Ep07: Just Say... THAT.

Just Say… THAT

What could parenting anger possibly have to do with business? This week on So Here’s My Story, Eliot and Jodi talk hard conversations and, somehow, Sam Shepard (except, she REALLY meant Sam Elliott!!).

Why is that important for business?

You know those moments where something happens that makes you mad, but you know there is no satisfying outcome? It can be so hard to walk away, like you are giving a victory to the other side. How do you just STOP being angry? Whether it’s about your kids or about your work, it can be hard.

But sometimes the value of these conversations isn’t a solution; sometimes it is simply about being heard, and seeking to understand. There might not be a satisfying outcome, but it may still have value.

There is a lot lost when you try to play out all the versions of a conversation, and then decide to not have the conversation for all of those imagined reasons.

The temptation is to make it a binary choice- either I swallow this, and I carry this brick, or I hurl it with lethal force at someone else. But there are other options.

We are really bad at predicting other people’s intentions. Sometimes, just being curious relieves the problem without conflict.

When your sense of value feels threatened, you have the same biological fight or flight response in your body and brain as if a tiger walked into a room. You can’t not have the response, you can only get better at dealing with it. Sometimes, it is enough simply to identify that you are triggered.

Susan Campbell in her book Saying What’s Real talks about how most of us communicate to get or avoid a certain reaction. But that’s actually controlling. An important part of being a leader is being able to look past the surface conversation and see what need is trying to be met.