"The Note"…sharin' what I'm thinkin' about with you

Y.5 N.13 - It often comes out of nowhere.

Dear ,

It often comes out of nowhere.

I don't know...where. 

Emotion

Reflection is how I make sense of the emotions I feel. Re...Flect. It’s how get more out of it; how I connect with it; how I become better #BecauseOf it.

I don’t want things to “just” have happened. I want them to change me; if they can. If I can change. The fact that I can go back and connect with and to a feeling I had… that is power...and powerful. As I reflect on the 6 basic emotions (keep reading), it makes sense that there is so much negativity around us: 

Fear

I read three books last week, and I continue to explore those dominant emotions (and how they drive me) that create my own kaleidoscope of perspectives. The authors I read last week:

Eric Fromm: On Being Human

Shane Parrish: Clear Thinking

Anthony Iannarino: The Negativity Fast

Here comes a recap of academic, popular psychology, and science fiction viewpoints on emotion's “use” and place in leader development.

Academic studies often refer to Paul Ekman's work. He found and wrote about what are considered universal emotions expressed across different cultures. He initially identified six:

1. happiness,
2. sadness,
3. fear,
4. disgust,
5. anger,
6. and surprise.

Your job: label six 3x5 cards … one card for each emotion. Then, over the next 10 days, label one row with something that caused that emotion at the end of the day. (Write what happened that brought you one of those 6 emotions.) At the end of 10 days… you’ll 10 days you will have 60 (that’s SIXTY data points).

After THAT, call a coach, a mentor, a friend… heck, meet with me: www.15wjw.com 

In the PopPsy world (popular psychology) the landscape of dominant emotions expands to include variations and combinations of basic emotions. Work by the Dalai Lama, Shawn Achor, Dan Gilbert, and Napoleon Hill (and even father-and-son Stephen R. & Stephen M.R. Covey) noted the importance of emotions like:

anxiety,

love,

jealousy,

and excitement. 

(Oh, and those exist in life AND at work!)

NOTE: If you have NOT read “Think and Grow Rich,” stop everything you’re doing and buy a paperback copy, go to a place where you can read for two hours without distraction. Here’s my offer: 

1. If you wasted 2 hours, send me a bill. I’ll pay you for the book, the coffee/beer you drank, and two hours of your current billing rate.

2. If you change your life because of that book, in 5 years, send ME a check. In 60 months, you get to decide how much that book was worth me bribing you to read!

Now is our time to build upon the foundational work of academics to apply the concepts of #emotion more broadly to everyday life.

In science fiction, writers speculate about emotions in diverse contexts, including non-human entities. For those of us pushing on LLMs and Generative AI, we are already experiencing more welcoming and satisfying “customer service” from ChatGPT than I did last week at:

A Marriott property

The local YMCA

The Amex Centurion Lounge at two US Airports

To the one, I was a secondary/extra thought; to two of the “customer service” representatives, I was an obvious interruption to their “phone scrolling” they were doing as I approached the front desk.

ChatGPT (and oh-so-many-other bots) is 100% focused on me when I show up.

The bot pays attention, remembers and uses my preferences, and can pick up where we left off…even with a multi-hour or multi-day gap between generating content through my prompting. 

Emotions such as awe, curiosity, and hope are often depicted as dominant in narratives exploring human experience in the face of the unknown. 

As I reviewed White House guidance on Artificial Intelligence (please, if you’re an American below the age of 95, read it; start here and then go here), I had to spend extra time - and even printed - Section 3.

Friends, we are stepping into a future few are ready to “feel.” For instance, consider artificial intelligence and Isaac Asimov’s "Three Laws of Robotics," in which AI can recognize fear, empathy, and the desire for self-preservation as significant emotional motivators.

I know I need to bring my lens (biases, assumptions, fears, etc) to understanding emotions, from fundamental research to both tactical and strategic. These perspectives - mine, yours, the people we know and like, the people we know and DON’T like, the people we don’t know yet - will enrich OR destroy the dialogues on how emotion is allowed OR suppressed as we move forward. 

My advice (and yes, I’m comin’ off the top rope here!): Be emotional. Feel your emotions. Tell them. All of it. 

Your love. 

Your anger. 

Your fear. 

It happened last Tuesday; I felt emotion. Over the morning that emotion strengthened and was about to overwhelm me. So, I closed my eyes in the room I was in to pause and give myself that gift... the gift of my own attention.

You see, last Tuesday, I was in Colorado Springs, I spent the day with leaders who've given a lifetime of service alongside their chosen life partners. More than 20 "humans being" at tables in a u-shaped room setup, each leaning forward, toward the "being, doing, and having-ness" of servant leadership.

I was scheduled to "brief" from 1300-1400 and had gained permission to be in the room for the first 5 hours of the day. With my snacks/lunch at the ready, I promised to "stay off to the side," as I didn't want to interrupt or distract. Of course, I took many notes (and I mean a LOT!).

I recalled my mentor, Frances Hesselbein, leading up to my time with the group. Her 108th birthday would have been the next day: Wednesday, 1 Nov 2023.

And, on my heart, was the fact that this was the first one since 2013 that I wouldn't have been able to call her. On the top of my notes page, before the morning started, I wrote the quotes she gave me to live by:

“Be ye an opener of doors…”

“To serve is to live…”

“See what they don’t, feel what they can’t, say what they won’t…”

So, the stage was set for me to bring the emotion I felt walking to the front of the room. The following 54 minutes were powerful; I was present, focused, and deliberate with each part of the briefing and facilitated two (of three planned) #Connection activities.

Oh, and I led with emotion.

Sending love your way from Montgomery, AL.

JW

PS: I'll be Kansas City this Friday and Saturday...if you're around Friday night, we'll be at Boulevard!

PPS: I'm building the next con/divergent book club series. If you have a book you know I should read, send it my way!