you. Go comment. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast.

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