Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Understanding the Impact of Negative Emotions
Imagine, collecting stamps of envy, anger, and fear instead of picturesque landscapes or historical moments. That's what we're exploring in this episode: psychological stamp collecting. It's a fascinating concept where we accumulate negative emotions and use them to validate our actions. Referring back to the drama triangle theory we've previously discussed, these stamps enable major life decisions, like leaving a job or ending a marriage guilt-free. We're here to highlight the importance of communication in preventing this habitual and damaging collection.
Now, what happens when we don't stop accumulating these negative stamps? Well, we discuss the repercussions: how it's associated with physical and mental health issues and the necessity for change. You'd think anyone would want to prevent this, but the reality is we often find ourselves unable to pull away from these negative situations. There's also a fascinating side note on the allure of gold or silver stamp collecting, just to shake things up a little! We wrap up with some insights on how to appreciate the positive in our lives more, thus avoiding the unnecessary burden of these negative 'stamps'. So, buckle up for an enlightening journey into the human psyche and how it affects our everyday behavior.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Hello everyone, welcome to Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your author and host, john Wunalski, author of Building your Leadership Toolbox. I'm here with my friend and co-host, greg Powell Greg, hey everybody. We are here to talk about the secret of this podcast, which is psychology. Exactly so we're going to bring up a concept that Dr Durst introduced. He actually introduced me to two concepts the drama triangle that we talked about in a previous podcast. This one's about psychological stamp collecting the connection that humans have to justifying their behavior. This is from the book Games People Play by Eric Burney. It's a very interesting subject. Going through the seminar, I didn't understand all the different applications that I could see of stamp collecting and how people were doing this throughout their career. After he went through some of the examples and talked about how it was set up, it made perfect sense on some of the reactions I've seen. Psychological stamp collecting nice title is a way of collecting stamps that's irrelevant to the world of SNH green stamp collecting. There's nobody that, other than Greg and I. Greg, you remember SNH green stamps?
Speaker 2:There's two of us that remember this, John.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably a very small list at this point. To give a more current reference, it's like frequent flyer miles. You do so many things, so many things. You collect mileage with stamp collecting and then you get enough stamps in and you can turn in for a special trip to the Bahamas, which is great. But there's a price that's associated with collecting all those stamps for this prize. The more stamps you collect, the bigger price. It could be something small, it could be something big in terms of stamp collecting. What you get for a prize, stamps could be different colors. He gave the examples of green stamps for envy and red stamps for anger, blue stamps for fear, sorry for being sad, and yellow stamps for fear. Brown stamps if you feel like you've been not treated the best, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2:You mean feel like you've been crapped on. Yeah well, I was trying to avoid that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, exactly. So, yeah, all those negative feelings, the stamp collecting side of it and the effect of stamp collecting is sort of like a byproduct of people who really aren't good communicators or have made a conscious decision not to communicate. Now, there's a lot of different reasons for that, but let's go with some of the more interesting applications of psychology. You're collecting stamps because you're angry. You keep on having different events and it builds up your list and at a certain point you end up having an argument Well, that's at least three books in terms of stamps, so that's a lot of stamp collecting. Now you hear these really interesting responses like now you're going to get it, or I can't believe, after all, that I've done for you. Or look what you made me do. I love that one. Those kind of arguments are where you see stamp collecting and you can see it happening with parents. You can see it happening in a work environment. You can only take so much, and then you're going to have that moment where they snap. It really is where communication isn't the best, whether it be at home, whether it be at work. The point of stamp collecting is. Stamp collecting Really speaks to how good your communication network, your ability to communicate, your listening and your talking skills. Those things all kind of intertwine on stamp collecting.
Speaker 1:And then the things that I find pretty sad in terms of stamp collecting is when you talk about guilt-free divorces, those kind of environments where it's like a personal environment. You hear things like people who forget their anniversaries. Okay, that's not, boy, have I had that problem of how many times I forgot the anniversary and I'd be in trouble? I'm married for 47 years, so I have a very forgiving wife. I don't miss the anniversaries. But there's been maybe a couple occasions over 47 years where lines like after all, I could have been with so-and-so, but I ended up with you, or he hasn't so much as lifted a finger with the kids, and the list goes on.
Speaker 1:How you handle divorce is also that communication. If you don't have the partnership, if there isn't that kind of exchange of ideas, if you're just collecting every time that you have something that goes wrong and then you're going to hand in the booklet because now you're going to have a guilt-free argument during your marriage and you collect enough of these booklets and enough of those arguments and you get that guilt-free divorce. Well, I did everything I could. It sounds like a vicious game, john. It is, and it's self-inflicted. That's what Dr Brenning was talking about.
Speaker 1:Dr Durst was talking about the other piece that's interesting. That I should say is you're probably a stamp collector at work and you're probably a stamp collector at home. You're probably a stamp collector with the kids. It just goes right down the line. Because it comes back to that how good are you in terms of communicating? How well do you process this stuff? You don't know how to process it. Well, you start running into examples where people pick extremes. I think a pretty good example, greg, with your human resource background, and it relates to a guilt-free I quit moment, those kinds of times where the job gets to the point where you had enough. Maybe you can give some examples associated with that guilt-free prize.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks, john. I've got a couple. I'm going to do the guilt-free termination first. This was very early in my career. I'm really low on the poll, so to speak, as far as individual contributorship. We had a vice president of human resources. We had several directors. One of the directors was slated for taking the vice president's place someday, but I'm here to tell you because I was just really low on the poll. This person gave me a chance to collect a lot of stamps, made me angry a lot, those red stamps. I got dumped on a lot.
Speaker 1:Okay, can you do this, hey, yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't talk to your manager or your director, but I'm going to talk to you and I want you to do this for me. I felt it was thankless and he was just dumping on me. He had been doing this kind of behavior not just to me but to my peers and others and his peers, other directors for quite a few years. I know the vice president at the time knew this guy wasn't worth probably saving, so to speak, but he just wasn't going to pull the trigger, he just wasn't going to do anything. He just went on and on and on.
Speaker 1:Until that's the executive side of politics, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I brought this guy in. I've got to make him good. Hey, I said I wanted to take my place someday, so it wasn't going to happen easy or overnight. Some of us thought it may never happen at all, until this individual stepped over the line. This individual essentially had behavior that was unacceptable, zero tolerance. This individual hit the third rail.
Speaker 1:Yes, like the L station at third rail with the 240 volts you don't get a second chance, you don't, john?
Speaker 2:You guys zapped and there is no coming back from that. Although a lot of us were relieved and thankful, the big boss, the stamp collecting finally did pay off, because he walked away feeling like, hey, he fired himself. I didn't do it.
Speaker 1:I got people fighting or drugs on site or anyone of those, especially at the executive level. They start getting the touch that third rail, it's like that. Sorry, that's not our organization's approach.
Speaker 2:But it reminded me as a kind of a youngster there about collecting stamps and what's it going to take. And I do believe the person the VP suffered a little bit internally because his pride was hurt and he wasn't happy with having the terminated individual but he definitely wasn't happy with saying this guy could take my place someday.
Speaker 2:Everybody fired himself, like he said, exactly he did and he was like you know, you go free for the VP on that one. I had a situation where I was working in another company some years ago where I just felt like I was collecting stamps and they were not the good stamps. There were red stamps, they were blue stamps, probably a brown one in there as well, and it was to the point where I, would you know, get up, lived in the suburbs of Chicago, taken the train in every day, and my stomach would hurt because I was pretty sure I was going to collect some stamps that day.
Speaker 1:Physically.
Speaker 2:Emotionally, physically, mentally, emotionally, I was just not good. And when I would see this individual and would interact, because I had a dotted line to this individual, it just wasn't good. I expected it to be bad. It was bad. I turned around and just said, okay, another day We'll see what happens tomorrow. I didn't do anything to really help myself. I probably should have talked to someone, got some counseling, some career advice internally. I didn't do that. What I did was listen to an opportunity from the outside. A recruiter reached out to me and said Greg, I got the ideal job for you, I got the perfect job for you.
Speaker 1:How many books do you need to take that job?
Speaker 2:I was ready to go, John.
Speaker 2:Yeah probably 20 books ready to go, ready to cash them in, and it was just that easy. And guess what? I didn't feel bad about it because I collected all these stamps, I had a golden opportunity that was thrown my way, and so, hey, I feel bad, but I don't feel bad because, again, I've got these stamps, I'm going to cash them in now, and so for me it was a learning experience as well about looking at other opportunities to try to resolve situations and not become a good stamp collector, because that's just not healthy. It just wasn't good.
Speaker 1:So it also affects health and that's one of the other things that Dr Durst was talking about. This example of games people play. It can be anywhere from, as you were describing it the stomach you could have it twisting, and people talking about feeling ill, knowing that they're going to an environment that's caustic. That stress, that whole environment can get you anywhere from a hospital visit to the morgue. It all depends on how many stamps. If you collect enough stamps, yes, you can walk yourself right into the morgue. That is what I'm trying to get. The author's name again, bernie, eric Bernie's point. So stamp collecting is a dangerous function. But there's another stamp collecting that I always thought was interesting and it was Dr Durst's example of gold stamps. And when he started the description of gold stamps, it was a great line. He said oh, no, no, no. There's people that will say no, no, I collect red stamps or I collect brown stamps, but I don't collect gold. Sorry, that's not what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:And it spoke exactly to what happened to me in my first professional job performance review. I was working for a Fortune 500 company and my review was going along pretty well, and at the end there was a description of areas that I needed for improvement and there was two areas of improvement. It's like, ok, I didn't hear anything about that review except for the two areas of improvement. I was stuck on it. Then manager stopped and said you know, I can tell this isn't going the way that you thought it was going to go and I was reviewing the two things that he brought up and he go John, did you listen to 90% of what I just got done explaining to you? You have a very good performance review. You got a merit increase with less than one year of service with the organization.
Speaker 1:He did a very good job. Yeah, you have areas of improvement, but it's your first year. And now I had that voice in the back of my head and it was the whole thing about what kind of stamps do I actually collect? And I realized I have a silver stamp here and what I'm supposed to do is say thank you, which is what I did. It's human nature to only hear the negative and to think and exaggerate the negative. And I find that I had performance reviews and I have to be careful to make sure that I'm listening to all of it, because if I only hear the negative and when, I would give a performance review and I see somebody doing the exact same thing that I was doing.
Speaker 1:You have to sympathize because a lot of people that's human nature they only heard what you said, that you didn't like, didn't hear all the things that you liked, because that's fine, but that's a gold stamp. Thanks very much, but that's not what I'm collecting today.
Speaker 2:And you know, John, sometimes we talk about the value of those gold and silver and green stamps and people think about money a little bit more in the paycheck, big bonus. But sometimes they could be non-financial and be gracious with those kind of opportunities. Maybe it's a handwritten note from your boss that you can hang on to put on your little Bolton board or keep in your own collection. Maybe it was a luncheon in your honor for some great work you did that people are saying hey, really, thank you, thank you. Maybe it's at a meeting, a team meeting, and your boss brings up your name and everybody applauds. Those are wonderful things too. They don't have to be associated with money. Their feel could keep sake, recognition of something very positive that you've done and that's been appreciated.
Speaker 1:And it reminds me of. I had managers who were reporting to me that would tell me that I was the best manager that they have ever worked for and a humor that I got is I was also working for the worst executive I ever had to work for, for the same organization. But yeah, accepting the positive and not concentrating on the negative is one of my problems that I've noticed in my past. So, yeah, we all collect stamps. The secret is, there isn't really a point in time we were handing in the books or this free trip to Bahamas, what we actually do for ourselves and what we do in that work environment. Whether you've made the decision to challenge that environment or to leave that environment, it's all how you handle the stamps and hopefully you can manage them where you won't have to collect. That's the key. So I think we've talked a lot about stamps. Greg, what are we going to be talking about during our next podcast?
Speaker 2:So, john, our discussion on the next podcast will be around getting some satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Man, I can hear that Rolling Stone song right now. So now we have to do that housekeeping side of it. My book that helps for this podcast is available on Amazoncom and Lulucom building your leadership toolbox. My ebook is available on Barnes Noble the podcast. Obviously you have found it, thank you. It's available on a lot of the popular formats. Dr Durses books and MBR programs available on wwwsuccessgrowthacademycom. The music is brought to you by my grandson.
Speaker 2:Well, greg thanks, thanks, john, as always Next time.
Speaker 1:Next time, next time, oh my God.