Hacking Surreal Times- 4 Tips for Leaders Fueled by Personal Power
A young girl, standing in the center of the US Capitol rotunda, looking up, slowly turning.
That was me, many years ago. All I remember are the gold stars and the shiny long marble floors. I was more excited about finally seeing the Pandas at the National Zoo, after waiting for two hours in a long line.
As an adult, I’m less star-struck with our national government, regardless of who is in the Oval Office. I do know, though, that the U.S. Capitol building is a special place. It belongs to all of us.
I’m really good at controlling my emotions. It doesn’t make me special, its just the way I am. Having said that, I had to take a moment and process some anger at the sight of armed citizens invading our Capitol building at the urging of the President. It felt personal.
The bigger takeaway is this: The string of nonstop turbulence since COVID-19 is not ending anytime soon. There is no vaccine for social unrest and climate change.
Buckle up, because surreal is gettin’ real.
This doesn’t have to be horrible, you know. We can even enjoy parts of this. You know — in a circus carnival crazy mirror house way.
You can prepare yourself and lead others in navigating these changes.
Here are 4 tips — 3 easy and one hard — to protect your perimeter and convert what happened at the Capitol, and other surreal current events, into fuel, instead of being swept away with frustration or anger.
Start with your attention. Do you control what comes into your field of awareness, and when?
I work online, so obviously, I am online most of the day.
Yet I did not see the news about the attack on the Capitol until the next day.
Am I out of touch? No. I am in control.
I control, as much as I can, when and where I get my news.
This leads me to Tip #1 — Control your media consumption.
Part A: Don’t look to Facebook for news. Why are we doing that?
If we want to read the news, how about going to a news website, preferably an unbiased source like the Associated Press.
Part B: Control your FB feed.
I mute or defriend negative people on FB. Done.
Even so, I would still see some “news” shares on Facebook, so I use a Chrome app called News Feed Eradicator for Facebook. It is the BEST thing ever. I’d like to thank top coach Jenna Faith for the tip.
When I open Facebook, I see a cheesy inspiring quote, not a list of random posts courtesy of Facebook’s algorithm, including “news” from other people’s shares that I don’t want in my head.
The Social Dilemma docudrama assures us that we are doomed to be exploited and controlled by social media companies. That has not been my experience.
With the help of this one little app and knowing how to use the off button on my iPhone, I see very little negative news. At all. Not surprisingly, they don’t talk about this approach in the Social Dilemma, as that would have made it into a short helpful PSA instead of a rambling biased movie.
I do remember seeing a pretty humorous post on Instagram from @chalenejohnson about Chuck E. Cheese having better security than our institutions, but I was consciously in work mode, not scrolling, so I didn’t click through to see what she meant.
That leads me to tip #2 -
Don’t chase rabbits on social media.
News flash — the people behind the most prolific personal brands online, spend almost zero time, personally, scrolling social media and consuming other people’s content.
If and when they are on social, they are connecting strategically with a purpose. Their staff handles the rest of their posts, responses and likes.
You don’t have to have a huge following to be the boss of your social media time.
I do not have a huge following (yet) and I am very choosy and strategic where I spend my personal time on social. That, and the News Eradicator app I mentioned, saves me countless hours of wasted time and buckets of mental stress.
On to tip #3 — It’s who you know.
Backstory -
I was in at least 3 zoom meetings for business after the Capitol attack, and the event never came up.
No one started the call with, OMG did you see what is going on at the US Capitol?
I run an active Facebook group for women entrepreneurs, and not one person posted about it.
In fact, they still haven’t.
Do you know why?
We are focused on what we can control.
We are busy connecting and doing in our sphere of influence — our businesses, the people we are here to serve, the impact we are here to create.
I limit my interactions with negative fearful people with narrow vision. I’ll come back to that in a sec with tip #4, (the biggest tip of this post).
A few years ago, even before social media, I had started to drift, complain and harden with negative judgments. I didn’t like who I was becoming, so I began a gratitude journal and cleared out negative people and media.
We are social creatures. We absorb and also influence the energy of those around us. This has a big impact on our inner game.
This leads me to the last tip — #4 Compassion.
Now, avoiding negative sad people doesn’t mean I can pretend like they don’t exist. Thank goodness there are some very talented coaches and therapists to help them transform and feel better. If you are reading this, you may be one of those special beings. Thank you!
When we see bizarre armed people with viking hats in red,white and blue face paint, who apparently decided to storm the US Capitol because COVID-19 kept them out of the stadiums this year, we are seeing people at the extreme edges of a lifelong struggle they cannot win.
Deep down they feel like losers.
They act out to feel powerful. They don’t realize that power originates from the inside because likely 1) no one ever told them that and 2) they have never felt very powerful from the inside out.
They don’t want change, yet change is the only constant. If you fight change, you are going to lose.
This is a cruel trick of the cosmic Shadow, or devil, take your pick. People who feel like powerless losers, want to feel more powerful, get stuck in an infinite loop of fighting change, and losing, which just reinforces over time their belief that they are losers.
What flag were they waving in the Capitol during the assault?
The Confederate flag.
Who were the losers in the Civil War?
I rest my case.
It’s not easy to be compassionate, believe me I know. Angry people in pain absolutely rain down drama, chaos and mayhem along the way.
However, as a visionary leader fueled by inner personal power, you already know that whether or not this is “easy” is irrelevant.
Practicing compassion is the leadership response. If you are building an online following, people that you don’t even know yet, will never meet, are out there paying attention.
One of the best books I have read about showing up imperfect and working from a place of personal power is Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable.
Now, compassion is not a central tenet of that book, but as a participant in author Tim Grover’s mastermind group program, I have seen that quality in real time from the author.
As a leader interested in helping people PROSPER and BENEFIT from rapid change, when you show up imperfect, in control of your emotions, and working from a place of personal power, this is the message you send:
Everyone is powerful.
We have the the power to choose.
We can choose to love ourselves better.
To choose to believe that we have something unique to contribute.
“What do I do well, that brings me joy? Who needs help with that? How can I help them?”
We can choose to work on that. We can choose to collab with and support other positive imperfect people doing the same.
Or we can choose to numb our days away with Netflix, video games, scrolling social and the mindless entertainment infinity online.
Or, we can choose to believe scary “us against the world” content, lash out, incessantly blame and judge other people, thus avoiding the hard work of loving ourselves better, first.
Heck, we can even choose to join a mob, riot in the streets of Portland or storm the US Capitol.
Choose wisely.
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For more inspo to lead and prosper in this wobbly world, I invite you to join me over at KalaPhilo.com.
