Tips for Managing Negative Energy in Interactions

Let’s be real. Not every conversation you have will be smooth sailing. You’ve probably been there—someone catches you completely off guard with a comment that feels like a subtle dig… or maybe not so subtle. It might come across as sarcastic or even insulting. Your first instinct might be to get defensive or shut down. But if you want to maintain your front-row presence, here’s your power move: Pause. Breathe. Ask a Question. When you feel that sting of a potentially insulting comment, here’s what I want you to do: Don’t react — respond instead, after taking a pause Take a deep breath — literally. This will instantly calm your nervous system.  Ask a clarifying question.  One of these works beautifully:  “That sounded like a dig—was that your intent?”  “That came across as sarcastic—was that what you meant?”  “That sounded like an insult, was that your intent?” Don’t ask all three. Pick one. And ask it calmly, curiously, and without sarcasm of your own. This simple, assertive question flips the energy. It puts the ball in their court. Now, they’re the one who has to explain, clarify, or walk it back. Why This Works:  You’re divesting emotionally from the interaction. Instead of taking it personally, you’re gathering information.   You’re showing up as a confident, credible communicator, not someone who gets rattled.   You’re giving yourself time to process, reflect, and respond instead of reacting.  Bonus Tip: Ask Them to Repeat It (The Right Way) Sometimes a comment hits you so hard or fast that you’re just… stunned. You have no words. That’s okay. You can always say: “I didn’t quite catch that—can you say it again?” Say it from a place of genuine inquiry, not aggression. There’s a big difference between calmly saying, “Can you repeat that?” and flaring up with “Oh really? Say that again.” Front-Row Takeaway: Difficult conversations will happen. But you can choose to meet them with calm composure.  Keep your front-row seat by:  Taking a breath  Asking for clarity  Staying curious, not combative Because in the end, your confidence, your composure, and your credibility are always within your control. Here’s to holding your power, one breath at a time. See you in the front-row.

Three hacks I recommend to my executive coaching clients before they go into a challenging conversation: 1️⃣ Ground in your values before you go into the conversation. Write down three words to answer this question: "How do I want to be perceived by the person I'm talking with today?" This is a fast way to check that your planned behavior aligns with your values. 2️⃣ Get curious. Google the "Ted Lasso get curious scene" if you need inspiration. Many times, conflict happens because two people simply aren't seeing each other. They get so stuck in their own perspective, fears, and hurt that they aren't able to see the other person's viewpoint. Go into the conversation with the intention of asking questions to better understand the person across from you. 3️⃣ Reflect the other person's perspective. Even if you disagree with someone, you can always make them feel heard. You can listen to them and "reflect" back what you hear them saying. Say: "Here's what I hear you saying. {Summarize in your own words.} Am I getting that right?" Reflecting allows us to help another person feel heard, and then you can present your own alternative opinion on the topic. We're always going to bump with other people inside our work lives and personal lives. We're all different humans with different perspectives, values, ideas, motivations, fears, joys, and needs. When we're different, we will naturally bump into others. Our goal isn't to prevent friction. Our goal is to make friction a useful tool for productive conversation. As long as we can see each other, we can move forward together. We can turn conflict into a trust-breaker into a trust-maker. I want to know from you, LinkedIn friends: How do you prepare for a challenging conversation with someone?

Don’t blow your cool… When you are working with customers you must be ready for the unexpected and for the occasional unhappy customers. So, it’s important to have a mindful way to remain calm when others may be out of control. 1. Get comfortable with pausing. Don’t imagine the worst when you encounter a little drama. When someone is acting irrationally, don’t join them by rushing to make a negative judgment call. Instead, pause and take a deep breath. A moment of calmness in a moment of tension can save you from a hundred moments of regret. 2. Think bigger. When we think bigger, we can see that small things matter very little in the grand scheme of things. It’s not worth our energy. 3. Respect people’s differences. Being kind to someone you dislike or disagree with doesn’t mean you’re fake. It means you’re mature enough to control your emotions and do the right thing. Just because someone does it differently doesn’t make it wrong. Period. 4. Put yourself in their shoes and give them grace. When you can put yourself in the other person’s shoes, you give them the space to regroup without putting any extra pressure on them. Hey, we all get upset and lose our temper sometimes. So, remind yourself that we are all more alike than we are different. When you catch yourself passing judgment, add “just like me sometimes” to the end of a sentence. 5. Don’t take things personally. If you take everything personally, you will be offended for the rest of your life. Even when it seems personal, rarely do people do things because of you, they do things because of them. The way people treat you is their problem, how you react is yours. 6. Create positive morning routines to start your day right. Don’t rush into your day by checking your phone or email. Create time and space for morning routines that get you moving in the right direction. 7. Cope using healthy choices and alternatives. When we face stressful situations, we often turn to unhealthy choices — drinking alcohol, eating sugary snacks, smoking, etc. It’s easy to respond to stress with unhealthy distractions. So, pay more attention to how you cope with stress, and replace bad coping habits with healthy coping habits. 8. Remind yourself of what’s right. At the end of the day, reflect on your small daily wins and all the little things that are going well. Count three things that happened during the day that you’re grateful for. And then pay it forward — do something for someone else that makes them grateful at the end of their day. 9. Establish and enforce healthy and reasonable boundaries. Practice becoming more aware of your feelings and needs. Note when you’re resentful of fulfilling someone else’s needs and gradually build healthy boundaries by saying no to requests that cause resentfulness in you. What else can you do to keep your cool when it seems everything is out of control? #personaldevelopment #motivation #customerrelations #leadership

𝟯 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗔𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 - Self-awareness of when we are experiencing negative emotions helps protect us against our emotional reactions and guides us toward a thoughtful response. Taking a short time to Pause is hard, especially in the heat of the moment, because our minds and bodies quickly react when feeling threatened. Pausing allows us to regain our balance and perspective to choose a response that aligns with our values and goals. 𝟭) 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀: Understanding which conditions at work consistently cause you the most frustration, anger, or anxiety allows you to prepare strategies to respond effectively instead of constantly reacting. The Leadership Development Institute's research found that the most common behavioral triggers for negative emotional responses in the workplace were perceiving others as:  • Unreliable  • Unappreciative  • Micro-Managing • Abrasive • Hostile • Overly Analytical  • Aloof • Self-centered • Untrustworthy. 𝟮) 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗢𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗼 𝗡𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Another way to become aware of when your negative emotions are triggered is to understand how your body reacts when encountering a threatening workplace situation. As physical signals are tangible, they tend to be easier to recognize than being aware of your emotional state. Some of the most common physical responses when experiencing negative emotions are: • Clenched Jaw  • Shallow And Increased Breathing • Rapid Heart Rate • Sinking Feeling In Your Stomach • Flushed Face • Increased Sweating 𝟯) 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 Understanding your most common reactions when feeling triggered by negative emotions allows us to catch ourselves when we are reacting. It is important to stop ourselves from reacting to negative emotions because these behaviors rarely serve our longer-term goals and values. The ability to PAUSE and regain composure enables us to re-engage in the conversation and choose the responses that serve our best selves. Below are common reactions when feeling triggered by negative emotions: • Arguing Or Debating • Generalizing Based On One Incident • Denying Other Perspectives • Shutting Down • Blaming Others • Trying To Win At All Costs Learning to PAUSE helps you guard against negative emotions that distort how you perceive situations, make decisions, solve problems, and collaborate with others. The goal is to develop your ability to effectively manage your emotions so that they inform you but don’t define you. ✅ Do you agree?   𝗛𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 🔔 𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗜 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 | Tony Gambill #leadership #careers #management #humanresources

EMOTIONAL IQ > This week before you respond to an email, phone call, or not so pleasant situation, be careful on being so reactionary. When you receive an unpleasant email, it’s always a good practice when you write an email response, to NOT hit send. Come back to it. You will often read the email and say to yourself, what was I thinking responding like this. You can then send a much calmer and more appropriate response later. Or when you receive an unpleasant voicemail, do not respond with a phone call right away. Give yourself time to collect your thoughts and then respond later when you can have a much calmer and intelligent conversation. We need to be giving greater emphasis to the importance of how we respond to the emotion’s communication can trigger. A step back can be one of the most helpful decisions you can make. It is always good to hit pause since it helps you compose your thoughts and brings you into the present moment. For interactions with people, just hold off and listen. There’s no rule that you have to say anything immediately. Notice the thoughts that go through your mind and simply observe them without attachment. Where possible don’t feel you need to respond immediately as it can be very important to give yourself time. In other words, WAIT before responding to work out what needs to be considered most in making important decisions. This does not show weakness but can be an important opportunity for working out what needs to be given priority in decision-making which is not always what our emotions can trigger in us. Embrace a 10 second rule. Whenever the temperature in a conversation starts to go up, pause for 10 seconds before you respond. That's it--just stop and wait. In almost every situation where a conversation is getting out of hand, the 10-second rule can help diffuse your emotions and refocus on the people and your purpose. You'll be surprised how much time 10 seconds really is in terms of giving you a chance to collect your emotions and your thoughts. You might be even more surprised to discover how effective it is at getting a conversation back on track. The ability to not react when provoked is a superpower. It saves energy, lives, and preserves relationships. Afterall, showing your emotions in an email or during a conversation is like bleeding in front of a shark. It’s not going to turn out well for you. Your ability to communicate effectively is your most critical skill. More so as a manager or leader…your ability to produce results as a leader is constrained directly by your ability to communicate with your team, peers, and superiors. You cannot see your reflection in boiling water. Similarly, you cannot see the truth in a state of anger. When the waters calm, clarity comes. Cheers! JR