Here’s a useful tactic:

1) Empathise “God, sounds like you’re freaking out about your dad. And he’s not staying in quarantine. I imagine you’re really scared. Is that right? Is that what’s going on?”

2) Validate. “That makes perfect sense.” “I get you.” “It’s so frustrating when the people we love don’t listen to you. I get it, I really do. You’re frustrated and scared. Is that it?”

3) Support “Is there any support you want?” “Do you think it would help if we sit together for a while and breath?”

By naming the emotions at hand, it allow the other to get attention to it and externalise the emotion. And they get to feel that someone is feeling with them.

They learn that the emotions they are feeling are perfectly normal and that someone understands them.

Lastly, it’s to empower the individual to find a solution that is best for them. And you can be there to support.

Empathise, validate, support.

If your house is on fire, I don’t think it is a difficult conversation to wake everybody up and get the hell out of the house.

So what makes something difficult? I argue a difficult conversation is difficult because we want two things, not one thing. And that’s the beginning of stress.

Let’s define stress. In physical terms, stress happens when something wants to be in two places. If we apply pressure to both ends of an iron rod, stress is created. One part wants to be here and one part wants to be there.

And for us, stress is when we want to do two incompatible things at once. We have an inability to decide what’s important. We want to relax, but we need to work. We want to fire someone, but we want them to like us. Now, we’re under stress.

When we want to get out of stress, perhaps a good place to start is asking, what are the two things I am wanting at this moment?

It’s not the first person who pays you.

It’s certainly not the beta testers.

It’s not even your friend or family who listened to your ideas.

The first customer of any project, business or undertaking, is you.

Sure, your action might eventually be helping others. But you do it because of you. It benefits you.

It could be as obvious as money or status. Or it could be the joy of dancing with possibilities or the fuzzy feeling from the closeness with someone.

The trap is failing to accept that we do it because of us. We run into trouble over-extending ourselves and getting stuck in mental black holes.

Focusing your energy on yourself first (known as self-care) is going to make far more impact than trafficking in guilt and shame.

My wishes would come true and problems would go away.

Except that is not true.

As Derek Sivers points out, if more information were the answer, we’d all be billionaires with 6 pack abs.

A good plan is a good start. But it’s not enough.

It starts with enrolment and prioritisation. It is embracing confusion on the way to getting better. It is to do, to fail and to learn from failure. A feedback loop.

With understanding, it comes with the ability to adapt to different context. Lastly, we build habits, rules and system.

Step by step. Awareness, knowledge and application.

The best diet is the diet you follow.

Imagine that you are locked up in a steel box and flung up into the air with only some ropes. Would you do it?

This is scary stuffs. It’s insane.

Yet, we take the elevator everyday.

Along with trusting our life on airplanes, parachutes and brakes.

These innovations when arrived, brought along fear. And the work of public demonstrations, scientific papers and peer-to-peer persuasion begins. If it crosses the chasm, this becomes the culture.

And today, we get to cross the road without anxiety.

Changing the culture is hard. But we do it not because it’s hard, because it’s better.

Funny we don’t ask if want the left hand or the right hand.

Yet when it comes to business, we are being brainwashed into these binary choices such as creativity or discipline, innovation or execution, values or results, and purpose or profit.

Yvon Chouinard turned away from selling pitons, the entire company’s profit. And did the work of inventing a new method, educating and leading the rock-climbing community. Today, this is Patagonia.

Elon gave away all Tesla’s patents.

WordPress, an open-source effort is now powering a third of the world’s websites.

What if, instead of choosing one OR the other, the opportunity of greatness lies in the genius of the AND?

Towards better.

(Thank you Jim Collins for the inspiration)

When is it time to trust your gut?

Could it be when you’re reaching for the next pint of ice-cream?

Or when you’re raging and all you want is to inflict hurt on someone?

Perhaps not when you’re depressed and want to harm yourself.

The gut has much of the conscious and unconscious wisdom that we have access to. It is also the primal brain that is in charge of survival and replication.

The trap is believing all the answers lies in the ability to follow your gut. And turn away from our head and our heart. The opportunity is to use it all.

The head, the heart and the gut.

Your wishes would come true and your problems would go away.

Except that is not true.

As Derek Sivers pointed out, if more information were the answer, we’d all be billionaires with 6 pack abs.

A good plan is a good start. But it’s not enough.

It starts with enrolment and prioritisation. It is to embrace confusion on the way to mastery. It is to do, to fail and to learn. This becomes a feedback loop to getting better.

We strive for understanding, not memorisation. It is the ability to adapt knowledge to different situations and context.

Then lastly, we build habits, rules and system. We internalise and integrate. Not forgetting that, the best diet is the diet you follow.

Step by step. Awareness, knowledge and application.