by : lacylit10 Life Lessons

Emotion.

I write a lot about emotions and feeling them.  Psychology fascinates me, so it’s not surprising that this is where my writing leans.  But throughout my business and leadership readings, trainings, and experiences, it’s become quite evident to me how much emotion plays a part in our daily lives – and how many people dismiss it as playing an important part in our daily lives.

In a TED Talk presented by Harvard Medical School Psychologist Susan David, she performed a study of 70,000 people and found that 1/3 of these people judge or actively try to push aside “bad” emotions such as grief, anger, or sadness. 

Normal, natural emotions are now seen as good or bad.  But when we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop skills to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. 

Like, whoa. 🤯 She is so right!  And honestly, it bums me out.  I believe all emotions, good or bad (and everything in between and outside of), are part of life and should be felt, fully and completely.  It’s not what we do in life that makes life worth living, it’s the emotions that come with the doing that make us feel alive.  David validates this:

When we lean into the discomfort it helps us overcome it that much quicker.  The negative emotions help us feel alive.  Builds resilience and is a true driver to authentic happiness.

Some people say we can control how we feel.  I only partially believe that.  I cannot control how something I perceive hits me emotionally.  But the moment it hits me, I can manage that emotion.  Although I do believe that you can adapt and become more resilient to different emotions over time.  David explains in a way that may resonate more with a logical thinker:

Emotions are not directives.  The emotion is a data source.

Sometimes, we have a hard time naming specific emotions, but identification is essential.  When we label our emotions accurately we are able to discern the precise cause of our feelings activating part of our brain that allows us to take steps to move forward.

Personally, I am feeling a lot of different emotions during this pandemic.  It may seem that the “bad” is outweighing the “good”, but I guarantee you there are more wins in the day than you are giving yourself credit for. Yesterday, I went for a long walk.  Fresh air and exercise – win/win.  Got some ice cream – win.  Helped a friend with a problem he was having at work – win.  Woke up rested – win.  You get the picture.

I do encourage you to watch the full TED Talk, because Susan David has some really, really great quotes that I just couldn’t include them all here without completely plagiarizing her genius. (Although, I would totally love to take credit for some of her statements.) 😆🙌

At the end of the day, we’re all going through some tough shit here. You cannot control what others feel and how they deal with those emotions, but you can control how you deal with what you feel. So lean into it, own it, and work through it. 💖 How you feel will radiate outward. If we truly want to become “stronger together,” it starts within each of us.*

*Stay tuned for a post with more on this!

by : lacylit10 Farming, Leadership

The Middle.

During my United Fresh Produce Industry Leadership Program (#class24 💕), we had an incredibly smart, talented, and beautiful lady guiding us.  Her name was Julie, and she was fabulous.  (Still is!)  She had a very polite and kind way of telling you some honest truths.  She was blunt and funny.  She said a lot of memorable things during our time, but the one that keeps coming to my mind in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic is this: “Get the hell out of middle management as fast as you can.” (Her words exactly.)

Middle managers experience compression by those they lead and those who lead them.  It’s a tough place to be.  As we try to operate as an essential business providing food for millions of Americans who are sheltered in their homes, the amount of pressure and responsibility being placed on our societal function and our team has increased tenfold.

When the CDC first released guidance on preventative measures, it wasn’t anything we weren’t already doing.  Food contact surfaces are routinely cleaned and sanitized, employees frequently wash and sanitize their hands; they are supposed to cough into their elbow, and they are not permitted to come to work sick (among many other good health and hygiene best practices).  But the existing measures we had in place were not enough to protect the health of our employees and the safety of our products, additional measures had/have to be taken.

While our senior leadership is in direct communication with other business executives, regulatory agencies, and trade associations, the role of our middle managers has become even more critical in our day-to-day operations.  The information and guidance we receive changes by the hour.  We are scrambling to keep up, inform our middle managers, train our employees, and enforce many new policies – on top of an already full workload, and entering our busiest season 🥬.

“Middle managers have a complicated relationship with power because power is activated and experienced in the context of interpersonal relationships. When interacting with our superiors, we naturally adopt a more deferential low-power behavioral style. When interacting with subordinates, on the other hand, we adopt a more assertive high-power behavioral style. Failure to conform to these role-based expectations can lead to social conflicts and confusion, so people are very good at learning how to play the part that is expected of them.”

Erin M. Ancich and Jacob B. Hirsh (HBR)

Research shows that there are cognitive, emotional, and behavioral effects to power.  As middle managers navigate between high power (leading) and low power (being led), it becomes psychologically challenging to engage and disengage from one power level to another, often many times throughout a typical workday.  These conflicting roles cause feelings of stress, anxiety, and tension leading to physical risk factors such as heart disease and hypertension. In a study from Columbia University and University of Toronto, they found that mid-level employees have higher rates of anxiety and depression, adding to the long list of why middle managers are so unhappy.

Humans are inefficient when it comes to switching tasks, and it creates a negative mood spillover as we move from one task to another or one power level to another.  Middle managers are victims and carriers of change as they receive strategy instructions from the top and have to implement those strategies with those who work beneath them.  We’ve had to institute at least 10 new policies over the past 2 weeks in response to this pandemic – a taxing feat for anyone, let alone already worn down middle managers.

Most people believe that their time in middle management will be short-lived, but reality is that these employees are classified as just “stuck in the middle of everything.” They have an undergraduate degree, but not a graduate degree. They are 5-10 years into their careers, and they’re just good performers (not excellent, but not terrible either). I would also venture to guess these are the people in the midst of raising a family as well. They are considered a “neglected but critical” group.

But the #1 reason middle managers are unhappy is that they are led ineffectively. Again, middle managers stuck in the middle: expected to be good leaders when they’re not being led well.

True colors come out in times of crisis.  As Brené Brown says, “We can be our worst selves or our very best, bravest selves.”  We have a lot at stake right now, not just in health and economics, but also in business and society.  Strong leadership is essential, always.  We need to choose to be our best, bravest selves. We need to lead as we wish to be led! So, let’s lean on each other, support each other, and lift each other up. ✨💖 

by : lacylit10 Leadership, Life Lessons

Emotional.

Remember when I wrote about listening to the wrong podcast episode of The Happiness Lab that prompted the post Sharing is Caring?  Well, I finally listened to the episode that was originally recommended for me to listen to.  It was called “Don’t Think of the White Bear.” 

I don’t even remember why this specific episode was recommended to me by a colleague.  I think we were talking about how emotions are contagious.  But what I took away from the episode was actually justification to my feelings in the post Let Me Be.  Turns out, the best way to get over our emotions is to fully embrace them, while we’re feeling them.  This helps us get over them more quickly and makes them less impactful on the feelings of others.

Researchers conducted an experiment between parents and their children.  Some parents were exposed to a very stressful day, while others were not.  The parents who were super stressed were told to suppress their feelings and pretend that everything was okay while playing Legos with their children.  Researchers found that the children whose parents were suppressing stressful feelings performed worse at the task and had less fun than the other children.  The stressed parents got angrier, more upset, and they were less responsive to their children.  Their bad mood deteriorated their bad mood even further while playing with their kids.

We are inclined to believe that suppressing our feelings or pretending like they don’t exist is helping us, but it’s actually doing the opposite. It takes more work to ignore our feelings. 

Roughly 1,000 – 2,000 studies have been conducted on the health of people who either write or talk about traumatic experiences.  The people who confront their feelings tend to go to the doctor at half the rate, are in better physical health, have better immune systems, and perform better on tests. The Dalai Lama recommends that keeping a calm mind is the best way to work through our feelings.  One researcher does a short meditation when she is feeling frustrated or upset.  She intensely focuses on the emotion for a short period of time, and this allows her to move on more quickly and readily. 

Personally, I cry.  If I am super angry or upset or frustrated, I cry.  Likewise, when I am super happy or proud, I cry.  Whether the emotion is good or bad, when I feel intensely, I need to get it off my chest and release the buildup of emotional pressure.  Although I may not immediately feel 100% better, there is usually guaranteed improvement.

They say that self-awareness is the #1 quality of a great leader. Leaders recognize that emotions are contagious. They understand how they feel affects their thoughts and behaviors, which then affects the feelings and thoughts and behaviors of those around them – no differently than the experiment with stressed parents and their children.

Not coincidentally, the key to improving self-awareness is to fully embrace your emotions as you are feeling them. This helps you understand how your feelings influence your thoughts and behaviors. Having high emotional intelligence not only makes you a great leader, but it will also improve your relationships.

It’s one thing to know about self-awareness and how to manage your emotions, it’s another to put it into practice. Weather it’s a brisk walk, a meditation, or a good cry, find what works for you.

by : lacylit10 Leadership, Life Lessons

Sharing is Caring.

A colleague recently recommended I listen to an episode of a podcast called The Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos, but I accidentally listened to the wrong one. It was called “Caring What You’re Sharing.” I can’t really say it was an accident though, because the message actually helped solidify some thoughts I had swirling around. I’m inclined to believe there was a reason I listened the “wrong” episode.

Have you ever watched a movie with someone, and that person falls asleep? Or maybe when two of you go to dinner, but the other is on their phone? Think about how those circumstances make you feel. A little ignored? A little mad? A little lonely?

Turns out, sharing experiences with people really does shape our happiness.

Through a series of experiments, researchers found that sharing things with people intensifies our experiences. It makes the good things better and the bad things worse. But bad experiences are more bearable because someone is by our side. It serves as a function of bonding people together.

In one experiment, participants experienced an ordinary event with someone and an extraordinary event alone. What the researchers found is that the extraordinary event experienced alone actually made people feel less happy and a little bit isolated. They even felt a little guilty. Participants felt like they were bragging about their experience and neglected to want to share details because the other person couldn’t relate, detracting from the social bonding.

Have you ever had a friend tell you really good news where yes, you are happy for them, but at the same time feel a little sad or insecure for yourself? Or have you ever had something exciting happen for you but you downplayed the greatness, because you didn’t want to come off as arrogant or boastful?

I have. And honestly, I’m a little relieved that these are natural behaviors.

As we enter the holiday season, I think it’s a good reminder to just be aware. If you love this time of year, soak it up. Your happiness will rub off on others. And if you hate this time of year, suck it up. Your misery will rub off on others.

In leadership, we are taught to rise above our lowest self. So even if you don’t want to bond with crazy Aunt Mildred*, look for the bravery in her eccentrics. Even if you don’t want to hear about how much cousin Jim* hates his job, encourage him to see the positive. Because if you care about these people at all, your interactions and behavior will shape each of your experiences.

*Names changed to protect the innocent. 😂

by : lacylit10 Leadership, Life Lessons

Judgments & Assumptions.

I should have majored in Psychology.  Every time I ponder a subject for a post, I think about how the topic relates back to so many different emotions.  It takes me for.ev.er. to write a post because my thoughts are going a million different directions, and it’s hard to simplify into something you’d want to read.  (This is with the assumption that you actually find what I write interesting…)

For this post, I started thinking about assumptions.  I read somewhere, some place, that our brain compartmentalizes new information with like known information in order to help us process.  (That’s the gist of what I remember.  I read this a long time ago.)  But then I got to thinking about judgments, and why we tend to judge people.

Because I love analyzing and defining: (that’s totally not sarcastic btw):

judg·ment
/ˈjəjmənt/

1. the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.

as·sump·tion
/əˈsəm(p)SH(ə)n/

1. a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

If I had to guess, and I truly mean guess, because I am not educated on the human brain, I would say that we judge someone based on compartmentalized previous information, then we assume that it’s accurate based on that compartmentalized previous information.  You follow?

Then this creates norms.  Norms are social expectations that guide behavior.

For example:

If we see someone with an oversized white t-shirt, sagging baggy jeans, tattoos, and a shaved head with a bandana, I’m going to judge that guy as a gangster and assume this is correct based on prior knowledge.  Then I’m going to alter my behavior based on my fear that gangsters are dangerous.

This is a societal norm because of how gangsters are typically portrayed in media, and in a lot of cases, IRL.  It is not racism; it is not discrimination. However, it is stereotyping which is an entirely different post.  (See, this is what I mean, one thing leads to another!)  This is just how our brains work – to the best of my knowledge.  Again, not formally educated on the subject.

You always hear that people are quick to judge others.  But maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The bad thing is assuming that judgment is correct.  Judgment is just helping us process what we see.  But just because we perceive it as we judge, that doesn’t mean we should assume it to be true.

Don’t get me wrong, I am t o t a l l y guilty of this. We can make judgments and assumptions based on what we see, but when 90% of the iceberg is below the water line, you have to be open-minded enough to possibly change what you assumed to be true – even if it goes against the norm.