The question isn’t how you are when you’re good, but how you are when you’re bad. When you’re good, everything is fine, of course. The art is not to fall apart when you meet resistance — because we all do.
We all have our shadow sides. Sides we don’t want anyone else to know about. Shadow sides that come out when we get pressured, stressed and frustrated.
In your relationships with others, it’s your shadow sides you need to work on. When you’re good, everything is fine — but if you turn violent when you’re angry, it doesn’t matter how good you are afterwards. If you blow up at a colleague when you’re stressed, you can apologise all you like, but you’ll lose anyway.
“The best remedy for anger is a little reflection.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
In the short term: Get good at handling the rows and conflicts when they arise — because they will, for as long as you have feelings invested in the project.
If you get jealous, it’s about how you handle your jealousy when it arises. If you get angry, it’s about how you handle the anger when it arises. Hoping for a day without conflict is a complete dodging of responsibility. Work on yourself, your partner and your team, so that you all get good at being bad. That way you move on quickly when feelings boil over, and the day isn’t wasted just because it happened. And with that, you’ve built the platform for a good day — whatever happens.
In the long term: Put a Tibetan monk in a boxing ring and he’ll probably start hitting back at some point. Instead of managing your anger and stress, work on building yourself an everyday life that doesn’t leave you frustrated.
A good place to start is with the question: if you knew you couldn’t lose, what would you do?
/Martin
– Thank goodness it’s almost Monday!
– Thank goodness it’s almost Monday!
