The Positive Energy Workplace

I was recently in Costco with my daughter. We stocked up on water, TP, her favorite ice cream bars, that extra kitchen gadget we absolutely had to have (and more things that weren’t on our list), and we headed to the checkout.

We stood in line. It was packed. Lots of people loading up their baskets with water, TP, and ice cream bars. Everyone seemingly in their own worlds. On their phones. “Killing time.” (I don’t love this phrase. Do you?) Waiting out the line. Not a lot of presence, connection, or intention happening in the grocery store line.

It was our turn. I handed my card to the guy and asked him to do two separate rings. He asked me for two cards. I was confused.

As a business leader (or human being), you have things coming at you all day long: requests, demands, this call, that email, these 42 decisions, that permission slip, this contract, that field trip you've been asked to chaperone, this friendship that energizes you, that relationship that sucks the life out of you … You name it, it's likely coming for you. In what I call the blender, when you're in the midst of all this, it can be so easy to lose your space. Oh, so easy ... Unless you get really good at doing these five things that will help you hold your space, discern correct action, and keep your bliss so you be the leader you want and need to be.

So many of my conversations with other humans revolve around all the great opportunities, challenges, and things they have to address, tackle, and take care of. This conversation often escalates to them sharing a feeling of stress and overwhelm and sheer busy-ness. So much so that they may not even know where to start. In fact, the overwhelm can be so big, that sometimes nothing happens.

You have an awesome couple of weeks. Things are humming along. You make a couple (maybe many) big decisions. Buzz buzz, humm humm, you and your team are jamming.

One of the decisions (a really big one), is trickier, you have a strong reaction to it, but it's way easier to go for it, and you want to assume good, and others are a "yes", so you do...

I was leading a session with a group recently when the topic of feedback came up. The room froze. "What's your relationship with feedback?" I asked. "Fear, avoidance, dread, ineffective" were words that came up while the energy of discomfort and heaviness permeated the room.