Ep 27 - We're All Angry

0:07 Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. I don't know. What'd you think? I don't know. It was kind of serious. Should we laugh? Chris, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. You've been really angry lately. No, I'm kidding. That was a bad setup. I'm just kidding. Oh, here and there. Here and there. Puppy life. I got a little angry last couple nights ago. Oh boy. Waking up at midnight and my wife had done the mid-eye routine the two evenings prior and I was trying to play my part but feeling pretty angry about it.

0:53 Rethinking the whole puppy thing in the moment. Oh, yeah. I'll be the first one to tell you better you than me. That's... Oh boy. I'm not willing to go there again right now. You know, it's interesting when we had two kids and I came home one day and my wife was on the back patio with her head in her hands, bawling. And I was like, Oh, what's going on? What's wrong? Ah, I'm pregnant. We had a oopsie. He's a wonderful kid now, 10 years later. But I remember the trauma, the pain of like, oh my gosh, both of our kids are out of diapers. Life is going to return to some semblance of normalcy. And then we find out, okay, we're doing another round of baby stuff. And then here we are. Oh, we'd just love to have a puppy.

1:34 And now we're doing another round of baby stuff. But luckily this one's a little shorter. I'm 41 doing it this time. And it feels a little different. So you're supposed to have more battle patience now as you get older. Well, it's supposed to be easy now. Here and there. According to the books I'm reading. Yeah. So this topic of anger... Oh, man. I mean, where do we go with this? I wanted for us to talk about it because I think it's something we don't... Our culture teaches us to bottle our anger, cover it up, minimize it, keep it in the shadows. And I think there's something harmful about that. I think we tend to put ourselves and other people in categories of that person's an angry dude.

2:17 He's a screamer yeller. He's mean to people. Like we have this category for anger and it's something that reckless people or domineering people have. And then when you get into a real conversation with somebody and you bring up the topic of anger, it's like all of us feel it. It comes out in different ways. There's a lot of different kinds of anger. And sometimes anger is we pull back from people, we disconnect from our spouse or our kids when we're angry or with our employees or colleagues or co-workers, we create distance. Something either hurt us or provoked us or disappointed us. And in our anger, we shrink back.

2:57 We close ourselves off. We limit just how much we bring to that relationship. Mm-hmm. And we all feel it. And so, I don't know. I just think you and I, with the kind of work we do, and certainly throughout our career, have seen the impact of anger, both our own anger and other people's anger. And I just thought, well, this is a good thing to talk about. And also, there's a part of me too, we're in the tail end of the year. This is probably going to come out early January, but I'm just in this mode of really processing and thinking about who I am, what kind of person I'm becoming, and what kind of person I'm becoming. And anger is still a growing edge for me. There was actually a point in my marriage. I was thinking about this last night.

3:38 Do I want to talk about this? Do I not want to talk about this? Right. I don't know if it was like maybe three or four years ago. My wife, we had this kind of so-called come to Jesus moment. My wife was like, you know, your anger is a problem. And it was difficult for me to hear in the moment because I don't think of myself as an angry person. I think a lot of people that know me wouldn't necessarily say that about me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even as a close friend, I'm a little shocked by that because that's certainly not the face value impression I get all the time. Yeah. It's not my persona and it's a part of me. Yeah. Right. And it's like, I think that's the thing that is... we don't talk enough about. I think all of us have anger inside of us.

4:19 It's just a part of us. Right. And of course, it's how we react to it, how we respond to that, how we use it. Yeah. But I was struggling. And part of it, I think, was time of life. The kids were at a certain age. There's just a lot of chaos, a lot of strife. It's three, four years ago. Gosh, I had a six, nine, and 12-year-old. I'm 15, whatever, 15, 16 years into my marriage. And... And career at that time was in a major growth mode and just stress and pressure and ambition and all that stuff. And I think too, being in a business development role and a leadership role, if you're not careful, you end up really spending the best parts of yourself during the day.

4:59 You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. Like you're exercising your restraint and self-control and you're really mindful of your interactions with your employees and colleagues. And I think we come home sometimes and we're able to just take a like exhale. Like it's we're able to. Well, let's face it. We're probably the most reckless with the people closest to us. Yeah. Well, and I think we always fall into this place to they'll understand or they'll live with it. They know me. Yeah. And I also, I think too, we make an easy time out of justifying or minimizing. Like in our own eyes, well, I don't, what, I'm not screaming. I'm not cussing out my children. I'm not, I'm certainly not hitting or striking anybody or that kind of stuff.

5:42 And so we minimize in our own minds. And anyway, when my wife brought that up to me, I... I asked her for some clarification and she gave me some examples. And a lot of it was just that angsty feeling that I'd come home at the end of the day. And I was very short. I was coming out as sarcasm in my interactions with the kids and with her. And also just a disconnectedness, just emotionally. I'm done for the day. Yeah. And so that was a valuable, I don't want to call it a turning point. It was more just kind of like a light post on the path. Where it's like, okay, this is something I need to really deal with. And so that's just been part of my journey.

6:23 I'm trying to think actually, when I first came up with this topic, there was a situation with, I don't know if it was a client or it was an observation we had of another operator or somebody in the industry and an example of how anger had sort of I don't know. So if you can help me rethink that, that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. Where you're going with this is there's multiple examples. And unfortunately, when I think about this, a lot of the examples are me. But I think that we've had lots of scenarios where we see leaders who... using this more aggressive posturing or allowing. I think it's more allowing and in most cases, probably a lack of awareness is there's this default behavior, which is mine, of it's easy to explode all over this situation, which normally is carrying weight from other things, right?

7:12 But they get channeled into this situation with a downline person, downline leader and employee. And for the individual that's kind of working through this anger piece, like they can kind of yet the damage was done. That sticky residue was already applied with robust fervor all over the situation. And now it's just kind of stuck there. And so we've seen situations where leaders, as part of probably in a lot of cases, we see scenarios where we've allowed a lack of accountability to go on too long so that we get forced in this situation or we're in this situation where when it comes out, this is like for us mentally, it's a year's worth of BS.

7:54 that we're frustrated by or allowing to control our feelings or emotions. And for the individual, they're in the moment. And they're kind of like blindsided by all this fervor and anger that's coming at them when you've been holding score for 12 months, right? So it's that. And we see this situation where an angry person or an individual that's acting out of anger just kind of lets the fire go. And it completely deteriorates the trust, the confidence, the faith that their team member has in them in that relationship. which then is going to go on to deteriorate the performance. It's going to do all these negative things. Now, we can kind of see lots of examples too of companies being led by this hard-charging, kind of angry, driven leader.

8:39 And they win. Like they're making progress. Yeah. Yeah. But you and I have made a commitment, not only professionally in what we do, what we teach, what we train on, but we'll like to show with the way that we want to carry ourselves that we're really looking much more at a legacy and a legacy centered around right relationship. And I think what you and I identify often is that this anger component It's hard to deploy that well and it not erode this legacy component. And I say that from a lot of personal experience. This is me in a lot of ways. And it's funny when you make that comment that your family, that your wife brought up to you that the anger thing is an issue.

9:23 Because I wouldn't have seen... Honestly, dude, I wouldn't have seen that in a million years. Whereas in my household, that light post has had to be turned on multiple times. Like not, it's not a once. It's a, every so many months there's a version of this that comes on. And I want to be clear that that coming on now looks more like mutually respectful accountability because there's been an open dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. You even probably witnessed me doing some versions of this with our own teams. Even some of our leadership teams saying, Hey, I don't want to lead this way. It's a detriment to our team. It's hurt me. It's hurt you. But anyways, I guess echoing what you're talking about. I recall a keyboard story at some point in the street.

10:06 Okay, so we're going to tell it. All right. So you called me out. Okay. So here's my funny anger story. There's lots of not funny anger stories, but this one's kind of humorous. So I was a GM at the time. And I think this was, it must've been fairly late in the evening. And of course, it's not that late. We're not startup late, but it's late in the evening. And I'm working on something and I'll just let the cat out of the bag here. I was most likely working on something that I felt that someone downline Yeah. And so we really are talking about... You're doing somebody else's job instead of holding them accountable to it. At minimum in my mind, that's where I was.

10:48 And you probably had the right perspective. I was just doing someone else's job for them. And so I'm in the middle of doing this. And I'm working within Xactimate. And I think any of you that have ever spent any time in Xactimate have had at least one frustrating experience. And I was on the back of, I don't know, two or three that were coming at me in a consolidated time period. And I was effing angry. Oh, boy. Yeah. Not just frustrated. Yeah. Freaking. At this point, I am freaking the fracking, all the different furs, right? Angry. And I pick up... No, mind you, the building's empty as far as I can recall. I don't believe anybody's in the building at this point. You think you're alone. Dude, I yard this freaking keyboard off the desk and I hawk it as hard as I can down a what at the time was, I don't know, it's probably a 20 plus foot hallway upstairs.

11:39 I chuck this thing, man. It hits the floor. It breaks into a ton of pieces. The buttons come off. I have come unhinged. I've completely lost all respectful control of myself. And then all of a sudden, I hear this voice at the bottom of the stairs. Is everything okay up there? And so I have to, of course, apologize for my behavior. So anyways, luckily that didn't happen a lot. But guys, it does happen. And so when I say that I can get hot, it's probably an under... But, you know, here's the reality of that is that we have these moments and the goal is to probably reduce that to zero, right?

12:24 Or as close to zero as possible. But it is going to happen. And when it does happen, just kind of letting the cat out of the bag and being like, hey, that's not me mirroring what we want to be doing as a team. It creates what... I think what you and I've learned too is... And some people bristle at some of this politically correct, softy kind of language. But I find it real and valuable. Is it anger, like, improperly deployed? I don't know if that's the best way to say it. But when we poorly manage our anger, it creates an unsafe... Like, we become unsafe. Yeah. Like... Yeah. Yeah. Whoever that person was in the hallway that was like, oh my gosh, there was a lack of safety that was created in that moment where it's like, oh my gosh, what if I had been the person that made Brandon that mad?

13:14 Yeah. Right? Right. Like what if I was in the line of fire for that anger? It creates that. And my wife has shared the same thing with me. I've never, ever been violent with our kids or really anybody. But it does, it creates this question mark of what if dad turns his anger towards me or what if I say the wrong thing? That's the space that anger creates when we don't manage it. Even if that lack of safety isn't necessarily physical harm. It's just no one, I think, likes the feeling of somebody turning their anger on them. Yeah. However that comes out. Right. And so it creates this like, I don't want that. And therefore, it forces the people around us to kind of feel us out and constantly be taking our temperature, which creates this lack of safety.

13:56 And I think all of us have worked for bosses and you've admitted at times that you've been the hothead boss and it does. It prevents a feedback rich environment we talked about because people don't feel like they're always guessing, is this an okay thing to bring to them or are they going to maybe flip out? In whatever form flip out takes for that individual. And one of the things that's been helpful for me is I've had a few of these moments over the last 10 years where I've had some insight into where my anger comes from. And of course, you get talking with a counselor type or somebody like that, and they'll tell you that nearly all anger is a product of hurt.

14:39 It's a product of some kind of wounding. And I think it's in some ways... I don't know. I certainly know people that wear their anger proudly and they rename it other things. Oh, I just run hot. I'm just really driven. Sometimes it gets a little out of control. We minimize it, right? Yeah. We see it sometimes as a strength or an attribute that contributes to our success. And so it's really hard for us to see the source of that anger. I had a really great, really helpful interaction with a counselor that my wife and I met with and really helped me get underneath it to figure out, okay, what's that source? And I think one of the things, this was back when I was a state farm agent.

15:20 See, when I was a State Farm agent, I was in my late 20s to early 30s. And that State Farm business became a huge source of affirmation for me as a professional. I had my face on billboards. I threw community events where I'd have dozens, in some cases, hundreds of people showing up to events that I put on. And they'd say, Oh, this is so great, Chris. Thanks for putting this on, man. You're just such a blah, blah, blah. It was a huge source of affirmation. I had all daily, weekly. I could create these points of affirmation based on how I was spending my money as a business, the type of marketing I was doing, the way I treated my customers. And it's not to say that all of that was sort of manipulative, but all these things that were inside me, it fed me.

16:06 Like being a small business owner, I had all these people saying things that they liked on a pretty regular basis. And the interesting thing was, is all they knew about me was what I decided to share with them. Yeah, sure. Those people didn't know me, but the affirmation still felt real. But then I would come home to my wife and my kids. reality sets in. And now, of course, this is all subconscious, right? But I'm coming home to my wife and kids. And there's a piece inside that I still want to know, am I everything that I've been cracked up to be? All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our Mitresto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software.

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19:46 And those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.getinsights.org backslash FCG. And so then I have an interaction with my wife and maybe she's not all that impressed. Yeah. You know? Yeah. She's not all that impressed with the kind of partner I am that day or the past week. She's not all that impressed with how intentional I am and how participative I am in the household and partnering with her with the children and all that kind of stuff. She's not impressed. And now all of a sudden, I'm facing this reality. The people that know me more than anybody else, they're not impressed.

20:28 Yeah. Yeah. And some combination of hurt, embarrassment, shame sets in and my reaction is some form of anger. And like I said, it wasn't always this hot, white hot anger of throwing my computer keyboard down there. we all have different forms, right? And for me, it became more of this irritation, sarcasm, just kind of getting quiet, you know? And- Yeah, withholding. Yeah, it's withholding relationship. Yeah. And it's sad. Even as I say this out loud, I'm like, you know, I can think of a lot of years in my marriage where I was withholding myself from my wife out of that anger, out of that place of just finding my affirmation outside of myself, right?

21:16 And then not getting that same affirmation all the time from my wife and kids and just that whole cycle, you know? And I think it can show up in a lot of different ways. I think our businesses, many of us who are entrepreneurs, like our businesses are a source of massive validation. And you and I've seen this in clients and colleagues and coworkers and in our own lives, right? Where we go home from our work and there are seasons of life where it's like, we'd almost rather be at work because it feeds us more. Sure, yeah. the situation we have at home. And I think what I discovered is the more I looked at it, the reason why home wasn't feeding me was because I had this unhealthy... I was seeking out affirmation in unhealthy ways.

21:57 And as I've started to move through that, and I become more aware of that, the home life, my relationship with my wife, it's changed a lot. Because I'm not as anchored in what our clients say about me and... You know what I mean? Like it shifted a lot. But that was a really transformational moment. This counselor that we were meeting with, they're like, have you ever thought about why you do that? And I really hadn't. Yeah. I really hadn't. And if I'm honest with myself, I thought it was my wife. Yeah. Yeah. I probably would have told you like a... I probably would have said if I was pressed back then that, yeah, I felt like I was probably giving more relationally and whatnot to my wife than she was giving to me. Dude, you know what?

22:37 I really appreciate that transparency because here's the reality is that the whole time that you've kind of been talking through that story or just thinking about this topic in general, the reality of it is the reason anger feels from the recipient, right? Or the audience, whatever, the non-sender, I think the reason it comes across so yuck Because really, even if you couldn't put it to words, the reality of it is everybody just in general feels shitty when those kinds of things happen. When I act that way, I don't walk away proud of the situation. The audience certainly wasn't excited about it. And it's funny because I feel like the majority of the time behind my anger... So hang with me. There's a couple thoughts I want to get out here about.

23:18 One is that the anger is a surfaced byproduct of something else that I'm actually feeling or experiencing. And the struggle comes from when I never try to take the time to identify that cause. Right? So that's one idea. And so for me, where it shows up is normally it's because my ego has been attacked. Either in the moment with that audience, I'm feeling a number of different things. I'm feeling underprepared. I'm feeling as if they don't trust or they don't value. All these different things are happening. And out of that, I'm getting angry. What it's turning itself into is this ego's default protective response where I start to minimize the value of the other person.

24:04 I begin to place blame on the other person. If they would only, if they would just listen, if they would just do, if they write all these things. So it's like, for me, it seems like my anger's cause fall in a couple different buckets. Ego protection... Yeah. Fear. Yeah. Right? Get me fearful. That whole fight or flight mechanism. Yeah. I'm a... If I get cornered, I'm going to bite your face. Yeah. Like that's default, right? Or the other thing is this lack of control. Like when I start to feel myself... not being in control. And it can show up as things like my schedule. If I feel like we take a handful of client calls, let's say back to back, and I haven't built enough time to get a grip on some of the follow-up mechanisms that I need to do, I can get angry because I'm feeling the control slipping.

24:54 Right? So you might be the fourth person to say, hey, this plate needs to be spun. Yeah. And I'm going to start losing my shit. Has nothing to do with you. Sure. Right? So again, for me, my anger tends to be fueled by these three buckets, really. Sure. And then what's interesting about that and where we see, I think, the easiest landscape for us to present this concept on is anger with our downline personnel. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So common, right? I don't think there's a single business owner, entrepreneur with employees that's never complained about their employees, right? And it's so interesting if we're, and again, this is so much easier said than done. But if we're truly honest with ourselves, when we see consistent lack of performance from our teams, it's because we're honestly not fixing the problem with a root cause solution.

25:47 So what ends up inevitably happening is that we, out of ego, fear, wanting control, we have all these surface level behaviors, the withholding, like you talked about. At one point, they were the ape star player on the bench. And now you just don't talk to them as much. You skip getting FaceTime. If you were supposed to meet up with them, it didn't work out in the schedule. You don't try that hard to fix the situation. You only share 80% of the story in your head. You share 80%, right? And then, and, or there's these explosive blowouts or they're the, right, these knee-jerk responses. And I think what we're really seeing in that is, is if we're honest, I'm the one causing that.

26:31 Yeah. Right? I'm the one that didn't put the work in, prioritize the correct way, say no to something else so that I could say yes to this thing. Yeah. So that I could do the work of creating better clarity and role and expectation, maybe going through some two-way communication to hear better what it is that my employee is experiencing. Mm-hmm. And instead, again, instead of letting ego or fear or want of control to take over in that situation, I just legitimately hear. Yeah. And I don't identify my value in the situation based on what this person's saying. Yeah. Because I don't do those hard things, I perpetuate this position where I'm disgruntled and frustrated by a lack of performance.

27:17 Yeah. Or as simple as, let's say you've checked all the boxes and you don't pull the trigger of letting someone go. You're scared to fire someone because you feel a bit of a hostage to the team. There's a lack of people to readily hire, whatever. We all have the things, current and past. So it's easier to blow up. Yeah. It's easier to talk shit. It's easier to get angry and explode on this person in front of the rest of the team. But you still haven't done anything to fix the situation, right? Yeah. And you know, for me, and I don't know if this is a universal thing or if it's just kind of the way my ego shows up.

27:57 I think when I'm feeling frustrated or angry towards an employee, nine times out of 10, it was actually self-loathing. that I am inadequate to figure out how I'm inadequate to lead them and manage them well. Hmm. Like it's my frustration with the team or an employee that's not doing what I need them to do, or they're not living up to the expectations I've set or whatever. I think underneath it all is that it's this frustration with myself. I don't have what it takes to like, I'm not a good manager. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's really a self-loathing. My irritation, my angst, with a team that's not responding the way I need them to do is like, what, I think there's this internal part that's what in the world is wrong with me that I don't like, I, I think it's a subconscious.

28:49 I don't have what it takes to lead them. Yeah. And the interesting thing about that is, is that you're not wrong. No, it's totally true. In that thought, right? It's totally true. And right now, even as we're having this conversation, I have Tim Dethmer in my ear with his just really calm, soft voice. By the way, if you're listening to this, you really need to go... The Knowledge Project, Tim Dethmer, leading above the line. Go search for it. It's such an incredible thing. And he talks about this, creating a feedback-rich environment. And I think what Tim Dethmer would say to us in this moment is, when you don't know as a leader... Like one of the most powerful things you can do is just say, hey, you know what, guys, I'm not sure how to get us where we need to go. But I think as a team. Yeah. We can figure it out. Sure.

29:29 Right. Yeah. What needs to happen for us to get to this result? What do you guys think? No, I think that's huge. And I think there's also even a counter to that, that sometimes it's even this internal accountability that you got to wrestle with. So yes, I agree with you. Sometimes it is just being honest and transparent to the team and saying, yeah, I don't know. I don't have the answers, which gosh, dude, if more leaders just openly admitted they don't have all the answers, they'd probably get more following. But I think there's also just this internal recognition of saying, recognizing what you're saying. And it not being a negative thing, which is hard. But what you're saying basically is this idea of hold boundaries for leaders, right? I've either allowed something or I've intentionally put this thing in place and it's not good.

30:13 It's not working, right? And so I am frustrated with my inability. Like I'm frustrated with myself. The most powerful thing to say in that is to do it, to recognize it. I am the root cause here. I'm the business owner. I'm the leader of this mitigation department. I'm the whatever. But can you do that in a way that it doesn't diffuse your energy? It doesn't take the drive to want to fix that situation out of you, right? The wind out of your sails, so to speak. There's got to be this place that we get where we recognize, look, who am I really angry with right now? It probably should be me. Okay, identify it.

30:54 Let's let that go. And now let's say to ourselves, let's work through a bit of an exercise to identify, okay, what are the next steps? Maybe I need to hire someone to counter this or create strengths or create skillset in this. Maybe I need to work with a mentor, a coach or whatever. Or maybe I just need to find a really close friend that has my best interest in mind outside of the walls of my company to say, I need to think through this differently. I'm growing frustrated with my inability to solve this puzzle on my own. Yeah. But the point is, instead of chucking the keyboard, recognizing who needs to do the work in order for progress to be made, and then try to identify some tools and resources that you can pull in to help you make that progress.

31:38 Yeah. Right? That in and of itself can be really, really powerful. Right? Yeah. You feel me on that? Oh, I do. I do. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, the game changer has been just developing more awareness. We talk about this with clients as well. It's the art of noticing. Yeah. I think as a leader, really developing the art of noticing. Yeah. What's going on in the room? What's going on in the relationships across our team? Yep. What's happening inside me? When I'm in this situation, we're having this kind of conversation. When I'm in this moment with a certain employee, when we encounter a certain situation, what's going on inside me?

32:19 I hired an executive coach this last year or the year before. His name was Seth. Seth, if you're listening, man, you changed my life in certain ways. It's such a huge deal. I hired him actually as a man coach. He was helping me in my marriage. This was a couple of years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just trying to level up the game a little bit. And I remember calling him. And I said, man, I'm really frustrated and angry about this thing. And he said, well, hold on a second. Let's talk about that. You are really angry about this thing. He said, why don't you try this on for size? Part of me is feeling angry right now. And my first reaction to that was, okay. Part of me is feeling really angry right now. Like it just seemed there was a Mickey Mouse-ness to it where it's like, okay.

33:02 Hair splitting. Here you're doing this little coaching thing with me. I see what you're trying to do. And you know what? It has kind of changed my life. Yeah. It really has because what he was trying to explain to me is that we all have these competing voices in our head. Yeah. We have these emotions that come just from out of the blue. Our mind fabricates these thoughts and interpretations of all the situations we encounter. it is not necessarily logical at all. It is not necessarily, the thoughts and reactions we have to things are not necessarily rooted in a fact about something that happened, a wrong that was done, a trespass that occurred, an offense that was taken.

33:45 It's a story that our brain forms. Not an identity. Not, yeah, right? And so that has been a really powerful kind of mental model for me. Yeah. And I've had many times since I worked with Seth, I've texted him, I'm like, man, I so appreciate you teaching me that. It's been so helpful in professional context and everything else. And here's a really quick example. And I just find a lot of my examples are personal around this stuff because I think, again, a lot of us exert an enormous amount of energy to sort of control how our colleagues, our partners, our clients perceive us. And so a lot of times these bad behaviors or this toxic residue ends up spilling out first on our families. Yeah. Yeah. Because we let our guard down, we take a deep breath, we decompress, and we're just raw with our family, right?

34:32 Yeah. And so I remember I came home from work one day, the kids, my mom had the kids. She'd taken them after school and taken them on some errands and whatnot. My mom drops off the boys and my son Jack is, he's walking in the door with his backpack and I could just tell he's ticked off. And I actually had to run to the grocery store. So I was going to load him back in the car. We're going to get some groceries for dinner or whatever. And when he realized that we were headed right back out, he said, oh, he got really mad. It's like, oh gosh, dad. You know, grandma's just been running us around for the last four hours. It had been like two hours, right? But this is where he was at. She took us to her hair appointment. We're just sitting doing nothing. And now you want us to get back in the car and just run around some more?

35:17 So I feel myself. This is after Seth had been training me for a little while. I started to feel myself, just my gut cinching up. I don't know if my fists were starting to ball. And I'm like, and I notice it. And I have this just momentary thought in my head while part of me is really starting to get pissed off at Jack right now. Literally, this was the inner narrative. And it was just noticing that was a powerful, powerful tool. Because then I could look at that in my mind's eye, just saying that, wow, part of me is really getting pissed off at Jack right now. What is going on? And it gave me just enough emotional margin to hit pause on that anger spooling up.

35:58 Yeah. And I was able to calm myself down in that moment and actually just bring a calm voice to Jack. Like, hey dude, listen. Okay. All right. Listen, it's going to be a quick trip. So I kind of negotiated with him a little bit. It's going to be a quick trip. to get some food and we'll come back and whatever. You'll have some time to decompress. He calms down a little bit. Typically, the kids will match my response. Yep. I was just going to say that. And I've also found that professionally, right? Oh, yeah. Like typically, people are going to mirror your response. Like we have the ability to diffuse situations and calm down the emotion of an interaction. I mean, game changer. So we get out to the car. Jack's riding shotgun next to me. His brother, Simon's in the back. And before I you seem like you're really stressed out and frustrated.

36:44 What's going on, man? Did you have a rough day? He's like, yeah, actually, I had this thing happen at school. And I ended up really embarrassed. My teacher said this thing. And it's really bothering me. And I was like, you know what, man? I know exactly how you feel. Totally. I have those days. Yep. Like, I totally know what that feels like. Man, what a different outcome. Oh my gosh. Right. Versus you spinning up. He softened and I softened and I felt connected to my boy and it just changed everything. Yeah. It changed everything. Now... three years before that, two weeks before that, I don't know.

37:26 Right. I would have totally like, dude, get a grip on yourself. Right. Chill out. We're just going to the grocery store. How dare you talk to me that way. Yeah. Right. Don't give me that attitude. All of that stuff. Like, look, you're no video. I would have just reacted. No video games for you tonight or whatever. I just would have reacted, spun out and he would have amped up and I would have amped up and it just would have turned into this idiotic power struggle coming in the door. And it's like, how often do we do that? Oh, it's probably the default mechanism, right? When we're not actively pursuing a difference. Yeah. But anyway, I'm so grateful for those tools.

38:07 It's just a tool. It's like a different... If we can just become sensitive to those kinds of things, we start to notice it more. And it's And the more margin you have between the thing that happened, the thing that was said, the situation that just occurred, and your response to it. Totally agree. What a powerful resource. Here's my thought on this too, is that if I'm honest with looking out on the horizon, people in my sphere of influence, people that I really respect or admire, the vast majority, no, all of them, are people that practice self-restraint. not hypocrisy not passive aggressiveness not false humility or falseness no I'm talking about those folks that they are no different than you and I they have that emotional response trigger inside but they do what you're talking about they take that 5 seconds they do the breathing they do the whatever and they rewrap and not allow the knee-jerk, uncontrolled emotion to spill out of them.

39:14 And I think over time, the more you exercise that self-restraint, the more that you exercise this shifting of that energy to make sure that you deploy it with a positive impact, I think it does get more and more common for that to be a default response versus you having to do this really hefty lifting and working through of toning the beast, you know? Yeah. But when I look out on the horizon on people that I really admire, they tend to be people that are backed with an absolute grip ton of action and very little emotional explosiveness. Not being the same as passive, not caring, not passionate. Because that's boring as hell to me. I hate vanilla. Because I'm wired passionately.

39:54 I'm on or off. So I admire that though. I like the passion. I like the excitement. If I'm going to get wrapped up and follow someone on something, if I'm going to get engaged into a team experience or build something, I want to be excited and passionate. But that is very different than being unhinged, uncontrolled. When you watch someone emotionally lose control... It is not something I admire. No. Right? It's so easy. When you see that person lose control of themselves, say things that are completely over the line, act in such a way that completely crosses the line, blows up.

40:35 This is me. I am talking to myself right now. When you see those things, you just know you don't respect it. Yeah. Right? And we've seen examples of people that run very hard charging, quickly growing organizations in our industry, outside of our industry. And they are passionate and they are often boisterous and loud and lots of character. But it doesn't mean they're angry. It doesn't mean they lack self-control. It doesn't mean that they lead with an iron fist. In fact, in most cases, it's actually the complete opposite. Tons of care, tons of vision for what they want to build and do. But they use their energy to drive results, not losing their shit.

41:15 And so that's been the thing on the horizon for me to want to continue to make progress is that I always walked away from those situations feeling like I let an opportunity slip. That could have been so much better. Oh, yeah. I often felt just depleted. I didn't feel like we moved the needle when I lost my cool that way. I never really walked away and felt like, well, the team knows now. Yeah. Ever, really. Ever. It never really got me the result that I wanted. It just made me fall prey to the idea that I thought I was getting what I wanted because people stopped talking, people stopped trying, people stopped presenting ideas, all those things.

41:57 So anyways, I think if we're honest with ourselves, even if you're one of those folks that just runs hot, who are the people that you look at and go, Yeah. Right. I would be shocked if you identified someone that just freaking ran hot, lost control all the time. I just don't see that, but I could be wrong. Maybe there's somebody out there, but my gut says probably not likely. Yeah. You know? Yeah. When we explode out of anger, it can create results, but it's usually because people are afraid. Yeah. Yeah. And you can only take that so far, right? Oh, yeah. Those people... That'll only carry you so far. So far, man. Like when the right opportunity shows itself, would someone prefer to lead or follow under that?

42:38 No. No way. Right? Are you getting 100% from someone out of fear? I don't think so normally. You're getting the minimum viable product. Yeah. They're going to give you just enough so that you're not angry. Yeah. Right? Because that whole loyalty and that excitement to be engaged in that vision alongside that leader goes away. Yeah. You know, there's just a ton of negatives. Anyways, I think we can kind of beat this up a little bit, but I really like, I like what you said about that repackaging of just the way that you're thinking about the moment. Can I hit a summary? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. It's been a little while because we don't do that with guests normally, but yeah. All right. So we're talking about anger today. Talking about just kind of this concept of this thing that wells up in us, right?

43:21 That we commonly see is actually attached to fear or wanting to control or most likely kind of this ego trigger. Yeah. Feeling of inadequacy. Oh, yeah. Feeling small, feeling small, feeling like you don't have all the answers you should have. Like all these internal mechanisms that are driving this anger. We tend to focus it or channel it on someone else and stay in this mindset of, if only they would, if only I had better. If only this person cared more, right? Like all these things where we become the victim in execution, meaning we've stripped our ability to do anything about it or to take action. Right? That's what I mean by that victim.

44:03 And so you said, basically, one of the tools that we can deploy is this idea of just grabbing that five seconds in the moment and saying, okay, okay. It's not, I'm not angry. Yeah, part of me. Part of me is angry. Yeah. Right? Like I'm very, I'm feeling a lot of frustration in this moment almost. Like, right? And it sounds so dumb, but what you were highlighting is this separation between an emotion and an identity. And who I am. Yeah. Because I can treat an emotion a lot easier than I can treat who I am. Yeah. Right. And so you're saying in this moment... That's a great way of saying it, man. Right. And it's like, you've got this ability to take a break for just a second and say, okay, I'm feeling this way. Part of me is angry or frustrated.

44:45 And then deploying a response that looks different. It shows self-control. And really what I equate self-control to in a lot of ways, man, is wisdom. Oh, man. Yes, it's wisdom. And I think that's one of the things I've been trying to put in front of myself consistently is this idea of who are the kind of people that reflect in my mind what wisdom looks like. And I just cannot vision someone with a lot of wisdom emotionally unbolted. I just don't see it. No. Right? So again, as part of this, then we're identifying, okay, can I look out on the horizon and look at the people that I respect and admire? And what am I seeing? What am I noticing? Am I seeing self-restraint?

45:25 Am I seeing positive actions versus losing control or becoming unhinged? And if you are, identify that. Try to dig into what that person does. What are some of the characteristics that they reflect? What are some of the types of ways that they manage themselves and lead their people to that we can take as tools then to change what resources we can deploy, right? In our own businesses, our own sphere of influence. Yeah, I think that's, I don't know, that's pretty good, right? I think that was a good take. Yeah. And you're not alone. Like, dude. Yeah, we all get angry. I think that's what we should title this episode. We all get angry. I wonder if Mother Teresa got angry. Oh. Because if you could say even Mother Teresa got angry, right? I don't know. I don't know if you can.

46:06 Yeah, no, I think it's true. And by the way, in closing, and maybe we should link to it in our show notes, you really got to hear Tim Dethmer, the way he talks about this, because anger is something that motivates a lot of high achievers. Yeah. And yet, it's a motivation that while it can help you achieve and grow, it leaves behind this toxic residue. That's where we got that concept from was Dethmer. Yeah. And it's just such an incredible... In fact, we just shared it with another client. They're like, oh my gosh, this is so good. It really is. And it really is. So you got to check out that episode, The Knowledge Project, Tim Dethmer, Leading Above the Line. That's right. I really hope we can get him on the podcast, actually, at some point. Oh my, don't get me started. All right, gang. All right, see you later. See you later.

46:47 All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.