Powerful Chemical Reactions

One summer lifeguarding when I was younger, we were told to clean out the pump room. 

In addition to pumps, the pump room had all the chemicals used to keep the pool clean and healthy. Since the bags were expired, we carried them out to the dumpster and tossed them in, regardless of which chemicals were in the bags.

They all sat in the pump room together without a problem, wouldn’t they be fine in the dumpster too?

After tossing a handful of bags in, a green smoke started to rise out of the dumpster. Clearly, and quite ignorantly, we started a potentially lung-destroying chemical reaction.

If we had thought about it, maybe we wouldn’t have done it. Or maybe we still would have because we were teenagers and didn’t think about or care about the consequences. Or maybe we were too young to recognize the power and opportunity of being responsible.

Even as adults, though, many of us create poisonous chemical reactions in the rooms we enter. 

Years ago, my wife shared with me how my energy when I enter the room with her and the kids can be jarring.

My energy didn’t match the existing energy in the room, and my family felt it. My being showed up as an interruption in the otherwise consistent experience they were having together. 

My being caused some dissonance for my family.

It’s true! I could tell. And taking ownership of my impact in the room with my family has been powerful in all areas of my life - if I can have a dissonant impact in the chemistry of a room, well then I can have a harmonic impact too.

I’ve still got room to grow in this, and nearly every one of us does.

How we’re being, how we’re showing up, has an inevitable impact on the chemistry in every room we enter.

Our being is often felt even if we're not meaning it to be. Our being can cause resonance or dissonance.

Our being has an impact whether we're aware of it or not - it's hardly ever neutral.

Just like those chemicals in the dumpster.

And there’s no one else who can control our being for us. That's up to us.

How are you committed to being (showing up) in the areas of your life?

Intentionality starts here.

Much Love. ❤️

P.S. Working with me has a profound and lasting impact on how people show up in their lives - for others and themselves. If you'd like to experience that, reply to this email and let's talk.

Only Extraordinary Leadership Produces Extraordinary Results

My colleague and I were stressed and worried. We were the two leaders in the room, and we did NOT produce the result we were supposed to produce. 

I spent 12 months in an intense leadership training program in my mid-20s, then another 6 months coaching other participants in the program. I’d produced excellent results over that time. What happened tonight?!

While my colleague and I reflected on the whole evening and what went ‘wrong,’ we were feeling exhausted and uncreative. Even though neither of us said it, we were both dreading our superior coming in and getting frustrated with us.

But that didn’t happen. 

Instead, I experienced one of the most powerful lessons in leadership I’ve ever witnessed.

Our superior came in, heard what the results were, thought quietly for about 10 seconds, and then she said:

“I’m sorry. I must not have prepared the room as well as I thought. This is on me.”

Immediately, my stress and worry disappeared. My heart lightened and my mind cleared. All of a sudden, I could see clearly how I could’ve performed better throughout the evening. It felt so good to do this reflection, and the exhaustion we felt just moments before had vanished.

At around the same time as this event, in my first year teaching, I took responsibility for blaming a class of 14-year-olds for my feeling irritated and stressed. Afterward, a student said, “Mr. Scott, you shouldn’t apologize. It makes you look weak.”

I told him, “Michael, taking responsibility is the most powerful thing I’ve ever done.”

Taking responsibility is not how leaders typically behave. Somehow, that hasn’t made it into a typical leader’s training program. This is a little surprising, given that the results an organization produces (or fails to produce) always point towards leadership.

But they’re human too! So their initial reaction is often defensiveness, justification, dismissal, a power play of some kind, or blame. 

There’s nothing wrong with those reactions. They’re just…ordinary. 

Since they’re leaders, though, we have higher expectations of them than our peers:

That they’ll hear us when we speak to them.

That they’ll make room for our experience and emotions, which are all valid.

That they’ll not take things personally. 

There’s nothing wrong with ordinary - it’s just not extraordinary.

Extraordinary listening.

Extraordinary respect.

Extraordinary understanding.

Extraordinary compassion.

Extraordinary ownership.

Extraordinary results.

Ordinary leadership creates ordinary results. Extraordinary leadership creates extraordinary results.

The first powerful step towards extraordinary leadership is a willingness to take 100% responsibility for the results.

Much love. ❤️

The Beautiful Pain of Our Emotions

I felt an intense tightness in my stomach, and my mind was revved up and already worrying itself in circles.  

As I moved through my morning routine and eventually sat on my meditation cushion, I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable emotionally.

This happened exactly one month ago - I remember the date because it was the day before the last Mind Mastery Experience I led.

I thought I should cancel the event. I thought I should cancel my client calls for the day. I thought I should get up and move and focus on something else. I thought I should get up and do literally anything else but sit there and be with what I was feeling and thinking.

I plan for 15 minutes of meditation as part of my morning routine for exactly this reason: to practice being with reality as it is, instead of running towards the first distraction I can think of.

Our distractions dilute our experience, and we’re not often better off for it.

I wrapped up my journaling (which mostly consists of the practice of forgiveness and reminding myself who I am), closed my notebook, then closed my eyes.

The emotion I was sitting with was literally the most intense emotion I’ve possibly ever felt.

It felt like a group of sharp, jagged, shiny, black obsidian in the base of my gut, piercing up through my lungs and heart. It made it tough to even breathe.

I didn’t even know what emotion it was at first. I could just feel its darkness and its sharpness. It hurt.

Was it sadness? Was it fear? Was it hopelessness?

I didn’t feel like I should sit there with it. I thought something was wrong. I thought something needed fixing. I thought I needed to do anything but sit there and be with this terrifying emotion.

And I continued to sit there.

There are many many practices out there to support our emotional freedom. I used my go-to, a customized version of the Hawaiian spiritual practice of Ho’oponopono (write to me if you’d like my notesheet on it).

No joke, within 10 minutes, the emotion was complete and I was sitting in peace.

As I sat there, the name for the emotion eventually came to me: despair.

Here’s what effective emotional freedom practices do: they help me see that I am bigger than the emotion. I am the one experiencing the emotion. I am at the helm, and this emotion is an experience I’m having.

I could have lessened the intensity of the emotion by diluting my experience with social media, tasks, continued worried thinking, or any other number of distractions.

We dilute our experience with distractions.

We dilute our communications with bull crap and platitudes.

We dilute our apologies with justifications.

We dilute uncomfortable emotions, yet they don’t actually go away. Diluting them with distraction or resistance simply keeps the energy of the emotion stagnant, unintegrated, unwanted, and un-cared for.

Another path is possible - the path to emotional freedom.

I’ve learned how to love myself deeply by being willing to be with uncomfortable emotions. They are a secret gateway to the best parts of our humanity.

Even the piercing obsidian of despair can blossom into something extraordinarily beautiful.

Much Love. ❤️