CHAPTER 2

THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES WHILE WE’RE FALLING APART

2014 was a weird year.

Let me set the stage: My first book came out at the tail end of 2011, and I’d spent 2012 and part of 2013 doing the author marketing that goes along with publishing a book these days. It was busy but manageable. I continued to work with my core client base in Washington, and manage the activity of being a business owner, leadership coach, and a working parent.

Then, like a switch, everything changed. My book hit an inflection point, and I began getting all kinds of new and exciting work opportunities. Companies around the world were inviting me to speak or to coach their leaders. I was asked to do programs connected to Harvard, Duke, and Georgetown, and to lead global workshops. Media brands I’d admired my entire life asked me to write for them. When people find so much meaning in a book that they want to bring it into their organizations, that’s just about the most affirming thing that can happen to an author. This all felt amazing . . . in the beginning.

My mother noticed first (as mothers do). “You look worn down,” she said. I ignored her, confident that all this wonderful and rewarding work couldn’t possibly be a negative. After all, I wanted to do it! I’d worked hard for this. I’d begun to spend more time on planes, so much so that when I’d get together with colleagues we’d spend most of our time trading frequent flyer tips. I was getting sick more frequently (especially after a particularly important trip), and developed acid reflux. At one point, I caught such a bad eye infection that my eye was halfway swollen shut. (Apologies to the participants in that workshop. I know it was ugly.)

Finally, I woke up one morning with a cracked molar from grinding my teeth, requiring significant and painful dental work over the course of months. It was a literal breaking point. Something was out of whack, and it appeared to be me.

That summer I decided to take a step back and reassess my workload, choices, and just about everything else. The thing is, I never felt that my work suffered. Especially for the times that really mattered, no matter my stress level, I felt that I showed up prepared, professional, and on point. But here’s where it’s handy to be a coach and have lots of coaching friends to talk with. I dug deeper.

The story I kept telling myself was that this work was something I had to do—because after all, I’d asked for it. I’d worked to be where I was. And it was interesting to me. I’d be crazy not to do every bit of the work! I also kept a refrain in my head that this pace was somehow temporary, and that no one noticed the wear and tear but my closest friends and family. It affected nothing else.

That’s right, I had bought into my own stories, even though I spend so much of my time coaching other leaders not to fall into the trap of believing theirs. That’s how powerful the pull of our own perception bias can be. We’ll do a whole lot of searching to find evidence to confirm what we already think.

This story ends on a good note. Through reflection, trial and error, and nail-biter decisions, I did finally get myself to a place where I could see everything as a choice, with a series of trade-offs. I figured out what kind of work I wanted to be doing more of, and made it a priority. I delegated work that I personally enjoyed, but that no longer fit in the larger picture. (This was hard.) I put parameters around my travel, even if it sometimes meant saying no to compelling or lucrative work. (This was even harder.) I prioritized my family and health, and reset my definition of business success. By the end of 2014, I was in one of the most content and fulfilled periods of my life. Thankfully, while I’m writing this in 2016, I’m still here.

OVERWHELM: TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING WE NEVER WANTED

I’m well aware of the irony that a coach who helps others deal with overwhelm is starting this chapter with her own story of, ahem, overwhelm. I chose to be upfront about it because it brings the issue into the light. I believe that overwhelm is one of the most pressing issues in our companies—and in our larger society. Overwhelm often doesn’t look like people spinning out of control, but is a grinding pressure in those who appear to be holding everything together.

In 2014, two of my colleagues—Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte and leadership coach Scott Eblin—tackled overwhelm in their well-acclaimed books: Schulte’s Overwhelmed and Eblin’s Overworked and Overwhelmed. Their research added to a growing number of voices raising the red flag on the unsustainability of the way so many people live and work. In an interview with me, Eblin described his surprise at the intensity of the drumbeat for people to find ways out of their own overwhelm.

Eblin has been conducting leadership workshops for years, but he found that the desire to find a sustainable pace trumps all. He concludes that people can’t focus on any kind of professional development until they feel in control of themselves: “The conclusion I’ve come to is that people may be hungry for information or tactics they can use to improve their leadership. But they are thirsty for strategies to be present and self-manage. People die of thirst first. You can go longer without food than water.”¹

I see a wide range of leaders in my work. From our first meeting, I can detect whether their energy is in a state of overwhelm or in a calm, centered, and focused mode. Regardless of the demands of the position, or what’s happening right outside their office doors, some leaders maintain an oasis of calm. Others exist somewhere between a low-level hum and outright state of panic, depending on the day. I don’t have special powers—we all have that ability to intuit the energetic field of others. (For more on the science of mood contagion, see Chapter 7.) This matters greatly for our challenge of being inspiring and connected.

Let’s say you have a meeting with a leader in your organization. She comes in late looking distracted and harried. Her stress is palpable over some fire just put out. Then she proceeds to run the meeting in a way that shows she needs to get out quickly and deal with something else more important.

How inspiring will this leader be? Not very, if at all.

When we are around people who seem overwhelmed, our primary instinct is to distance ourselves from them. We have a self-protective mechanism in place to prevent any contagion in our own psychic worlds. We disconnect.

If we’re the ones who are overwhelmed, we can’t have an Inspire Path conversation when our audience would prefer to get away from us.

Now consider how much of this frenetic energy is exhibited in our organizations every single day. In some cultures, it’s the norm. In others, it’s even a badge of honor. I’ve worked with entrepreneurs who absolutely believe that stress and overwhelm is their “edge” to stay at the top of their game. They fail to see how their own presence produces chronic stress in the people around them. (Yet, they’ll typically seek coaching to alleviate some of their own stressful side effects like an inability to keep innovating or to maintain work/life balance.)

Research shows that chronic, long-term stress and overwhelm take an enormous toll on us physically and mentally. They alter our brain chemistry to keep us in constant fight or flight mode, causing our amygdala to flood our bodies with stress hormones. Stress has been linked to high blood pressure, digestive issues, sleep disturbances, anxiety, headaches, anger, chest pains, strokes, and substance abuse.² This is something most of us not only know, but have at some point experienced firsthand.

Like a narrowing lens, overwhelm takes away our ability to see the full extent of what’s in front of us. It limits creativity, agility, and ideation. It overrides empathy. The more information we have running through our heads, the worse our decisions get. When our brains reach a point of overload, we take shortcuts. For example, instead of examining the full range of quality information available, we’ll rely on recent data.³ We can feel like a whipped flag in the wind, reacting to what’s in front of us without stepping back to be proactive or strategic.

One culprit—or enabler—of overwhelm is perfectionism. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, those who are susceptible to overwhelm are often high-functioning individuals trying to tackle it all. I say this from a personal place as well, as a recovering perfectionist. Perfectionists can get a lot done, and we hold ourselves to a high bar. We are even proud of our high standard for ourselves, even when it’s killing us.

A few months ago, I ran across a quote from author Elizabeth Gilbert that hit me square in the face. She said that perfectionism was the “haute couture high-end version of fear.” Perfectionism, she explained, is a way of trying to put up an impervious front due to our fear of failing, being inadequate, or not measuring up. It may be a socially acceptable form of fear, but it’s fear. “Perfectionism,” she quipped, “is just fear in really good shoes.”⁴

Whether feeling uncertainty, padding our experience, or berating ourselves for something that hasn’t lived up to our expectations, there’s a common driver—and it’s not pretty. Author and lecturer Marianne Williamson posits that there are actually two motivating forces behind our behavior: love and fear.⁵ Any other emotions we have are subcategories of these two. In the workplace, love can mean passion for our work, care for our teams, enjoyment for making a difference, or deep satisfaction. Fear may mean worry about being successful, insecurity about not measuring up, mentally checking out, or engaging in undermining behavior to secure our status. All of the good and bad behavior we see in organizations can be segmented into these dichotomies. Consider how these emotions line up:

LOVE IS . . .	FEAR IS . . .
Generosity	Insecurity
Confidence	Stress
Openness	Perfectionism
Receptiveness	Negativity
Positivity	Territorialism
Gratitude	Judgment
Passion	Jealousy
Creativity	Withdrawal
Acceptance	One-upmanship
Support	Guilt
Abundance	Scarcity
Joy	Dejection

I’ll admit the first time I heard this concept I thought it sounded too pat, and more than a little woo-woo for a business setting. But I see this play out with increasing clarity the more I’ve experienced in organizations in my career and in my coaching work. The VP who is acting territorially around a major initiative? Fear. The CEO who inspires everyone with her passion to change health care? Love. The consulting partner who can’t delegate? Fear. The change agent who is willing to risk his personal reputation to move the organization to a better place? Love.

We operate from a place of fear more often than we realize. When we do, we aren’t inspiring or connecting. We’re pushing people away. And most of the time we don’t even realize it because we’re merely surviving in overwhelm mode. Fear-based behavior is reactive and sometimes even irrational. This is why it can be so hard to reason with someone in this state.

I once coached a CEO who was trying to lead a major change initiative for his company. He was exceedingly bright, gregarious, and caring. By the time he called me for coaching, he was also burned out, frustrated, and irritated by his team’s apparent inability to change. In talking with his team, I learned that even though he was well-liked, he was also seen as micromanaging and unpredictable. He was afraid to let the smallest details go, causing the team to feel underused and untrusted. His closest colleagues expressed concern about his capacity and the stress they saw in him. Instead of feeling positive and inspired by the change which was his goal, the organization reflected back what others saw in him: stress and concern.

For people to change, they need to take a risk. Taking a risk requires confidence, hope, and positivity. How many leaders are just like my client, expecting others to soar into the unknown while they themselves are showing fear? In my experience, most change initiatives fail in part because leaders don’t make the change look like something others would want to undertake.

It’s not just change leaders who do this; it’s all of us who want to show up in an inspiring way while we feel underwater. Whether it’s me during 2014 or you right now, stress and overload absolutely change the way others feel about being around us. Even when we think we’re good at hiding it—it leaks out. It’s far better to address it at the source.

YES, I’M OVERWHELMED. WHERE’S MY LIFELINE?

To be present, physically and mentally, we can’t be so wound up in our own frenzy. For many of us, overwhelm may come and go. It can be hard to get a handle on.

The first step to addressing overwhelm is realizing that you’re in it. Some people experience physical symptoms of stress or feel mentally whipped, and it’s apparent. Others hide behind the illusion that they can somehow put more hours in the day, or survive on less sleep than anyone else. But deep down, if we create time for reflection, we actually do know. Ask yourself a few key questions:

Am I, more often than not, feeling the emotions in the fear column?

When I think about the day ahead, does it fill me with excitement or feel burdensome?

What priorities for myself are unmet on a regular basis?

How often do I feel on top of things?

Once we begin to notice that we’ve gone into overdrive we can begin to develop strategies for how to get ourselves back to a place where we can be present—and in a better place to connect with others. Too often we slip into overwhelm unwittingly and don’t realize it until we’re underwater. Instead, it’s more helpful to recognize impending stress and to plan for a workaround. Contemplate this: Your schedule, your workload, or your office demands are what they are. They are a neutral variable, with no emotional charge. It’s your reaction to them that causes you stress. Another person could react to the same situation very differently. Your stressful schedule could cause someone else boredom or indifference. You create your reaction. This means that you have the ultimate control and choice in the matter. People get themselves out of the hole of overwhelm all the time. It may not be easy, but it’s possible. I see it happen routinely and watch lives change. How do they do it? By challenging their assumptions, pausing to hit reset, and using strategic intention to move forward.

CHALLENGE YOUR ASSUMPTIONS

Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist, author, and concentration camp survivor, wrote in his heartbreakingly beautiful memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”⁶ Overwhelm hits us so fast that it feels like one solid event. But it’s not. Overwhelm is only the response. Something else is the stimulus. If we want to have less overwhelm then we need to understand what the trigger is that’s causing our reaction, and be able to take advantage of that space, or pause, to change our reaction.

Normally, when we have a stress trigger, we go straight into reaction mode. There’s almost an underlying assumption that X leads to Y. My boss yelled at me in a meeting so I’m going to get upset. My board presentation is today so I’m going to be on edge. These stress triggers create negative spirals that undermine our confidence. Once the cycle starts it knocks us off our game.

Our bodies are willing accomplices. When we feel a threat, our brain responds. Our blood leaves the pre-frontal cortex, or the thinking part of our brains, and goes into the amygdala, the reptilian, reactive part of our brain that regulates emotions. Just as if there were a tiger chasing us, our bodies react with increased blood pressure, stress hormones, and other physiological symptoms. We also have a hard time coming back to a calm state. We all have stress triggers, though we experience them uniquely and with varying intensity.

But as Frankl so eloquently notes, we are overlooking a space between the action and our reaction. In that space we have the capacity to change the outcome. We have the ability to choose our response. My boss yelled at me and I’ll decide how to react. My board presentation is today so I’ll choose to do a few things to stay light and relaxed. We simply have to recognize our stressor, acknowledge its impact in the moment, and pause. We have to be ready to take a different approach, to adapt a new perspective, to employ a new narrative.

In the 1970s, organizational scholar and Harvard professor Chris Argyris, along with his MIT colleague Donald Schön, introduced the concept of double loop learning.⁷ Since then, other derivative organizational theories have followed—the work still pivotal in organizational and personal change models.

To simplify the idea, it’s essentially this:

AssumptionsActionsResults

Argyris and Schön argued that when people want to change the results that they’re getting, they typically try different actions. They may go through this “single loop” over and over again with lackluster or incremental results. However, for significant change to take place, people need to question their underlying assumptions, thoughts, and values. This “double loop learning” makes possible a host of entirely new actions to effect sustained change.

Let’s take this out of theory and into practice, using a common work scenario. Say you want to be promoted (the result) which requires you to raise your visibility (your assumption). So you go about taking actions to do that: attending more after-work events, asking people to lunch, and requesting to be included in high-profile meetings. You could stay in this loop for a very long time, coming up with new and different ways to increase your exposure before finally exhausting yourself. You will make incremental progress, absolutely. At the end of the period many more people will know your name. Yet, you’re no closer to getting that promotion.

Now, let’s look at what possibilities would open up if you took a strategic pause, went back, and challenged your assumption that raising your visibility would lead to promotion. First, you might do some research, and gain some behind-the-scenes data on how the last several people at your level were promoted. What did they do? What alliances did they have? What qualifications did they bring? What leadership qualities did they demonstrate? Suppose you were to learn that a handful of powerful influencers were vocal advocates for every person who’d been promoted. While broad visibility was a factor, a larger factor seemed to be a few close-knit relationships with select people who could sway opinion. Now the actions you might choose to take would look quite different—and include ones you couldn’t even see before questioning your assumption. Instead of spending hours networking broadly, you might instead invest time trying to get on projects and attend events with one or two opinion leaders so that those individuals can get to know you better. You might put your energy into relationship building with a select group—taking a surgical approach. When you change your assumption, you expand your repertoire of available actions and increase your capacity for results.

Now let’s use a real example based on more general assumptions, a little less cut and dried with some messy reality thrown in. A client of mine—we’ll call her Rebecca—is a highly effective leader and a high-potential being groomed for a C-level job at her company. Once a quarter, she’s called to present to the board, and that’s where she’s run into serious issues. Even though she speaks to groups constantly as part of her job, it’s a whole different animal with the board. She gets very nervous, overly scripts herself, and worries about not knowing answers to these brusque and whip-smart board member’s questions. Before I worked with her, she’d spent a year trying different actions to perform better in board meetings. She increased her preparation, brought additional data to meetings, and moved the order of her presentation on the schedule. Yet, the board’s feedback wasn’t improving. In fact, they were voicing concern about her future potential at the company.

When we started working together, we began by working through her assumptions: What did she think made for a good board presentation? What was her value to the board? What was she in that room to do? Through this process she discovered that her assumption was that she needed to project a perfect image, never miss a beat, and have a quick response to every question posed. After further reflection and observing colleagues who managed well at the board level, she realized that what really brought value was to express an informed point of view, be flexible in her discussion, and facilitate key points rather than sticking to a tight script.

This realization was incredibly freeing to Rebecca on one hand, but scary as hell on the other. Even though she got it intellectually, not clinging to her old way of preparing seemed like a major risk. So we started small, with meetings that weren’t with the board. She practiced preparing less detailed content, spending more time getting her head around her high-level thoughts and speaking off-the-cuff. Afterward, she asked for feedback from trusted colleagues, and that buoyed her confidence.

When it was time for the next board meeting, she prepared two versions of her content: a detailed version PowerPoint deck that she turned in ahead of time, and another shortened, high-level printout as a handout. This made her feel safe that if board members dove into the details, she could point them to the read-ahead version. Forgoing the memorization, she allowed herself to speak more naturally and extemporaneously. Freed of the need to make every sentence perfect, she used her energy to show what she really cared about and felt more agile on her feet. Again, she asked a trusted colleague for feedback and modified her approach from there.

This iterative process went through a few rounds: try new actions, get feedback, adjust assumptions, make modifications, adopt new behaviors, and repeat. Eventually, Rebecca changed her assumption permanently, recognizing that she brought tremendous value to the board based on her wealth of experience, not on her efforts to deliver with perfection. This shift allowed her to see and minimize the nervousness and stress that was undermining her effectiveness. Consequently, the CEO and board members also shifted their assumptions about Rebecca.

Rebecca’s example shows how we can grow if we are willing to pause and explore our underlying thinking. You can do the same. First, remember that you have a choice in your reaction. Nothing is automatic except your thinking, and that’s yours to change. When you feel stress coming on, question your assumptions:

What’s an alternative way to describe this same situation?

What would feeling confidence do for your response?

How would [insert colleague’s name whom you admire] handle this?

PAUSE AND HIT RESET

More and more, I’m seeing mindfulness included among the offerings in leadership programs around the world. Companies such as Google, Intel, IBM, and SAP have incorporated leadership trainings on how to be more mindful, present, productive, relaxed, and happy.⁸ Google has had such positive results with their mindfulness trainings that they’ve launched the Search Inside Yourself Institute to spread it to other organizations.

Now, not every company is ready to embrace the word “mindfulness.” Some use terms like “focused attention,” “stress management,” or “sustainability.” But increasingly, the concept is being offered and readily accepted by leaders.

Scott Eblin calls mindfulness “awareness plus intention.” When we’re trying to get out of a stress event or a chronic state of overwhelm, it can have a major impact in a short amount of time. Mindfulness practice doesn’t require a deep dive into a new age lifestyle. Just selecting a few activities can take us far on our goal to reduce overwhelm.

We can use mindfulness either preventatively on a regular basis or to catch ourselves in the moment. Especially before trying to connect with others in a meaningful way, and certainly before every Inspire Path conversation, it’s to your advantage to clear out the stressful energy and to refocus yourself. This stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system—as Eblin puts it, “rest and digest”—and turns off our sympathetic nervous system of “fight or flight.” Here are some ways to get into a calmer mindset in as little as a few minutes:

Center and breathe

When stressed, the body assumes a tense posture from our faces to our legs. By centering we are literally bringing our body back to a centered, more neutral state. Try sitting in your chair with feet flat on the ground, back straight, and arms open to your sides. Breathe in four counts and out four counts several times. You’re not only relaxing your body, you are oxygenating your brain and lowering your blood pressure. The sage advice to take deep breaths is scientifically proven to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system.⁹

Take short breaks

Business book author, lecturer, and CEO of The Energy Project Tony Schwartz posits that all too often we ignore the rhythm to our days. Citing sleep researchers, he states that our bodies are designed to work in ninety-minute increments before needing a mental or physical break. Our bodies give us signals—such as hunger, fatigue, or loss of focus—that we need to refresh ourselves. Many of us override these signals through caffeine or sugary foods, and lock our brains into a stress-producing fight or flight zone to get our work done.¹⁰ Conversely, if we want to be more productive, we actually need to cease work at regular intervals.

Change your location

Many people do this absentmindedly when they need a break—they go to get a drink or to the bathroom or for a walk down the hall. Try moving your location mindfully. Make yourself get up from your desk and sit in another chair in your office, or walk to a different room. A simple change of surroundings can reignite your energy and creativity.

Engage your body

Our body holds our stress. By using it in a different way, we can release some of it. Stand up and take a stretch, go for a walk, or even hit the gym if you can. If you can’t get up, close your eyes and focus on relaxing your muscles, from your head to your feet.

Focus on gratitude

There’s an entire body of research around how gratitude affects our well-being and health. When we contemplate what we’re grateful for, we get a hit of dopamine, the brain’s pleasure chemical. This feels good, and it creates a virtuous cycle. Because we only have so much mental energy and focus available to us, when we’re focused on the good stuff, there’s less room for the bad. To put this into practice, when you feel overwhelmed or stressed, stop and consider what you’re grateful for. Take a couple of minutes, practice deep breathing, and put the object of your gratitude in your mind’s eye.

USE SITUATIONAL INTENTIONS

If you’ve read anything I’ve written or seen me speak in the past ten years, there’s a good chance you have heard me discuss intention. In my work helping leaders to have a more compelling, clear, and authentic presence, I have found using intention to be the linchpin. When we pause—even for as little as a few moments—and truly focus on what we’re trying to impart then we open up a range of opportunities for ourselves that were lying dormant.

In The Power of Presence I spend the first third of the book on crafting and using intentions. There are different ways to use intention, both long-term in determining what we want to stand for, and short-term in figuring out our intention for a particular situation. For our purposes in this book on inspirational communications, and this chapter on overwhelm, I’m going to focus on the fastest shortcut with a big payback: situational intentions.

Situational intentions are in-the-moment calibrations to get your head around your real purpose in communicating. They are a simple yet powerful timeout. Even in a few moments, they can transform a conversation. For Inspire Path conversations, situational intentions change the entire dynamic. They use the space that Frankl mentions, or the pause we discussed in Chapter 1. Situational intentions are a stop to reset the direction.

Here’s how to use them. Before any important interpersonal exchange, first pause and consider:

How do I want my audience to feel?

How do I need to show up to put that feeling in the room?

The operative word is “feel.” We process people emotionally first, then fill in the blanks with logic. When you leave a meeting after hearing a leader speak, you describe your reaction based on how you felt about it: “I was excited/concerned/skeptical/unsure about that.” This emotion is conveyed by you and retrieved by another. We can’t make someone else feel something that we’re not showing. I can’t make you excited if I approach you looking distracted and tired. I can’t get you to take a change initiative seriously if I look like I have not bought in.

When I introduce this concept to my clients, what I hear most often is that they never really thought about it that way. They are running full-tilt from meeting to meeting without pausing to take a breath let alone reflecting on an emotional intention. That’s exactly why this concept is so critical, especially in a chapter about overwhelm. When we take this moment to reorient our thinking, center our energy, and focus on an intention, we make ourselves far more present to the person in front of us.

Many clients find that they are best able to get themselves out of overwhelm, connect, and be present when they combine a few of these ideas. The next time you have an important conversation and want to connect, give yourself ten minutes to get your head in the game. Shut your door, move away from your desk, take a few deep breaths, and consider your intention for the upcoming interaction. Hold it in your mind’s eye for a few minutes. You will show up differently and have a more connected conversation as a result. It’s a perfect way to start an Inspire Path conversation.

CHALLENGE YOUR HAIR-ON-FIRE STORIES

The pace of our lives and our work can feel manic. Some of us are in a constant state of overwhelm and ready to snap. Others succumb to those days or periods where we can’t get out from underneath the expectations so we try to hunker down and push through it. If you’re a leader, no matter how busy you feel, you still need to be a connected and inspiring presence for others. That’s something that can never be delegated or postponed. Being able to get yourself present quickly, strategically, and methodically will serve you, and those around you, in a multitude of ways.

A friend once told me, “The work is infinite but your time is finite.” This is exquisitely true in our times. You could work 24/7 and still have plenty to do. So then it becomes about choices: how you work, what you prioritize, who you want to be. When we’re on chronic overload, we easily buy into our own stories. We seek to reinforce what we’ve already told ourselves, even when it hurts us. So, challenge your own stories about what “has to be” or what you “need to do.” All the leaders I’ve worked with who have changed their presence have first changed their perspective. And as my personal story of overwhelm in the beginning shows, we need rewrites along the way.