When the sting of a workplace slight had me teetering between indignation and curiosity, I chose an unexpected path that led to harmony instead of havoc. Join me, Sean, as I recount this transformative experience and more, guiding you through the twists and turns of upholding integrity in challenging professional scenarios. We tackle the essence of 'playing your position' in life's grand game, emphasizing why it's vital to stay true to your course for personal and leadership growth. Along the way, we'll unravel the complexities of reciprocity, ponder over the role of regression in our development, and illuminate the nuances of mutual respect.
Navigating through the murky waters of professional relationships, we take a hard look at how to confront disrespect without sacrificing our composure or principles. By sharing my own narrative of conflict resolution, I aim to arm you with strategies for asserting your boundaries and maintaining a sterling reputation in your field. You'll discover the power of patience and seeking counsel when tensions rise, ensuring you emerge with your integrity intact. Whether you're a seasoned leader or forging your path, this episode promises to equip you with the wisdom to look out for one another and fortify your position amidst adversity.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
When the sting of a workplace slight had me teetering between indignation and curiosity, I chose an unexpected path that led to harmony instead of havoc. Join me, Sean, as I recount this transformative experience and more, guiding you through the twists and turns of upholding integrity in challenging professional scenarios. We tackle the essence of 'playing your position' in life's grand game, emphasizing why it's vital to stay true to your course for personal and leadership growth. Along the way, we'll unravel the complexities of reciprocity, ponder over the role of regression in our development, and illuminate the nuances of mutual respect.
Navigating through the murky waters of professional relationships, we take a hard look at how to confront disrespect without sacrificing our composure or principles. By sharing my own narrative of conflict resolution, I aim to arm you with strategies for asserting your boundaries and maintaining a sterling reputation in your field. You'll discover the power of patience and seeking counsel when tensions rise, ensuring you emerge with your integrity intact. Whether you're a seasoned leader or forging your path, this episode promises to equip you with the wisdom to look out for one another and fortify your position amidst adversity.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. Good morning, or whatever it might be for you, wherever you are. Thank you for tuning in. A few weeks ago, in episode 195, navigating the Storm, balancing Confidence and Feedback in Leadership, I mentioned this concept of playing your position. As I got to thinking about that episode more, I realized that there was a piece that I hadn't addressed. So this sports metaphor of playing one's position really addresses the idea that you should focus on your area of responsibility. So if you imagine sort of a team sport, for instance soccer or football as the rest of the world calls it if the individual players that have their respective zones of responsibility, if they forget about that and they just all sort of collapse in, then it tends to look a lot like, I guess, peewee soccer, which is where a bunch of really, really, really little kids all just sort of cluster and congregate around the ball and it's just one giant mass of little kids running around the ball. Now, what this imagery does for me is it helps me better understand this notion of keeping my focus on what I can control versus getting sucked into this miasma of chaos that ends up happening in those sort of peewee little league soccer games. Now, from that I think there's a related concept of, I don't know, we could call it taking the high road, regardless of what others do or say, and this might seem similar to the turn-the-other-cheek doctrine from Christian theology, but I would argue that it's not quite the same, that there are some meaningful differences that we can unpack here in a little bit. Now, why is any of this relevant?
Speaker 1:Well, so frequently clients really struggle to make the changes that they want to make in their lives and to have those changes become real and lasting. It's often one or the other, sometimes neither, but to really have that change that they want to make, or changes typically become something real and lasting. And it's interesting for me, especially when I coach individuals that are on the same team or that know each other, perhaps through some other means, because invariably people talk about those individuals who are in their life, and I get these sort of I don't know informal status checks from the client that I'm coaching on the other person because they tell me stories, you know, oh, so-and-so is really struggling right now. And it's interesting because sometimes I have been in communication with that other person myself and they'll send me a message that for the most part, would suggest that things are okay. So it's noteworthy for me when I get these sort of different takes on somebody's life. The one that's given to me directly is, yeah, things are fine. But then the one that I hear about through the friend or the colleague is, yeah, they're struggling. You know, this is something that this is what's going on. It's like huh, I wonder why. I wonder why the client isn't telling me that directly, or the former client typically, and I think a lot of times it's because they feel embarrassed. They feel embarrassed that they were really trying to make some sort of change happen in their life and it's showing itself to be impermanent, or perhaps that there was real sort of regression that ended up happening.
Speaker 1:Now, from my perspective as a coach who's been doing this for years and who's also had his own litany of regressions in his own inner development process or journey, that isn't something that's all that shocking for me, and it's certainly not something that I think people should be embarrassed about. It's quite natural for us to have regression, and oftentimes the regression is actually more informative because it communicates quite intensely, typically where it is that we still have progress to make. So, in my view, it can actually be a really good thing Now where we sometimes, I guess, run into struggle in terms of regression. This sometimes happens even in the middle of coaching, and that is what I wanted to talk about today this idea that we often get derailed when we allow ourselves to get sucked into sort of a tit-for-tat mindset or, better said, engage in a spirit of reciprocity. Now, reciprocity can be quite virtuous, for instance, when someone does us a favor and then we in turn do a favor for that person. Or, potentially, it ends up looking more like a sort of a quote-unquote pay-it-forward style of doing good in the world. But either way, we're generating more goodwill and fellowship with this mindset of reciprocity.
Speaker 1:However, things can go downhill very, very quickly when we engage in reciprocity with negative thoughts, emotions or actions. So if somebody, for instance, if we perceive that they are slighting us, or if we perceive that they are disrespecting us in some way or that they're attempting to cause harm in some particular way. If we see that or we perceive that and then we in turn show them the same sort of spirit of maliciousness or vindictiveness or pettiness or resentment, well, you can see pretty quickly how this is sort of a spiral to the bottom and, ultimately, what's interesting to observe is clients, and this is also true of my journey. Clients generally want to do the right thing. However, they define that, and there's a lot of different views on what is the right thing, and most of that is shaped by how we grew up. Well, most of that is shaped by how we grew up, but universally, I think that, at least in my experience traveling around the world, people typically recognize that there are certain things that one human probably shouldn't do to another human being and that, if they like, for instance, physical assault In most parts of the world, if you just walk up and clock somebody in the face, unprovoked, people on the street are probably going to think that you are the aggressor and that the person who was just struck has it in their rights to fight back.
Speaker 1:Has it in their rights to fight back. But this notion of doing the right thing. We so frequently get pushed off of that. Get pushed off course. We get pushed away from taking the high road because we get sucked into the perceived aggression. Because we get sucked into the perceived aggression and most commonly, when clients come to me and they're really struggling with this and I have so much empathy for this because I have had many, many, many, I mean, I would say, decades of my life where I had a pretty quick trigger, now I had the discipline to often hide it, hide it as best I could. I wouldn't necessarily flare up outwardly I guess I had a strong lip that I could bite down on, but I did feel it.
Speaker 1:And so typically, when clients bring this to my attention, they're talking about fights that they're having, either with their partner, their child or some party in a negotiation, and they end up citing oh well, so-and-so said this to me, and they end up citing oh well, so-and-so said this to me, and then essentially, what they're saying is that so-and-so pushed my buttons. Right, if we all are familiar with that phrase. So-and-so pushed my buttons and then, as I've said in the past, well, it's your button, so maybe you should take more ownership of your button button, so maybe you should take more ownership of your button. But on top of that, this notion that just because somebody came to us and they were nasty with us, then we in turn automatically somehow have to also be nasty with them I don't think that that is true. In fact, I've seen many of my clients and yeah, even myself, have managed to exist in a way where somebody came at me all hot and heavy and being nasty with me or at least that was my perception and then I didn't respond in kind. And I've also seen that happen with clients. They were able to stick to the high road.
Speaker 1:Now, earlier I mentioned this turning the other cheek doctrine or philosophy and if that's honestly what you believe, if that's what your conviction tells you is the right thing to do or the right path, then go for it. Is the right thing to do, the right path, then go for it. If you really truly believe that if somebody wrongs you or if somebody offends you, that the best thing for you to do is to remain humble and to turn the other cheek and to not engage in any sort of aggression to defend the boundary, okay, live by that creed. But even if we don't necessarily turn the other cheek in the sense of okay, I got slapped once, now I'm going to get slapped again.
Speaker 1:I think that we can stay connected to our vision of what is right and not allow ourselves to stoop to shitty behavior simply because the other party seems to be doing so. You might be thinking well, okay, if I stay on the high road, as it were, am I not just going to be taken advantage of? You know, if you continue to stick to the behavior that you believe to be the right path, are you destined to be abused and disadvantaged? Well, yeah, maybe if you simply roll over. But I believe that we can defend our boundaries without having to get shitty and nasty. Do we have to turn the other cheek? No, I don't think we do. I think there is certainly a time and a place to defend yourself, right? Whether that's physically defending yourself if somebody's trying to physically attack you for some reason, whether it's mentally, whether it's emotionally, whether it's in the marketplace, somehow, if we're talking about organizations, businesses, I think that there is a way to continue to represent what it is that you believe in and also stand firm.
Speaker 1:So oftentimes, I don't know respect often comes forward in coaching engagements. Where is it that people feel disrespected and so in a team meeting if one colleague feels that they're being if my client feels they're being disrespected by one of their colleagues, well, they can engage in that same disrespectful behavior and kind of dish it back in kind. And most of the time the way that that seems to unfold is everyone just gets nasty and they don't actually resolve whatever the issue of contention actually was, and then everybody gets super entrenched along their various party lines and then oftentimes factions form and then the team becomes even less effective. Or they can address the concern of disrespect and they can really try to get to the heart of it without having to act disrespectful themselves. They can call it out, they can address it directly and they can communicate their boundary. There are times, believe it or not, that people perceive disrespect when no disrespect is intended, either because they're having a bad day, they didn't quite hear it right, or sometimes the person communicating just speaks in a clumsy manner. But there're all the times and most of the time.
Speaker 1:If you want some more ammunition for this, think about your relationship with your partner. There are all kinds of areas where partners families in particular miscommunicate, even though they spent all this time together. I mean, they spent their whole lives together and yet still we can misperceive somebody's comment. So this notion of being able to directly address the concern doesn't require you to bend over, it doesn't require you to back down, and it also doesn't require you to bend over. It doesn't require you to back down and it also doesn't require you to get shitty in return.
Speaker 1:Written form and there were no handy dandy emojis to let me know what was going on, sort of from an emotional perspective, and there were some typos as well, and so I wasn't quite sure what was going on. But the message was pretty inflammatory toward me and, yeah, part of me wanted to just let that person have it. Who the hell do you think you are? And to just climb all the way up on top of that righteous pedestal and just blast them from on high. And it took me a while to try to calm down. And it took me a while to try to calm down.
Speaker 1:Now, I wasn't throwing anything or anything like that, but just I was riled up internally because the way that the message came across, I thought I was really shocked, because I thought that I had sort of always been there for that person, and so I wrote a response, and my first response was definitely in the self-righteous category. It was definitely in the I'm going to put you in your place category that you might want to call the person and talk it out. And I thought to myself no, I'm not doing that. How dare they talk to me that way? There's no way that I'm going to call this person. And I did not call that person. Maybe that's what you're expecting from a highly enlightened coach. Quote unquote. But I did not. Probably should have. But what I did do instead is I thought about it some more and I rewrote the message. And I rewrote the message more from a position of curiosity.
Speaker 1:Now, I wouldn't say that the tone of that was 100% curious. There was still an expression of hurt. There was an expression of hurt. There was an expression of commenting on the fact that I felt that I had always been there for that person and that I was shocked at this language. It turns out the person was joking. This person has kind of a rough sense of humor and, granted, so do I most of the time. So you know, and it was funny because the person was saying well, you know, I thought you knew me better than this, and it just.
Speaker 1:It was a really nice learning experience for me to see, oh gosh, how quickly I let myself get pushed off the course that I wanted to be on and, thankfully, in talking about it with my wife and giving myself some time to respond instead of simply reacting in the moment, even though part of me really, really, really wanted to react Part of me was all kinds of fired up and ready to go Just blast him with both barrels, get in there. And it was this beautiful reminder yeah, hey, even though this is something that you do for a living, when you perceive to be attacked, you still have some pretty aggressive response capability there. Reaction capability is the more operative term, and so how can you allow yourself to be more in a place of response while still sticking to whatever course or whatever principles you truly believe are the correct path? And I spend so much time in my week talking with individuals about trying to remain open and curious because I honestly do believe that is the better way for us to work through potential difficulties. And even with that routine stimulus in my life, it was still something that I ended up talking about with my wife to get a little bit more calm, to get an outside perspective, to have her calming influence, say, hey, yeah, maybe you want to talk to this person, and in that process of eventually sort of toning down the message and allowing myself to reconnect with the course of being that, I think, is actually the way I did modify that message, and then the person and I were able to have a really fruitful discussion.
Speaker 1:Now, is it always going to end that way? Maybe not. Well, probably not. There will be times when the other party continues to just be nasty, in which case, like I said, I think that you can defend boundaries without having to get nasty yourself. And what does that look like? Well, it might look like cutting off the relationship.
Speaker 1:If they are unwilling to treat you in a respectful and caring manner assuming that they know what your definition of that actually is and they're not operating from a position of ignorance.
Speaker 1:If you've gone through the steps of explaining that to them and they're not operating from a position of ignorance, if you've gone through the steps of explaining that to them and they're still unwilling to engage with you in a way that's productive and mutually respectful, then, yeah, maybe you cut off the relationship or whatever recourse that you have available to you, whatever recourse that you have available to you, and I think that so often part of the reason why we engage in that kind of vindictive tit for tat you know, you cut me, I'll burn you down kind of mindset is because when we feel that sense of having been attacked, there is a part of us that really wants to lash out, we want to take back the pound of flesh, as it were, and that blinds us to the fact that we actually have a better way of being that we would like to execute.
Speaker 1:And more specifically, I think in the business context, you know, where we are attempting to actually have a professional reputation.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of industries are much smaller than we give them credit for, and it's shocking to me how many times I've had clients and in my own experience as well talk about how they left one company years ago and yet somehow they still have intersections in their professional market with people that knew them back then.
Speaker 1:Or, more often the case they know somebody who really let their ass hang out at some point and that that reputation has sort of followed them around. So I think there's all kinds of really beneficial reasons for taking the high road and sticking to that high road, no matter what the other person is doing, and again recognizing just to beat the dead horse to further death that you can still fight for your boundaries. While sticking to your principles, we can defend ourselves. We don't have to turn into just absolute savage barbarians because we're defending ourselves. Anyway, that's going to do it for today. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you would like subscribe, share, et cetera, et cetera, or don't, totally up to you. And until next time, take care of each other.