Mastering Your Emotional Responses with Vicky O'Farrell

Speaker A: Welcome to the Connected Leadership Podcast, the podcast that helps you understand just how professional relationships can help you impact your career success. Today's episode is focused on how we allow other people's behavior to impact us and how our behaviour is. Can impact other people. My guest is known as the Queen of Behaviors, Vicki o'. Farrell. Now, I've known Vicky for a few years now, um, but a few months ago, we were the two speakers at an event together. And I'd never seen Vicky speak before. To be honest, I knew Vicky, but I didn't really know her content and her topic. And as I sat and listened to her, two things struck me. Number one was she was talking about me when she was talking about how someone cunning you up in traffic can set you off, even though something else might be happening for that person that you're not aware of. I'll be open and honest. That's me. I'm not always proud of myself in the way that I can be sparked by someone else's behavior when driving. And then I realized that what she talked about was just so relevant to this podcast that we are triggered by other people's behavior. And, um, just the little things that happen to us. It doesn't have to be other people's behavior. Behavior to us, it could be just missing a train, for example, but that impacts on our mood for the rest of the day. And if we let that happen, that impacts how we interact with other people. I was going to a music festival at the weekend. I'm recording this on a Monday. And I had planned out the train that I wanted to catch and the time I needed to leave to catch that train. And then I realized that I wasn't going to make it. And my default is to get angry. And I stopped myself. Cause I realized that I was going to a music festival. There was no time I needed to be there. I was meeting friends, but I'd given them a window that I might arrive. We hadn't had a set point when we would meet. And I knew that if I got there 20 minutes later, because I got a slightly later train by the time I settled down and listened to a few songs, it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference whether I'd been there 20 minutes earlier or not. So I managed to stop that response. And that's what this conversation's all about. How we stop that response and how we stop it impacting our relationships with other people. So it's an interesting conversation. Vicky shares, you know, a really interesting and insightful example from her Own experience where her mood on reaching the building site where she works once a week with her husband, it impacted the mood of the whole site. Where they went from a space where everyone was enjoying the day to where everyone. Everyone was, you know, really tentative and careful and on edge and just how unsimple response to circumstances can impact everyone around us. So important to what we talk about on the Connected Leadership podcast. So have a listen. I hope you enjoy the conversation. I do cut in a few times with my own stories. Bit more than normal, perhaps, but they just resonated. What Vicky said resonated with me, and that's what happens when something resonates. Anyway, enough of me. You're going to hear enough of me in this conversation. Anyway, here's my conversation with Vicky o' Farrell on how what happens to us impacts how we engage and interact with other people. Enjoy. Right, Vicky, let's start with the traffic jam. In your talk that I saw you deliver when we both spoke at the same event together, uh, you created a journey scenario where someone's mood just gets worse and worse. And part of that was something that I can relate to. And I'm sure so many people listening can relate to that moment. Someone cuts you up in traffic and, you know, immediately you resp. And you have your own story about who that person is and what their personality is and, um, what's going on and what it means to you. Why do those little impacts, those little moments have such a big impact on our mood and how we relate to each other?

Speaker B: Oh, that's a good question, Andy. And, uh, thank you for having me on your podcast. I guess this instant reaction, uh, and there's something to do with being in a car when you're the driver, obviously. Even I've had passengers in the car with me that react, and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm the driver. Don't worry. But it is an instant reaction because somebody's done something that you weren't expecting. That element of surprise, you know, seeing a spider in the sink in the morning, that element of surprise. And it's, uh, the typical fight, flight, or freeze reaction that we have of like, I need to react to this. And it's a tough one to manage and change. But when you do, master is so powerful and it is so helpful to you as an individual, you as the driver, to not change your mood because at the end of the day, you could react to someone else's driving. It doesn't impact them. They generally don't hear you. See, you know what's going on for you. All it's done is raise your cortisol levels to a dangerous level, which is not good for you.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. A fight or flight response. We've had, uh, Paul McGee on here in the past who wrote Sumo, Shut Up, Move on, Where he talks about the part of your brain that's your chimp, the limbic system. That's what you're talking about, isn't it? It's our chimp brain, as Steve Peters would have it, where the reflex response is much quicker than the rational part of our brain. So part of it is just letting the rest of our brain catch up, isn't it? And just rationalizing the context. And the other thing that I wanted to say, because these two things tie together, is I was on a personal development program where they taught us that nothing has any meaning other than the meaning we apply to it. And I think this qualifies for that as well. So bringing the two things together, our limbic brain, part of our brain, our limbic system, is telling us that other driver, uh, cut us up deliberately because they're an absolute idiot who doesn't care about us, and they're diminishing us in their action. And they've done it intentionally, and therefore we respond before our conscious mind catches up. That's pretty much what's going on, isn't it?

Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. And there's something about driving, because as humans, definitely a British culture, definitely of. We feel kind of like, quite empowered when we're in our car. We feel bigger than we are. We feel like we could take on the world. And so, you know, if somebody cut you up in the street, you know, just stepped in front of you, you wouldn't start swearing and shouting at them, would you? You know, you generally would apologize. Well, maybe you might, looking at the facial expressions that Andy's just made of me there. No, but, you know, if somebody's in a hurry to get past you, you know, they might jump down the curb, jump back up the curb, and carry on walking. You don't start making assumptions about them. You might in your head go, oh, someone's in a hurry. But you wouldn't start thinking that they've done that deliberately as an action against yourself, and it's changing your mindset. When we talk about driving, I use a model called pause, and the first one is P is perspective. Put yourself in their position to get their perspective. Why have they done that? And it's a really powerful thing to do. If someone ever overtakes me and is in a hurry, I'd be like, I hope you're not rushing to a hospital to say goodbye to a loved one. And if you are, I hope you make it. And that really will change. It, uh, will really, really calm me down. As opposed to most people, if someone overtakes you will say something different.

Speaker A: I think that's really powerful because that goes to the story that we tell ourselves, because all you're doing is changing the story and changing the narrative. Um, and that's very powerful thing to do. The cultural point is an interesting one as well, because, you know, I'd spent time in Vietnam working there, a lot of time recently in India working there. And if you've ever sat in traffic in Vietnam or India, everyone is on their horn the whole time. And I watched this with, uh, fascination. And I remember saying to my driver in Vietnam once, you know, in the uk, that's seen as a sign of aggression. Why does everyone toot the whole time? And he explained that, uh, the way traffic works in Vietnam, you can't look in your rearview mirror because someone can just come in front of you at any point. Therefore, you have to have your eyes in front. And so people are tooting to tell you that they're there. And then watching traffic in India, I have said to Indian colleagues, you know, I'm fascinated about all of the honking, but the lack of aggression. And they laugh at me because they say, oh, no, there is a lot of aggression there, but not in the same way it would be in the uk if people hit their horn, and if I'm running down the street and I'm in a rush and I want to get past someone, I will say, excuse me, but we can't do that in a car other than using a horn. But you can't do it in the UK because it's instantly seen as a sign of aggression. And maybe we're diving a bit too deeply into this analogy, but I think it's important because we can then extrapolate from that so many other things in the way that we communicate with our colleagues, with our teams, with our clients, with people in our life generally, in that we have so many assumptions, so many narratives running that we don't sense check with the other person. We think we know what they mean, when they might mean something different.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that comes down to life experiences, emotional intelligence. But to me, the greatest thing to do is to pause, uh, which is really hard for people to do, because I am going to put all of my assumptions on you, Andy, because that's all I can do. I am not you. I have not experienced what you've experienced in life. So I can only put my narrative on your reactions. And it's a hard thing to do. But you also find it's that fuel to a fire, isn't it? You know, when someone starts irritating, uh, you might say the wrong thing and then escalates, isn't it? And then suddenly you think, hold on a minute, we're nearly in a bit of a little. Quite a fisticuff. I'd like to not think in the office, but, you know, suddenly you've got. Or you've got into a conversation that you think, we started over here and how have we ended up over here? Because neither of us stopped and said, well, uh, actually, that's not what I meant. So I suppose the best way to make sure that you are on the same narrative as the person that's delivering maybe the instructions with you is to just reframe and rephrase. Okay, I heard what you said, Andy, Is this what you meant? Because this is what I heard, you know, and you don't want to do that through the whole conversation because that gets a bit dull. But just by saying, oh, hold on a minute. So, Andy, you just said, blah, blah, blah. I heard, blah, blah, blah. Is that what you meant? And you'd be going, absolutely, that's correct. Or you might go, oh, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Okay, do you want to just explain it to me again? You know, giving instructions to someone. I'll give instruction how I want to receive it, because I don't know how you want to receive it.

Speaker A: It's funny because we don't do that. We don't do enough. And it's such a simple tool. And if we think of social media interactions, which is where all of the negative ways we relate, uh, with each other seem to escalate, this is such a simple technique that if we took the mature adult approach, we could do so. You've just reminded me of a really simple example where early in the summer, uh, I was watching Wimbledon and I laughed to myself because the British player Katie Bolter was playing another player in an early round match. And they both were wearing the same Nike design clothing. They both equally tall, slim, with blonde hair tied in a ponytail, wearing the same Nike cap, m. You know, particularly selling it opposite ends of the tennis court. They were indistinguishable from each other. So I took a photo of the screen when they were sat In a split screen between games. And I just put a jokey post up on social media. This is why football teams wear home and away strips. And I woke up the next day. Now that had automatically posted to threads. I don't use threads that much, but it automatically posted to threads and I flicked onto threads to see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of notifications. And 75% of it, 80% was abuse. And it was abuse from people who were like, well this is football fans watching tennis. Show me you've never been to a tennis match in your life without saying it and so forth. And the irony was I went to Wimbledon twice this year. I'm a member of the LTA, it was a joke. The other 20% of responses were this was a joke. But the interesting thing based on what you said, so first of all, people have assumed where I'm coming from, people who don't know me and what was a well meaning, well intentioned light humour they took as an ignorant abuse of the rules of tennis and particularly Wimbledon where everyone wears white. None of that was mentioned or intended in the slightest. Then there were their assumptions of me never been to a tennis match in my life when I've probably been to Wimbledon. More than most of the people who commented on that. Some of them said, oh, he'd really get confused at cricket. The irony was I was going to Edgbaston for the cricket two days later and I go every, every year, several times, but to the point of that reset the communication when I replied to some of these saying it was humor rather than say ah, ah, okay, I didn't get it, they doubled down. Well, it wasn't very funny then, was it? You know, and it was that I have to be right mentality rather than ah, I got it wrong. And part of what we're talking about here is we need to have the ability and the humility to say I misunderstood and reset, uh, which goes to the type of conversation you outlined, but we're not having.

Speaker B: Yeah, but like you say when you go to say somewhere all that was humor, it's self preservation as a human of like, well, I didn't find it very funny then, you know, not, I'm sorry, it's oh well, it wasn't very funny. And we do come on the attack far more than we come on the understanding we need as humans to do that pausing and to actually be human. My opinion is that the world has become so fast, so instant reaction, so instant, uh, gratification for everything these days that we've lost that Few seconds of being able to pause, you know, like in the good old fashioned days before email, now I'm showing my age. Ah, here, Andy. And I'm sure you remember those yourself when you used to get things in the post and then you had to reply to them. So when they came in the post, you had time to read them. And you know that maybe if you were going to reply and it had to be a reply that day, you probably still had several hours before you needed to reply to it. So you could think, think about your response, you could plan your reply, you could perhaps think, oh, I wonder if they meant it like that. And you would then perhaps have a gentler response, uh, a more understanding response, a more perspective in your response. But today everything's now instant, instant, instant. You know, if you WhatsApp someone and I know you can turn it off. I don't have it turned off. You know when you can turn the double ticks that turn blue so you know someone's read it. And I've had people who've replied to me, like, straight. And I went, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Don't get upset by it. I said, um, and please don't feel that you have to reply to me instantly if I've whatsapped you. Actually, a classic one is my lovely Liz that does all my branding and stuff. And I'm sure she won't mind me using her as an example. I'd messaged her saying, oh, uh, that podcast that went out for my podcast, we didn't tag the guest on it. Now that's just a binary message. We didn't tag the guest on it. Can you just make sure it is for next time? So she replied back to me instantly. And in the end I had to do a voice note and I said, liz, honestly, it's not an issue. I just want to make sure that we do it. And we had a conversation about it and she said, she goes, I'm so sorry. She said, it's just that she's got a young child. I think Margo's about 2, and she's in terrible twos, really testy twos. And she said, oh, I was trying to feed her, she didn't want her breakfast. And Ryan was trying to get out the door. And then the dog started barking at me. And then your message came up saying that. And I went, so, Liz, if you're not in a space to receive my message, then just don't read it. I said, if I need you urgently I will phone you if I need you urgently. It's a call. If I've sent you a WhatsApp, read it in your own time, read it when you're in a good space. You said, yeah, I need to do that, I need to do that more because I get that now you've told me. I, uh, thought, right, now I know why you've taken it the way you've taken it. Hence voice notes are really good because you get to hear the dialect, you know, the tone in which it's been delivered.

Speaker A: I have a story I sometimes share, very similar. Where I used to work in the civil service, my first permanent roles outside uni, we had to reply to letters in 28 days. And that, as you said, gives you time to think about it, to reflect, to wait for the rest of the rational brain to catch up with your limbic system. Then I remember years later, I was running networking groups and our groups were all over the country every day they were running at, ah, breakfast. And so I would be in Liverpool one day, Birmingham another, Newcastle another. And I remember getting back to my desk at 11 o' clock one morning, having been at a breakfast meeting somewhere and having two emails from one of our members. One of them a complaint at 7:30 in the morning and the other a more angry complaint at 11 o' clock that I hadn't replied. And I thought, whatever happened to 28 days? And now it's not 28 minutes? And actually I do try and encourage some of my clients to use email more because WhatsApp does set that expectation, you know, of an instant reply. And then we were talking about social media that's become even more instantaneous. But I think WhatsApp has actually become quite a negative communication tool in business because it has just made everything instantaneous. And the fact that you can see when someone's read your message, you know, I got a message from a friend a couple of weekends ago asking me a question about my recent trip to India. And I felt really guilty because I was with a different friend and I was with them all day and all evening. I wasn't going to get home till 8, 9 o' clock in the evening. This was at lunchtime. And I felt really bad because my friend would have seen that I'd have read her message and I hadn't replied. So now she's going to start thinking, is he ignoring me? You know, and it's just this craziness that we're in. So that leads me on to where I want to take this conversation and that is how these instantaneous responses can impact our mood and then how that impacts other people. So we've got two things going on when the driver cuts you up. Number one is, let's say they don't cut you up. They start honking at you because you're going slower than they want you to. And, you know, I've had people where I'm driving the speed limit on a motorway in an outside lane overtaking someone level with the car on the inside lane, and they're driving up my backside because they want me to go faster, even though I'm doing absolutely nothing wrong. Now their bad mood then becomes my bad mood. So we've got two things going on. Number one, they're then infecting us with the mood they're in, and then we're going to take that forward into the rest of our day. And that story you used to kick off your talk was a chain of events that then impacted how you were when you turned up at work. So let's move from the analogy to the reality. Can you share an example of where something's triggered you and you've carried that into a work environment and how that has led to bad decisions, poor relationships, it's impacted your work relationships in a negative way?

Speaker B: Yes. I actually can use a story of when and it was to do with driving. So it was very similar to that one. I wasn't going into London to deal with one of my queen of behaviors clients. I was actually going to work for my husband, which I do on a Friday, so that's a building site construction. And I ended up being late. We were going for a site meeting, and it was a culmination of traffic, including temporary traffic lights and everything going wrong. And I hate being late. I will be everywhere early because it's just part of, uh, who I am and my values. So I turned up late, only five minutes, and I turned up in a foul mood because the traffic had just not happened to me. So I've had to walk through site to get to the site office, and I chewed everybody's head off. And I probably didn't even realize I was doing it. So my personality style is very yellow, very people, very friendly. But when I'm under pressure, I go very red and I become very demanding and very dominant. One guy didn't have his full PPE boots on, so I hollered at him and told him why was he even on site and he should be getting home. And then I'd walk through and the cups weren't all Neat and tidy, who's left the kitchen in a mess, blah, blah. So by the time I got to the actual site office and sat down without realizing it, there is a chain of destruction from everybody because it's a Friday. Everybody's always in a great mood on a Friday. Music's playing, everyone's happy. My husband came into the site office because the clients weren't there at the time. And he just said to me, said, I'm m not quite sure what's happened to you on the journey here, but you have just ruined sight. We've been having a wonderful morning and you've now come and sucked the life out of it. I went, oh, um, traffic, blah blah. He went, that's not our fault. Next time you do that, please will you just take a deep breath or turn around and go home and don't come in. So I had the site meeting and then when we left, you could see everybody avoiding me. That was the thing. It was like, oh, here she comes. And I was just, uh, and I had to come out and I just went, guys, guys, I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry that I snapped at you all. I'm so sorry about this and I'm really sorry, but I didn't mean it. It just, I did a really bad journey in and I just took it out on all of you. And that's really not fair. Can I just really apologize and can I make you all a cup of tea or get you a beer or do something and actually m recognizing it myself and then apologizing that my mood had impacted all them, it just cheered everything up. It really did. But I didn't realize actually my own impacts and how that could be. So I'm very mindful now. If I'm not happy, yellow go lucky. Vicky, not everyone needs to see that and I need to mask it. Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's not only is it, uh, impacting everyone on the site in that moment and the mood for the rest of their working day, probably. But it also impacts how they see you and your future relationships with them, doesn't it? Because, you know, you might do that once, but then that can have an impact, you know, even two years down the line and new people who weren't even there that day will then know, uh, okay, I've been told I gotta tread carefully around Vicky. So we've gotta think, don't we, about, uh, how that one bad interaction can lead to so many others and not get us the influence and the support that we need in times when it's key.

Speaker B: Oh, and they do. I mean we do laugh about it now, but we always say that, you know, if something happened to my husband, we just have to finish the job we were on and close the business. Because they all say, yeah, you'd just fire us because you'll get so angry with stuff. And I went, the problem is, I know that is me. And whilst we might joke about it, that's actually probably quite a serious thing that me and my husband have talked about. Like what happens if something happened to you and you could no longer run, um, that business? We would have to seriously think about it because I know I wouldn't run the business like he would. I'm a very different person when it comes to running a business. And running a construction site is very different to running a workshop in London for a corporate client. And I probably have that head on because I do this four days a week and I only work for my husband one day a week. I go in that mood and you can't take a London workshop serious. You know, I am serious, obviously when I do my workshop opera keynote, you know what mood you're in, you know what frame of mind you're in. That is not the person I have to take to site. I need to be two very, very different people, very different. And I have to remember that.

Speaker A: How do you manage that? I mean that's a particular challenge and I'll tell you why. I mean I think it's a pretty obvious question to ask, but I want to add a layer to it. There is, how do you manage being different people in different environments and contexts? But the layer is. And be true to yourself and be authentically you. And actually the scenario you've painted is a really interesting one because I remember my dad pulling me up years and years ago, start on my work in networking when I was working with him and we wrote a networking group and I naturally mimic without realizing it. And bear in mind I was brought up in South London where I went to public school and for those of friends who are listening outside the uk, public school in the UK is posh school rather than in the us. It's like the very state system public school is the Etons, the Harrows. I didn't go to Eton or Harrow or similar, I promise you that. But I went to public school where I was taught elocution and I went to drama at school and so forth. But I also spent a lot of time at football and at, ah, football. You don't pronounce your T's. I Remember, the, um, team I support is Charlton with a T. And I was at a game in London many years ago in the 80s. And bear in mind, Charlton is on the border of southeast London and Kent. And southeast London is southeast London, isn't it? Only Fools and Horses if you don't believe that. Yeah. And Landon with a U. And Kent is. I, uh, come from Kent, or parts of Kent are. And, uh, someone shouted out, come on, Charlton. To which someone else shouted out, I bet he comes from Kent. That's the background. So I had the public school and drama elocution lessons and I had Charlton. And I was at this networking event and, um, my dad pulled me aside afterwards and he said, do you realize you were speaking to Andrew, who was the public school educated lawyer? And I was saying, oh, yeah, yes, Andrew, absolutely. And I was speaking very properly to him. And then I was talking to Chris, the car dealer. I go, right, Chris, how you doing? And I didn't know I was doing it. And my dad said to me, if either of them had heard you in conversation with the other, they would have thought that you were taking the mickey out of them because you were mimicking them. The reason I share that story is you've just reminded me of it. If you're working in a corporate environment where people have potentially been to public school and university and speak very nicely and are very, very conscious of how they present themselves, and then you go onto a construction site where it's likely to be a very different culture, a very different way of engaging. How do you straddle those two worlds and adapt between them while remaining authentically you.

Speaker B: So, uh, in terms of how I speak, this is how I speak. I don't change my voice, if you like, but when I'm doing a workshop or delivering a keynote or something like that, I'm very structured. I'm, um, very like, this is how we do. You know what it's like. You go and deliver a workshop for a client. You're like, this is the start, that's the end. This is when we're going to break. This is the session in the morning. I have to do the morning bit to make the message land. And then I have to do that bit in the afternoon. So it's a very structured day. When you go on site. Yes. When you build a house, you have to do the foundations and the groundwork before you can build the walls and do all of that. Absolutely, I get that. But it's also very fluid, so I can't be that structured person. And you Know, I have to say my husband runs immaculate sites. Uh, our clients actually turn around and say they've had other builders in before. I have to say your guys are really, really well respected. But it's about so knowing the kind of, the boundaries, you know, where it's a very much a me a client relationship when I'm in London and I'm delivering a workshop when it. When I'm on site. Whilst I am technically the boss, because I do the wages, there's no hierarchy on site. I would not expect anyone else to do something that I wouldn't do, which is, I suppose I get annoyed when the cups aren't clean because I'm like, I pay for the cups and I will clean them, I will clean the toilet. Well, actually, no, we normally we have sight lose now, but, you know, it's those little things of like, I would do it, so I would expect you to do it. I'm not going to ask you to do something I'm not going to do myself. I will get the brush and I will sweep site. I have no issue with that. So I would expect when I come on site that it's to clean and tidy. So if things aren't how I would expect them, so it's. But I just have to know there's different ways to talk to people as well. I talk to the lads on site very differently. I do talk to them like one of them, you know, I don't go in gallbladder geezer and swearing and all that kind of stuff because to be fair, we don't employ people like that themselves. We're not a posh site. My husband's been running the business for nearly 30 years now and we just don't attract that type of labor, I guess. Also, I'm there on a Friday, so I know Fridays is a heath construction day for me that it's always has been. However, this week I've actually got to go to site tomorrow. So as we're recording this is. I'm actually going to start on a Tuesday. And that normally would start getting my heckles up, thinking, oh, you're putting me out of my routine, of my work. And in all fairness, I probably would have a workshop booked in, but we're recording this in the month of August, which is a kind of a down month for me. So I've already got my head because I know I've got to go to site tomorrow. I'm already putting myself in that frame of mind for tomorrow and I'll be like, that's Fine, it's not a problem. I can do tomorrow, I can do a Tuesday. So it's just working on myself because you know, I, I do ask a lot of people, in fact, I open my TEDx with it of what's it like to be on the receiving end of you. And I know full well if I don't put myself in heath construction mode tomorrow when I go on site, just don't go. It's like Mark said to me that first, just don't go, stay at home.

Speaker A: So we've talked about understanding how the way other people behave towards us, it can impact our mood and then how that mood can become infectious and can impact the way that we interact and engage with other people. What you've just talked about there, and it's not the first time in our conversation that you've referenced this is about then our own self consciousness and self awareness of, of where we're at and any adjustments we need to make. You've talked about taking a deep breath. For example, your husband's advice to you after, uh, you got stuck in traffic going to the site. So how can we raise that self consciousness? Be aware of our emotional temperature before it leaks out in unhelpful ways. First of all, before we talk about the tools and techniques we can use to temper it, what are we looking for? How do we create that self awareness and say this is where I'm at, particularly when we're in a highly emotional state.

Speaker B: So I start my day with gratitudes and I call myself Queen Vic because that's a business name. It's like how queen me am I feeling today? Okay. And if I'm not, uh, in a five, say it's go from a zero to a ten. If I'm not, uh, a grounded five, I would call it, I'm like, oh no, I'm feeling a bit heightened today. So which way have I gone? Have I gone heightened up to 10 or have I gone down to a zero? For me, a 10 is like over excited over everything. Like I'm just pumping with everything. I want to share with everybody how amazing it is? Or have I gone to a zero where I'm really not very good and somebody's peed me off and I'm gonna. So I have to kind of say where am I today? And then just be aware of what do I need to do to bring it down? Or depends where I'm going. If I'm just with me today, say so if I'm just at home in my office, I can just be Me, if I go too low a zero, I have to take myself out and go and have a talk myself. But if I'm over excited about stuff, I'm like, that's fine. I'm just going to leave myself being in this mood today because that mood, I can just get rid of all of that energy. Let's do all the things. What do I need to do today? You know, And I look at my wall and think, I have a list, a planner on my wall of all the things that need to be done in that month, like write a newsletter, uh, write a blog, all of that kind of stuff. But I don't put a day or a date to it. I will take my mood and go, oh my God, I'm so excited. Do you know what I'm so in the mood for? Writing a blog today. And that's when I do my stuff. I recognize my own mood. But it's asking yourself, before you go into a situation, where am I today? And I'm not saying everybody has to do a, uh, five from a zero, but what works for you? Look in the mirror. What's it like to be on the receiving end of me today? Am, um, I Vicky today? If I am great. If I'm going one way or the other, who am I with? Because that's the other thing is if I'm going to meet people who are also quite energetic and hyper like I can be, I don't have to calm that down because they won't find it off putting overbearing, they won't find that. They'll be more than happy with me bouncing around and being my jolly me. But if I'm too far the other way, then I'll be like, oh, I really need to work on myself to get what makes me happy. I have a playlist on my Spotify and it's just called Vic's Happy Songs. And you know what? Yeah, my happy songs won't make everybody else happy, but there are a few songs that I just put a smile on my face. Doesn't matter what mood I'm in, that's going to take me up a notch or two. So it's asking yourself, when you brush your teeth in the morning, most people, not everybody has a mirror above their sink as you're brushing your teeth, just look what Vicki's coming out today. And what do I need to do to change? Does that make sense?

Speaker A: It does. And there's a really important point in there that wouldn't have jumped out at me as, you know, an assumption beforehand. So when you talk about a scale of.01 to 10, most people sort of veer towards, well, 10 is really good and zero is really bad. But actually it's that equilibrium. It is that 5. And then looking at the context and I think that's such an important point to bring out. When we first got together on this call, before I hit record, you asked me, how are you doing, Andy? I said, yeah, I'm good. And you said to me, well, what would make good great now? Actually, I'm happy with good. That was a good equilibrium for me. I don't need to be great every minute. I don't have the energy to be great every minute. And I often moan about, no disrespect to my American friends, we've got a lot listening to the podcast. But we had American motivational speakers coming over to the UK or becoming popular in the UK when motivational speaking first really broke through in the 80s and 90s. And one of the common things was you Brits awful accent time, you Brits, when people ask how you are, you will say, I'm all right, I'm okay. Why aren't you brilliant? Why aren't you great? And you meet people who have been through that program, they say, how are you? And they go, I'm wonderful, I'm great. And you do not know where to go over that conversation. It's overwhelming, was the phrase I use. And it feels inauthentic, maybe to a Brit more than to an American. And actually good is a perfectly acceptable response to I am good. I'm in a good place. And I think that when you are bouncing and hyper, uh, and over energetic, that can play badly with someone who is at somewhere else on the scale. So you need to be able to mirror and match them where they are as well. So that checking in is, I think, a really, really important thing to do. And what I also loved about what you said was saying, okay, well, if that's my mood today, this is what I'll do. Hadn't thought of doing that before. But before we got on this call, I started scoping out a blog. I need to write my Psychology Today blog. And I've got the structure now. But I knew this morning I didn't feel in the right frame of mind to write a blog. And it wasn't about being down or low or low energy. It just was, my head's not in that particular place this morning, so I'll do that intuitively, but I won't do it in the conscious way that you Are. And I really like that.

Speaker B: But it's doing an activity as well that helps. So sometimes if I'm rehearsing a keynote, I might start with it in the office and I have a washing line, just a string with a load of pegs on it, and I've got it written out and I'll rehearse and I'll rehearse and hear. And then once it's sat in my head, I can do that wherever. Whether I'm driving, walking the dog, cutting the grass, I can rehearse, huh, that over in my head then. Which takes me out of being at my desk because I sometimes think we spend too much time at our desks thinking, right, I can't stare at a blank piece of paper and go, right, I need to write a blog. I need to write a blog. It's fine. Go for a walk, make a cup of tea, do the ironing, you know, do something else that changes your mood. Know what can take you up when you need to go up the scale. Know what will take you up and if you need to come down a notch, also know what you will come down a notch. Because I've got a playlist which is just piano music, just really, really lovely piano music. And if I'm too hyper and I know I've got to get on maybe a zoom call to do a pitch with a client, I think, hold on, I need to put my piano music on because otherwise I'm just going to becoming over too high. And coming back to when you said your dad pulled you aside because when you were talking to the very charming gentleman from the legal firm, um, and then you was talking to like the mimicking is an amazing way to do it, but not with voice. So mimicking body language when you talk about, you know, if I've got someone who's more reserved and they may sit back, not so much here on the podcast, but you know, in a meeting someone's going to sit back and be more reserved with their whole body language. Actually mirroring that is really powerful because if someone's sitting back and then I start sitting forward and I get all excited, all I'm doing is just alienating myself because they're going to go further and further and further back.

Speaker A: The only thing I would say so is that has to be done naturally. I had a coaching section with a. Ah, very well known NLP expert, neuro linguistic programming for those who don't know, which involves a lot of the mirroring and body language work that you're talking about. And I was at his flat, and I found his sofa, uh, uncomfortable. I have a bad back. And I said, do you mind if I sit on the floor? Cause it'd be more comfortable for me. And he wanted to be at the same level as me, so he said, oh, that's fine. Do you mind if I do as well? And to me, that was, no, no, don't do that. It was too forced, too, uh, inauthentic. That would just be my only caveat with that. So we're coming towards the end of our conversation and what I would like to do. I think you've shared some really useful ideas and tools and just general observations of where we are. I also recognize I've probably talked more on this one than on most of my podcasts because you've just brought to mind some stories that have sprung to mind. So I hope those have been useful to people and not a distraction from the great advice Vic has given us. So let's summarize it. So you're late for a meeting. You're stuck in traffic already. Your blood is boiling a little bit. Just as you see a gap in the road ahead, someone cuts you up and blocks off that route. You end up 10 minutes late for this important meeting. You can't sit in the car park and put on your piano music, uh, or your playlist. You need to get in there. You go through your office to go to that meeting. You can see straight away either their desk is a mess, or, uh, they haven't done some key work that you needed for that meeting. Your blood's boiling a little bit more. You go past the kitchen. No one's cleaned up the coffee cups. You're boiling even more. How do you reset yourself in that time? And how do you make sure that a, you're the right person in that meeting from a professional context for what you need, but also the mood you've got into does not carry into the mood of the other people you're meeting with and how that meeting goes and how they see you and view you going forward in the future.

Speaker B: So that's a lot of things to happen before you get into the meeting, but absolutely could happen. So whilst I cannot bear being late, I would. First of all, if I park the car, I would message the attendees of that meeting or somebody in that meeting just to say, I am here. I'm sorry, I am a few minutes late. Please bear with me. So I've bought myself a bit of time, and then I probably would before I'd even gone into the building. Whether it's in the lobby or somewhere like that, probably would have just stood. And even if it is just for, you know, 20 seconds and done some deep breathing, you know, some four in four, hold the out for four. We know those techniques. If you don't, people, I'm sure, um, Andy can help share those in the links, but it's about regrounding yourself and then zoning to myself. Okay. They know I'm going to be a bit late. It's fine. It's not an issue. Who do I need to be in this meeting and how can I get there? And then make sure that I just focus on the meeting. Right. Okay. If I'm walking past the kitchen, don't look at the kitchen, because I don't want that to trigger me. Don't look at that person's desk. I don't want that to trigger me. All I'm going to do and, uh, you know, if someone thinks that I'm really. If someone calls my name out, it's like I'm just focusing on getting to that meeting room in the space that I'm in now and to kind of put your blinkers on. And if you can't and you know how important this meeting is, is there someone else that you can put in there instead of you? But you probably need to be in that meeting yourself. You need to put your blinkers on, get yourself back in the space. But breathing exercises are huge, hugely beneficial just to bring your whole space down again.

Speaker A: What you're referring to is box breathing, and we can put that. A link to that in the show notes. Absolutely. So thank you for that. And, you know, you said that's a lot of things to happen on the way to a meeting. But one of the things I've taken from this conversation is that if one of them happens, the others are more likely because you're going to be more tuned into them.

Speaker B: Uh, that's the thing. Yes. If one of them happens, you become very alert and very triggered by other things very quickly.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what we want to avoid. Because if you become alert, you become triggered. It's going to impact your mood. Your mood is going to affect other people's moods. That's going to affect your relationships with them, and that's going to affect your ability to succeed through that relationship and, um, in your role. Vicky, thank you so much for joining me. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for joining us on the Connected Leadership podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Thank you so much to Vicky for those insights and for her openness throughout that conversation. This is such a common issue and it's such an important point. And you know, I talked about my experience of. Really, I was trolled in that social media example. It wasn't a pleasant experience and that impacted how I felt. But equally, as I said in the introduction, I'm probably just as bad with other people and I know I'm not alone in this. So Vicky's advice about breathing and we will put a, uh, link to box breathing or other breathing techniques in the show notes. Vika's advice about that, uh, her advice about understanding where you are at the start of the day and adapting as appropriate is so pertinent. Loved the fact that she didn't put 10 out of 10 as the optimum as the place to be. It is context dependent and it may well be that if you see yourself as a 10 out of 10 for how you feel, that isn't gonna play well with people who are feeling at 3 out of 10. This is where empathy and emotional intelligence come in. And, uh, we've got to look around us and say, where are other people? And sometimes it's our positivity that can adversely impact other people rather than our negativity, which is what we focused on in the discussion. So that was a really interesting take for me. I'd be really interested to know what you took away from this. Join the conversation on social media, what we post about this, or just drop me a Note@andyoparta, um. Ah.co.uk but whatever you do, join us again next week for a Connected Leadership bite. And next month for another new guest on the Connected Leadership podcast,

Speaker B: Sam m.