Managing Emotions

Welcome to the look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about Managing emotions. Imran and I had been working together many years. I was honored to be his coach as he ascended into the highest ranks of Silicon Valley corporations.

In addition to experiencing him as ethical and smart, with astonishing recall, he was comfortable with being vulnerable. He came to our conversations with thoughtful questions about how he was showing up in the world. A recurring topic for the past several years had been his struggle to maintain his composure with Mitchell, another chief officer in the company whom he experienced as unreliable and unprincipled. He began our most recent conversation by saying, the last time you and I met, after I got so angry at Mitchell during that All Hands meeting, you talked about the phrase name it to tame it.

I thought I understood it, but I clearly didn't. Can you talk about that again? Sure, I said. The purpose of the phrase is to stop the emotional hijack.

You ask yourself, what feeling am I having? You ask your brain to make a rational assessment. Name this feeling. If your brain can stay rational long enough to name the emotion, it'll probably be able to tame the emotion too.

That's the idea. It's about brain function? He asked, surprised. I nodded.

Well, that's why it works. Emotions start in the brain. We feel them in our bodies, but they start in our brains. So you're trying to shut off part of your brain?

He asked. Well, not so much shut off your emotions as keep your rational brain online. Those two parts of our brain, the emotional part and the rational part, they're always in negotiation with each other. The challenge is that the part of our brains that handles emotion is so much faster than the rational part of our brains.

Really? Noticeably faster by a lot, I said. Your body reacts to an emotion before your conscious mind has any idea what's going on. The reason you need Name it to Tame it is because the feeling has already happened and you're trying to get your rational brain to catch up.

He nodded, saying, I'd like some tools to be sure my rational brain stays online. Name it to Tame it might have worked. I don't know. I was so pissed I almost started yelling.

I remember you saying he flat out lied. He did. At an all hands meeting, he announced there was an agreement with a partner when there absolutely was not one. Wendy, my chief of staff, was sitting next to me.

She said she thought I was going to jump out of my chair. But you didn't, Imran. Something stopped you. So let's be sure we know what's already working.

What do you think stopped you? Sheer force, I think. I don't know, really. Something held me back.

What do you think stopped me? I don't know. I could make a guess. What would you guess?

He asked. So the question is, what kept your rational brain online? What kept you in your seat? What kept your mouth shut?

I'm going to guess it was one of three things, or some combination of them. It was either something physical that you did with your body. It was something internal that you told yourself, or it was something external, something you had language for and could say out loud. I think one of those kept you in your seat.

Always interested to learn, he asked, can we take them in order? Sure, I said. So first was physical, right? It's funny.

I know you didn't mean this, but you know what I thought of me talking fast when I get upset. Do you remember what you told me years ago about talking fast? I have no idea, I said. You said slower is stronger.

I try to do that, but it takes so much effort to slow myself down. When I get heated, it's completely physical. But I don't think that's what kept me in my seat. Do you think any part of it was physical?

I asked. I remember trying to unclench my hands. Focusing on that helped. I nodded.

Focusing on your body is a great way to keep your rational brain online. You make yourself do a quick scan, lower your shoulders, put your feet flat on the floor, relax your jaw, unclench your hands. Or, he said, just keep breathing. Do you know what I do sometimes, I asked, when I feel myself heating up about something while I'm listening, I do a belly breath.

Slow in through the nose, slow out through the mouth. No one knows I'm doing it, but I can feel my chemistry change when I can remember to do it. It always helps. Ready to move on?

He said. Next is what I say in my head, right? Like name it to tame it. Exactly, I said.

Your internal dialogue. What are you telling yourself? Are you pouring fuel on your fire or are you keeping some distance? He looked down.

When it comes to Mitchell, there is nothing good going on in my head. It's all bad intentions and bad outcomes. So you don't challenge your stories? I asked.

How do you mean? He answered, well, just that Recognize that they are stories and ask yourself what's actually true here. What? What do I really know?

Make that your internal dialogue. It'll slow you down, he said. Oh, I'd have to be really on my game to think of those questions. But you see how they could work if you did?

I asked. Oh, yeah, yeah, they would slow me down. And then he said, my daughter came home from a workshop recently and told us a question they told everyone to ask themselves. What will I be proud of later?

Now that I think of it, I think some version of that is what kept me in my seat that day. I do not like embarrassing myself, and an outburst at an all hands meeting would have been mortifying. So I didn't. Well, I'm glad, I said.

We're talking about what we say to ourselves to slow ourselves down. Right? Something I learned from a friend was to ask myself this. What role do I want to play right now?

Who do I want to show up as? Do I want to be a limit setter? A truth teller? An empathizer?

A speaker with precision? Imagining a role for myself makes me take a step back and that slows everything down, which helps me manage my emotions again. Ready to move on, he said. So the third part was what I get to say out loud.

But how does that help me stay in my seat? I'm not going to say anything because anything I say is going to be embarrassing. I nodded. You kept your mouth shut.

You managed your impact in the room by what you didn't say. It's possible that making the effort to keep your mouth shut kept your rational brain online. And you know what else? He said.

I really don't know what to say when I'm upset like that. Anything I say just comes out angry. I apologize later, but I shouldn't do it in the first place. I nodded.

You want to be able to say something that's going to reflect what you feel and do it in a way that doesn't damage the relationship. What would that even sound like? He asked. Well, it depends on what you're feeling.

Maybe you want to ask for a timeout. You could say, give me a moment to think about that. Maybe you want people to know you're upset without acting upset. You could say, I'm having a really strong reaction and I don't want my frustration to drive the conversation, he said.

I'm not sure I want to announce that I'm upset. Then again, they probably already know it, don't they? Maybe, I agreed. So could I say something like, I really disagree with that, but I'm willing to hear more?

Would that be okay with you? I asked. I think so, he said. What do you think?

I think it's fine. I'd change the button to an and, but I like that you state your position and stay positively engaged. That's a nice needle to thread when you're managing your emotions. Imran didn't get to practice managing his emotions very often.

He was not a terribly explosive guy, but he found himself sharing ideas about it with people in his life who were more reactive than he was. Teaching others to slow themselves down physically, internally and externally moved him on his journey towards the look and sound of leadership. I wonder what tool stood out to you. If you were going to tag one tool to remember for next time, I wonder which one you would choose.

My concern is that there were a lot of tools one after the other. So I've put some bullet points in the show notes and we built a new tool and we put it up in the Tools bin. It's free. It's on the Essential Communications website.

There's a link in the show notes. The tool shows the three categories, physical, internal and external. And it has lots of the specific ideas you heard in the episode. So please help yourself in this part of the show.

I want to dig into one idea and I want to tell you a story about a client who really struggled managing his emotions. Here's the idea. Do you remember right at the start of the episode, Imran and I were talking about the fact that managing your emotions happens in your brain? I want to go back to that, because researchers are learning you actually have some control over what happens in your brain when you get flooded with emotion.

So here's what happens. So first, there's some stimulus. Someone says something to you, someone does something. You uncover something.

Some stimulus triggers a feeling. Rejection, anger, shame. Those feelings start in a system in the lower part of our brains, and it also happens to be the most ancient part of our brains. In response to the stimulus, this lower brain sends out alarm signals.

Danger. Danger. And then a split second later, we react. Whatever reaction means, that is the stimulus.

Feelings, reaction. What we now know is that there is a tiny split second window between feelings and reaction. I mean, sometimes it's less than a second, but it is there. And if we can be ready for that window when it happens, we can teach our brains to make a choice.

We have time to choose something physical or internal or external. And when we choose something, amazing changes in our brain. When we choose to stay in our rational brain, the upper part of the brain, that part of the brain sends out neurotransmitters to the lower part of the brain. And they calm it down.

It is chemistry. Every tool in this episode is aimed at taking advantage of that tiny split second window and helping to make the chemistry happen. So instead of stimulus, feelings, reaction, insert choice, stimulus, feelings, choice, reaction and your brain will help miracles happen through chemistry. That's the first idea.

Next, the story about a struggling client. But first, this month's gratitude. I want to start this month with gratitude to Tom Mason and Tom Emery, the hosts of the Beyond Potential podcast. They're coaches in the uk.

They had me back on their show this time we talked about leadership and the patterns that we all carry into our work and into our lives. It was a really great conversation. The link is in the show notes and I just want to say thank you guys. You are so much fun to talk with.

Thanks for having me back. Thanks this month to those of you who are ready to consider coaching and reach out to me. It is great to be in touch with you. Thank you for sharing your stories with me and thank you to the folks who take a moment and choose to leave a review.

This month from here in the U.S. donnie Oggins posted a review called Fantastic. Thank you Donnie Huggins.

And thank you to all of you. Every review matters. Thank you for what you write. I read every one of your reviews and I am grateful.

Okay, I am going to tell you about Luis. The first time I heard anything about Luis it was from Christine the Chro at a fashion manufacturer. She wanted me to consider coaching Luis even though she was not at all certain he was coachable. She told me he was currently the president of one of their divisions.

He was probably in his early 60s. He had been an executive a long time. He had spent decades as an executive in an entertainment corporation. Then he had done more years as an executive in a video game company and now he was president here.

He was making improvements in the business and people liked that. But in the two and a half years he had been there, he had had three outbursts that had been reported to hr. He wasn't physically dangerous, but he was caustic and mean and loud. It felt hostile and people reported it.

Luis knew it was an issue the very first time he and I talked. He told me it had always been a problem. He was given a coach probably 20 years ago because of it. And then it happened again at the video game company.

He hated when he lost control of his emotions. He wanted to stop living in fear of losing control of his emotions. He and I coached together most of last year and we talked about it all the time. By the end of our coaching together, Luis told me he felt pretty confident that he had tools to make sure that he never had an emotional outburst ever again for the rest of his life.

Some of the tools that were meaningful to him are ones that you've already heard in this episode and they are in the PDF on our website. But there was a tool that he made up for himself and I thought it was great, so I want to share it with you. This tool happened because Luis was headed to a multi day retreat and at this retreat he knew there were going to be two people who really set him off. They both set him off for their own reasons, but he saw this was going to be a real test for his ability to manage his emotions.

As the date got closer and closer, he found himself asking himself what would he simply not allow himself to do when he got upset. He called it his do not list. Do not make snide remarks. Do not roll your eyes.

Do not mutter. Do not. He made these agreements with himself about lines he would not cross no matter how upset he got, and it helped him. His do not listen was a powerful way to manage his emotions.

I really like that tool and it leads me to one last thought. Out of the three categories of tools, these agreements that Luis made with himself, they are in the internal category, right? They are something we tell ourselves. What I love about the tools that are internal tools is that so often they ask us to think about ourselves and in our essence.

What line will I not cross? What will I be proud of later? What role do I want to play? Internal tools make us think about how we want to see ourselves and how we want to be seen.

It is the muscle of self awareness which is at the very heart of the look and sound of leadership. If you want more resources, first please don't forget the infographic. The link is in the show notes if you want to explore the episode library. This episode is in three categories.

Managing Yourself, Perception, how you perceive yourself, and Self Talk. And five specific episodes you might listen to are seven steps to stop Emotional Hijacks. There are different tools in that episode and it also has an infographic. It is in the tools bin along with this one.

Building Emotional Intelligence, Negative Self Talk, Taming the Wild Child. One of my favorite episodes and the many parts of you. Okay, that's it for me. Until next time.

I'm Tom Henschel. Thanks so much for listening.