Tag: emotions

Taking the Lead of your Information Space

As the U.S. mid-term elections result came through all of my media outlets, I realized once more how much time and space in my life is devoted to following international news, and how little control I have in the choice of news I am getting. The longstanding practice of selecting various sources to ensure a balanced daily intake of information has been challenged by the sheer amount of information coming from an increasing number of outlets with websites and social media, in addition to printed press, television, and radio. The pervasive presence of the media is part of many people’s everyday life, and quite apart from the challenge of selecting one’s information, I am increasingly aware of the crowding experience in one’s brain and the triggering effect on our emotional state. Do you feel as I do, oversaturated to the point of seeking a break from an information overdose?

We are subjected to an insidious flow of negative and stressful news day in and day out, just as we are now discovering the addiction phenomenon with the dopamine connection of liking posts on social media and the negative impact of not getting any “likes” to our posts… As we consciously walk back from this over-stimulation to enjoy a few days of quiet and disconnect (assuming we still can), we may come to realize the miraculous impact of creating a void in our daily routines. Creating space around ourselves, emptiness, is an invitation to new things to appear in your clutter-free life.

You have a choice and an opportunity to lead the way in your own life. Research shows that news, especially images, have a direct effect on your emotions, moods, and stress levels–not to mention your relationships. Free of the constant external stimuli, you have a chance to refocus your attention inward and resort to your own imagination for stimulation, creating what you desire, rather than reacting to the soap opera unfolding around you. New ideas will present themselves to you more readily, and you may even get around to developing a more conscious relationship to the news and external entertainment, controlling the time and type of media exposure you decide to accept for yourself.

Leading from emotions

Today I want to talk about something controversial. When I developed my Creative Leadership Program, I had an interesting conversation with my coach about leading from a place of vulnerability. Indeed, among leaders and leadership coaches, the idea of leading through emotions is highly controversial. After all, ever since the century of Enlightenment, the mind is meant to be in the lead, not emotions. I have experienced a very different approach, which might serve the leaders of tomorrow.

Why did emotions get such a negative reputation? I wondered about this for a while and came to the conclusion that emotions, especially negative ones like anger, sadness, or frustration, can prompt us to lose control of our emotional state, hence this negative judgment. Indeed, powerful emotions can lead us to explode with little control over the consequences. Yet, have you ever observed the surge of energy that comes with anger or frustration, or the depth that surges with sadness? I would suggest tapping into this magma of energy to lead the way and saddle at the helm of our lives.

How, you might ask? Indeed, harnessing the power of our emotions at the height of their expression can prove difficult. This is where leadership skills are needed. We have that innate ability to feel the power of our emotions and transform that energy into healthy ways of expressing it. I have noticed how anger and sadness–possibly the two poles of the same energy–can be transformed into a source of inspiration towards bringing about the change we want to see in the world. It is no accident that having accumulated significant anger and sadness over decades, I came to develop a program on “Be the Change You Want to See” as a way to make a contribution to the world.

Similarly, you may be able to transform feelings of frustration and stress towards thinking outside of the box. Creative thinking and writing are often the result of frustrations about the way things are, and a way to discover solutions to what originally left us stymied. Perhaps the most challenging emotion to transform might be fear. The need to feel the fear and stay with it allows us to re-examine our circumstances rather than flee and find a different angle, likely to give us unexpected insight into our life.

Where might this transformative process lead us? I would venture to say that this type of leadership is based on the power to redirect the flood of emotions we all experience in life daily towards productive, artistic, or laborious pursuits. I might add that channeling our emotions into constructive action can also prevent us from re-creating and re-living the situation, event, or expectation that originally prompted us to feel negative. Essentially, this is the type of leadership that transforms the negative and spins it into positive by harnessing the energy of negative emotions. Could it be a way out of emotional pain? Indeed, pain is no longer fed by our intellectual and emotional energy once the energy is re-used and transformed. It quickly ebbs away. This type of leadership is neither conceptual nor intellectual. It is rooted in the practice of honestly acknowledging and honoring our feelings, leading from a place of vulnerability.