I believe we CAN control our emotions. I also believe that it’s not easy and requires understanding, learning and practice. Dr. Haidt uses a metaphor that I find appealing. He likens our will and choice to riding on the back of an elephant. We hold the reins in our hands and have a stick to nudge the huge animal. By pulling in different ways, and using the stick in certain ways, we

Riding an elephant - Controlling our emotions

can tell the elephant what we want – where do we want it to go and what do we want it to do. Works fine – as long as the elephant doesn’t have desires of its own. If the elephant really wants to do something, I’m powerless and just better hold on to the reins. This metaphor fits our mind, in constant conflict. The emotions are the elephant, the rider is our logical selves. As Haidt points out, this divided sense of self fits many situations – mind, body; left brain, right brain; controlled versus automatic actions; – and appears time and again in ancient and more recent times.

So in order to control frustration, we must maintain control of our emotional elephant.

But, you say, if the elephant really wants to do something, we can’t control it. Well, actually we can. We control the emotional elephant by recognizing when my rider self may want what the elephant doesn’t want and being prepared to handle that contingency. Let’s say the elephant wants to stop and eat and I’m anxious to get to where we’re going. I know elephants have to eat. What’s wrong with me changing a bit and delaying my own gratification to meet the elephant’s needs. I see this in coaching when someone cannot delay any gratification to get what they want, regardless of how it impacts others and, more problematic, how getting what they want right now impacts themselves. We can also take time understanding and working with the elephant so we recognize its signs and build a bond of trust that makes the elephant more receptive to our guidance. We are taming the elephant – but more important, we’re also taming ourselves. We are not “kings” that rule the elephant. Rather, we are advisors and serves to provide conscious, controlled thought. The elephant is everything else: emotions, intuitions, gut feelings, visceral reactions. All the automatic responses. We ride and guide and benefit from the cooperation and understanding of the elephant to accomplish more than either could by themselves.

Elephants just don’t stop and eat. They stop and eat because they’re hungry and that’s what elephants do. So much of what we encounter in our lives we encounter “automatically”. By automatically, I mean on a less than conscious level.

Let’s look at one example that Dr. Haidt gives on what happens when we, the rider, helps control the elephant. He cites a study done by Walter Mischel at Stanford University. Mischel asked individual preschoolers whether they liked marshmallows (they did). He then stated that the preschooler could either have a plate with one marshmallow or a plate with two marshmallows. He told the child that he was leaving the room for a short while and if the child could wait and not take any marshmallows while he was away, when he came back the child could have the two marshmallows. If you can’t wait, you can ring a bell and he’ll come back and give you the one marshmallow but not the two marshmallows. He then left. As you might expect, after varying wait times, the child rang the bell.

Now here’s the interesting part. Mischel tracked his preschoolers and when they were just about to enter college, he mailed the parents a short questionnaire that, among other aspects, asked about their performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and their choice and acceptance for those continuing on to college. He found that those that waited a few minutes longer to ring the bell performed better on the SAT’s and admission to top universities. Mischel hypothesized that the ability to delay gratification (control the elephant) when these children were four gave them the ability to resist teenage temptations, focus more on their studies and control themselves when things didn’t go as they wanted. They were more “emotionally intelligent”. They developed, even at the age of four, strategies for to shift attention. They were better at understanding and regulating their own feelings and desires. They were skilled riders, able to direct and guide the elephant without engaging in a direct conflict of wills.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare wrote that many hundreds of years ago. Stop thinking of frustration as bad. It’s what you make of it and how you ride with it. So yes, you can control the elephant. And you can control your emotions, including this almost daily visitor we call frustration.

Ron

P.S. For more on Dr. Joh Haidt and his writings on “The Happiness Hypothesis”, click here.

I recently connected electronically with a fellow blogger, David Zinger. David is the driving force behind Employee Engagements and the Employee Engagement Network. He shared, in a recent post, a presentation by Ms. Joyce Hostyn. It is one of, if not the best, expressions of story and the importance of story that I’ve seen or read. Through Ms. Hostyn’s wonderful graciousness, I’m sharing with you here. It’s over 200 slides, although the beauty and value is well worth the short investment of your time and focus. I hope you are moved by it as much as I am. Enjoy!

Ron

I wanted to spend a little time though, on this concept of knowing. Remember our diagram on getting results? I’ll repeat it below:

A diagram showing the relationship and flow of how we achieve results.

So knowing/stories drive our emotions, then the emotions drive our willingness and behaviors. If we’re telling ourselves stories that are producing the feeling of frustration – in all its intensities and descriptions – our behaviors are likely going to be ones that protect against change and risk rather than create change and new opportunities.

So what do we really know?

Let me give you this situation: Two cars collide head on. No one is killed, but both drivers are stunned and confused by the impact. A passer-by, late on the scene, recognizes the driver of one of the cars as his brother. Although he has not witnessed the accident, he invents an account which he tells to the police officer who arrives soon afterwards. This account blames the other driver for speeding and exonerates his brother.

How do we know what really happened? Does “what happened” only exist in the accounts of the two drivers? If the accounts differ, which one is the real territory or are they both maps? If their accounts are not what were real, are their accounts stories of what happened? How are their stories more real than the story of the brother “witness”? Is there other things that are real that aren’t in any of the three stories? Am I sharing a made up story or something that really happened? How would you be able to know?

So knowing what’s really real is very, very hard. Perhaps impossible for humans since we’re so affected in perceiving reality by our thoughts, emotions and senses. Let’s take another look at what’s really real.

The image below shows two panels of grey. Which one is really darker? Which one is really lighter? Take a look:

Which panel is darker?

Well, the fact is that the panels are really the same color. They really really are. If you have a graphics program that can give you color codes, load the image and test it. You’ll find that our view of the two panels is affected by the way our eyes sense them in the overall image and, in particular, against the backgrounds that are different in the top and bottom.

So our knowing may or may not be really real. We all have our own reality and it’s our view of what’s happening and what has happened. We shade it to fit for us. We are in touch with our reality map and not really in touch with the true territory. Have you ever followed a Mapquest direction or a GPS route finder even if you didn’t believe it was accurate or because you felt there was a “better” way? Come on, be honest. You know we all have. We follow our maps and ignore the territory. And yet, it’s the territory that’s really real, not our maps.

Our “map” of the story may be, no, most likely is, skewed by our situation and our senses. How does that affect our ability to manage our emotions and change frustration to satisfaction? Well, the more we view our situation objectively and the more our story is based on the territory and not the map, the more likely we are to judge our stories in a helping, non-biased way. So we need to know, particularly the stories that we’re not fully knowing on a conscious, level. And we need to change the stories if they’re not working for us. We can better do that from a less-biased, more territory like reality.

I had a career transition client several years ago. He was (and still is) a lawyer. He absolutely did not want to practice law any more. He wanted to transition his career to anything other than a litigator and corporate lawyer. His story was that he was frustrated that he had invested 20 years and much money to being a lawyer and he didn’t like it. We explored his “knowing” over a number of sessions. We looked at what he “knew” about practicing law and what he “knew” about other careers that may be more fulfilling. His knowing in both instances was beyond map-like, it was the stuff of very strange fiction. For example, there were many duties and competencies he used as a lawyer that he got real satisfaction from. He had a truly magical kingdom view of his other careers. What he finally decided to do what to change his story about the practice of law. The story he was telling himself was about being one of thousands of lawyers here in Washington, DC, all chasing for the next big client, huge financial score and ego recognition. He changed that story to how he was spending all of his professional time helping others get what they wanted and making a real difference in his client’s lives. He viewed his profession through their eyes and with their map. And you know, the frustrations went way down and he’s not only still practicing law, but also very happy and satisfied doing so.

So where’s the reality. Like above, what pane is shaded darker and lighter – his old story/knowing/reality or the new story/knowing/reality?

Let me challenge you to identify one or two “gremlins” that are whispering their stories in your ear. For more on understanding gremlins, you may want to review this link. Your gremlins don’t want you to change. They’re safe and satisfied when you’re frustrated. They’ll do everything to make you think your map IS the territory so you have no alternatives or no other stories. And yet you really do!

Ron

Meeting someone that’s a potential coaching or consulting client, I’ll ask them to take 5 or 10 minutes and share with me their story of their life as if it

Stories Speak Volumes

were a short documentary. I’ll listen and observe and can begin to get some insight into their personalities. I believe our personalities are great indicators of our behaviors and our behaviors can have significant impact on our emotions and our choices.

So say I’m meeting John and John is a quiet, reserved person who tells the story of his life from his heart and not from his head. He’s emotional as he speaks. His body seems small and withdrawn. He speaks about how he’s lead a hard life, where he’s frequently been a victim and yet has moved forward and persevered. That’s the story of someone who has a high dose of com pliancy in their personality.

Contrast that with Joan, a very well styled, tallish, perfectly groomed lady. She sits up straight; she’s straightforward and tells a story of her life of how she’s always succeeded, sometimes over real adversity. She doesn’t spend much time speaking about her childhood, her family, her friends. She works long hours and sees herself as her professional life. That’s a person that has a high controlling personality.

So what’s important about this and frustration? Well, I believe the stories we tell ourselves and that we tell others about ourselves are very powerful. And since our personalities can be seen in the “language” of our stories, they are great mirrors into how we handle getting what we want. John, as a compliant personality, may not feel that he is able to eliminate or minimize frustration. He’s not able to see that what’s at risk is a much more fulfilling satisfying life. If he can start to reshape his story so that he recognizes that he has a real role in his future, his story will start to be less complying and more open to new choices and new behaviors. His real power is revealed when he’s taking more risk and not when he continues to play life small. Joan may start to see that control and achievement are really two different behaviors. She’s limiting her power by not giving up control to others and allowing others to bring to her even more power than she will ever have on her own. Her story will be more about the motivation of frustration and less the controlling of situations to never have that emotion.

There’s a storytelling forum in Washington, DC that is really doing a great job of helping people with their story. And it gives the audience a wonderful opportunity to see behaviors in others as they listen to their story. One of the ways we can get a better view of our behavior is to see it in others. The forum is called SpeakeasyDC. Click on the link to go to a portfolio of videos of recent stories. I encourage you to view a number of their videos of the stories that others have courageously told about situations they’ve encountered. Similar venues exist in other cities. See if there’s one in your town. If there is, I believe you’d be less frustrated visiting it and hearing other’s stories. If there isn’t one, consider starting one! You will be less frustrated and more satisfied as you listen to other stories and get real about what your stories are telling you about your personality and your behaviors.

Ron

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about a Washington Post editorial from Michael Gerson. I noted how he crafted a much less frustrating and much more helpful, satisfying story about the current economy. I’m old enough to have lived through a couple of other recessions – although not nearly old enough to have any view of the Great Depression! In fact, I started my first company in 1981, at the height of the 81/82 recession. Unemployment rose to over 10%, Interest rates were in the high teens and yet, somehow my fledgling company survived and grew. Like today, I believe that I came through that financial tropical depression like I’m coming through this one. Remaining positive, looking for opportunities and telling myself the story that I can come through the storm much stronger and much better. Sure, my investments are way, way down, my house is sinking in value every week and getting new clients is harder every day. As the song goes, though, my story is “I will survive!”.

Recently I found a survey done by an organization called “ChangeThis”. If you’re not a subscriber, I very much encourage you to do so. They send you a regular email of “manifestos” written by various individuals. Some authors you’d know and recognize, many you wouldn’t. Here’s how they describe what they do:

“ChangeThis is a new kind of media. It’s calm and thoughtful and direct and transparent. And unlike almost every other form of media, it reaches people through community. If an idea is a good one, it’ll spread, because people like you will send it to their friends. Unlike a broadcaster, we’re not using FCC frequencies to send our ideas to people who don’t want to hear them.

Unlike a book or a newspaper, it’s free. And there are no ads.”

It’s a great site, full of wonderful, mostly optimistic views on all aspects of life, personal and professional.

Economic Survey Word Cloud

They surveyed their audience asking three questions about our economy – “In one word, sum up how you feel right now;” “How is this effecting you?” and; “What are you choosing to do about it?” In my words, what stories are you telling yourself about your situation and your emotions.

Here’s just a couple of the responses:

“When you squeeze an orange, you get the sweet juice. The changing economy is squeezing me into becoming aware of what’s most important to me. It’s helping me move from a financial-success-oriented mindset to a more balanced principles-centered, authentic and happy way of living.”

“Same as in ’87 and ’97. Trim the fat and go into hibernate mode. We will be looking for work that can sustain a smaller and harder working enterprise. No doubt we will eat into our reserves but we will control the burn rate to an acceptable level. As per ’87 and ’97, there will be lots of work available but less money to pay for them. So, downsize to the ‘core’ (with pay cuts) and outsource as much as possible. And, when we surface on the other side, we will reward the employees for their loyalty, belief and patience”.

“Gads, I can’t compete with 17 year old kids doing web design. I can’t program anything in Ajax. When I apply for a job, all goes well until the interview. No one wants an older guy anymore. It doesn’t matter that I used to be senior vice-president and director of a joint-venture company, there’s no call for that anymore. What am I going to do? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

There are many, many more. I believe it’s impossible to read these and not have them change your stories about the economy. And I believe that you’ll find that the story changes for the better – gets less frustrating, more optimistic, less depressing, more hopeful.

Here’s a link to the manifesto .pdf – The Economic Survey: ChangeThis Readers Respond. Please take a minute and download it. It’s a short 10 pages of vignettes that I believe you’ll find helpful. For getting a much wider perspective on this frustrating economic weather and for understanding how stories, even very short ones like the ones in the manifesto, have tremendous impact on our emotions and feelings.

Ron

Seems simple, doesn’t it. We always know how and what we’re feeling, don’t we? Well we don’t always know – at least not at our most conscious level. Until we know how we feel consciously, it’s difficult to explore and realize the stories we’re telling ourselves about how we’re feeling the way we are. Until we know how we feel consciously, it’s difficult to understand our behaviors and how they are working for us. So being fully and consciously in touch with our emotions is an essential aspect of the knowing, willing, able framework. And being fully conscious of our emotional state is required to change the state. So if you want to change from the emotion of frustration, you first have to know that you’re frustrated.

I volunteered for several years at a crisis/suicide hotline. We took calls from people who were experiencing a gamut of emotions. We also took a fair amount of crank calls too and who knows what their emotional state was that made them take up valuable hotline resources. One technique that we were taught to use is to help people get conscious of the emotional state that they were going through. One of the aids that they provided was a list of very high level emotions – Frustration, Depression, Satisfaction. Our challenge was to recognize the emotional state of the caller which was almost always one of frustration and/or depression and to help them to move into a state that was more aligned with satisfaction. I’ve included a copy of the aid we used – Emotional Words. (NOTE: this link will take you to a blog page where you again have to click on the hypertext link – Emotional Words).  I would highly recommend you print it out and reference it whenever you’re feeling less in touch with your emotions. You won’t believe how your subconscious mind will connect with specific words as you peruse this list and how that brings about a real consciousness of your emotional state.

Note that there’s some duplicity in the words describing frustration and depression. Remember, we said that frustration is a trigger emotion and like all emotions has different levels of intensity. Some states are more or less intense. The more intense the state is, the more likely it’s a depressive emotion and not a frustrating emotion. That’s the reason for the overlap. If you find yourself in one of these trigger states, pay particular attention to the intensity to determine where you fall.

I’ve also put this in the free stuff place. Please try it. Let me know if it’s helpful for you and what about it makes it helpful. Also, if it isn’t helpful, I’d like to know and share that as well.

Ron

Martin Seligman - Positive Psychology

the theory or practice of self-help deliver any meaningful value. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Society and a leader in the Positive Psychology movement, shared his views with Forbes. He said that Tony Robbins, certainly a hall of fame all star in the pantheon of evangelists, may be worth listening to, although his preachments remain untested, despite the unambiguously rosy claims and the somewhat scientific propositions of his material. Archie Brodsky of Harvard said it best. “How can you expect to break a lifetime of bad behavioral habits through a couple of banquet-hall seminars or by sitting down with some book”.

So what’s my rant about self-help all about?

We’re on the journey of exploring frustration. I believe investing in self-help is based on a story we’re telling ourselves. That story may be about empowerment – “I can accomplish anything”. It may be about being a victim – “I am not responsible for the bad things I do”. Or some combination of the above. Let’s face it (or “let’s get real”, as Dr. Phil McGraw would say). These are not helpful stories to be telling ourselves. You can’t accomplish anything. Try flying without a plane. You are responsible for things that you do. You take responsibilities for the good things you accomplish, yet you’re not accountable for the bad? Rather faulty logic, in my view. Change is hard and

Fast Company - Where Ideas and People Meet

takes time. Telling yourself that it’s going to be quick, easy, painless is a fool’s dream.

Here’s a telling statistic from Fast Company as mentioned in a book, “Change or Die”. “Then the knockout blow was delivered by Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University. He turned the discussion to patients whose heart disease is so severe that they undergo bypass surgery, a traumatic and expensive procedure that can cost more than $100,000 if complications arise. About 600,000 people have bypasses every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties — all at a total cost of around $30 billion. The procedures temporarily relieve chest pains but rarely prevent heart attacks or prolong lives. Around half of the time, the bypass grafts clog up in a few years; the angioplasties, in a few months. The causes of this so-called restenosis are complex. It’s sometimes a reaction to the trauma of the surgery itself. But many patients could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery — not to mention arrest the course of their disease before it kills them — by switching to healthier lifestyles. Yet very few do. “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle,” Miller said. “And that’s been studied over and over and over again. And so we’re missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can’t.”

We will continue to explore frustration. How to minimize its negative impact on achieving results, our behaviors that we can learn and live so we are less frustrated. It will not be an exploration in self-help. Rather, it’s an approach that will deliver to some, not all, to those that are really interested in change, and not just to feel good, positive permanent results.

Ron

Comedy has long used frustration as a type of comedy story. One that did it to the max was Rodney Dangerfield. His signature line, “I don’t get no respect”, conveys a frustration with a lack of appreciation for all of his good works. His one-liners frequently evidence how his good works turn frustrating for him.

Perhaps the king of the short frustration comedy story

Dangerfield is most revealing when it comes to the source of his frustration. In his self-depreciating delivery, he is letting us know that he’s the one most responsible for his frustrations. He’s reminding us that we are the ones most capable of overcoming our frustrations.  His style though is to make fun of his situation by telling things that are disrespectful.  He externalizes them. They are out of his control. He just goes on and on about his social frustrations as if they were happening to him. In fact, he’s the one sharing criticism of the good works that he wants to be respected for – a husband, a man, a human being just trying to get along. His frustration makes him feel rejected, insecure and unhappy.   And yet, we know he could be getting the respect he wants and not the disrespect he gets.

Here’s a sampling of his no respect frustrations.

One day as I came home early from work… I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy, “Hey buddy, why are you doing that?” He said, “Because you came home early.”

My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.

One year they asked me to be poster boy – for birth control.

My problem is that I appeal to everyone that can do me absolutely no good.

I’m at the age where I want two girls. In case I fall asleep they will have someone to talk to.

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.

With my wife I don’t get no respect. I made a toast on her birthday to ‘the best woman a man ever had.’ The waiter joined me.

I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender.

With my old man I got no respect. I asked him, “How can I get my kite in the air?” He told me to run off a cliff.

And there’s so many more. His typical stand up act was around 400 of these slices of life.

Here’s a classic YouTube snapshot of his standup comedy.

How often do you experience frustration because you don’t get any respect? Yet, whose respect is the most important? Yep, it’s your own self-respect that trumps all. If you tell yourself self-respecting stories about your successes, and failures, and always about your courage to show up and move towards your goals, you will be less frustrated and more satisfied. And if we don’t give ourselves respect, how can we ever expect others to give it to us. Rodney, bless his soul, vividly shows us in his humor that unless we can move the uncontrollable, external frustrations to internal, controllable stories of courage and respect, we’re not going to be very satisfied.

Give yourself respect for all that you are and all that you do and be less frustrated!

Ron

"Recession's Hidden Virtues"

Recessions, while they increase mental health problems, also improve physical health.  And even more, they may actually improve the nation’s moral health.

He quotes Chrstopher Ruhm of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro: “One reasonable hypothesis is that the Depression pulled families together, and this cohesion inhibited crime.”

I find this fascinating since much of my frustration about this crisis is external and uncontrollable.  I’ve found it difficult to change the story (see the Getting Results! tab for more on this).  I also believe strongly that so much of this recession came about because of greed and reckless excess.  Since the cause was moral, what better a story to tell myself that this grim situation may have positive moral benefits.  And if it forces us to focus on controlling the things we can control, like frugality and prudence, I know it will make me feel less frustrated and lead to stories that are more satisfying.

I can control my own physical and moral health.  I can connect with loved ones and be true to my key values of gratitude and hopefulness.  I will keep my stories focused on how I’m building bigger muscles of fiscal discipline and moving my focus from the physical things that I want and don’t have, to the internal aspects of me that I want more of.

I salute Mr. Gerson and his uplifting story on how to view our recession.  It’s shaped a new story I’m telling myself that is much less material and much more morally achievable.

Ron

Here’s what we’ll really be exploring.

Can we manage frustration and if so, does it lead to greater satisfaction and happiness in our lives? That’s the question we’re posing.  We’ll look at how our ability to manage frustration does or doesn’t produce better results.

And really, isn’t that what it’s all about?  Achieving results!  Knowing what results you want to achieve and moving through all the frustrations in achieving them.  Leading to satisfaction, perhaps even happiness.  Certainly a level of contentment and achievement that we all like to enjoy.

We will explore frustration in all it’s dimensions and in all aspects of our life.  Personal and professional.  Anger and depression.  Success and failure.

So come join as we explore this exciting new territory.  Come with me on this exploration.  It’s a big state in the country of Emotions.  And Emotions is a big country in the continent of Results.

Your fellow explorer,

Ron