What do you do with a comment that catches you off guard? One that really throws you for a loop? Some of us might lash out. Say something we later regret. Or we might freeze and wish we said something after the fact. But there's a third option that allows us to respond from a place of calm wisdom.
There are 2 things we can do to make sure we're caught off guard less often so we can act in a measured way more often: 1. Don't expect a perfect scenario 2. Learn to only care about the important things.
I cover both of these in detail in today's episode. You'll gain access to the part of you that doesn't get triggered easily. Who can roll with the punches without getting walked on. Tune in to respond better to your kids, your coworkers, and your wife when something unexpected gets thrown your way.
What do you do with a comment that catches you off guard? One that really throws you for a loop? Some of us might lash out. Say something we later regret. Or we might freeze and wish we said something after the fact. But there's a third option that allows us to respond from a place of calm wisdom.
There are 2 things we can do to make sure we're caught off guard less often so we can act in a measured way more often: 1. Don't expect a perfect scenario 2. Learn to only care about the important things.
I cover both of these in detail in today's episode. You'll gain access to the part of you that doesn't get triggered easily. Who can roll with the punches without getting walked on. Tune in to respond better to your kids, your coworkers, and your wife when something unexpected gets thrown your way.
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Kicking off the Durable Dad podcast, episode 45.
Speaker 1:
It is a pretty dreary day morning here and it was kind of nice. I spent the morning Brenda and I working together in our living room. The fire was blazing, those snowy slushy outside, and it was just really nice. The living room was clean, no kids were home and that just isn't the way it's been. For the last three weeks. People kind of went back to that feeling of before kids, when we had very minimal things, not much stuff at all, and talk about how we have too many things for our kids and we need to clear out the toy room and all that. It sounds lovely, but we just haven't done it. Maybe we'll do it someday, who knows? But today's been a great day. So now back in my office recording this podcast.
Speaker 1:
Topic today is getting caught off guard those times when all of a sudden you have to deal with something that someone says that we didn't expect to come out or we were blindsided by a certain comment and just things that we don't really see coming. It could be a question that's thrown at you. When we get caught off guard we usually go into that fight-or-flight state pretty quickly and we can get defensive and we can lash out, say something that we might not really mean, because when we're in that fight-or-flight defensive mode we're not thinking very wisely, we're not acting from our wisdom, or we freeze and we kind of feel paralyzed and maybe we don't say anything or we think I should have said this. It could be feedback that we get at work. We could be thinking that works going really well and that we're crushing our work, and then we get a review and the CEO doesn't really feel the way you do. Or the opposite could happen. You think that your employees are handling the client relationships and the clients are doing well and then all of a sudden you get caught off guard because a client calls you directly and tells you that things are screwed up and things need to be fixed.
Speaker 1:
It can happen in all walks of life. There's this guy I'm working with that he works from home. His wife popped into his office and said hey, cleaning lady's going to be here in an hour. Do you mind straightening up a little bit before she gets here? She said that and he was just triggered. We're going to talk about this today. How can we become a man who's not easily caught off guard or, when we are caught off guard, or a leader that can recover quickly, can recover respectfully?
Speaker 1:
And what I'm going to give you today are two ways to start thinking about this concept of getting caught off guard and responding in a measured way, the way we want to. The first one is that we don't want to expect perfect scenarios. When we're caught off guard, it's usually because we have some type of expectation that things we're going to go a different way, our expectations I call them playbooks. Talk about it in episode number 12. The concept of a playbook is basically expectations, wishes, desires we have for people, what people should say, what we want people to do and also just life in general, the way we want events to happen. When we hold on to a playbook and have these expectations, what's going to end up playing out is something different. Our expectations usually aren't met and if we're holding on to our playbooks tightly, that's when we're going to get triggered, that's when we're going to get defensive, that's when we're not going to go with the flow.
Speaker 1:
For example, I have a buddy that got a Christmas present for their kids. He thought it was a pretty awesome Christmas present. He gave it to their kids. His playbook was that he was going to give this present to his kids and that his kids were going to open it and be excited. I don't know if he thought cheer and jump up and down and give them big hugs and kisses and say I love you, dad, thank you so much. I don't know if his playbook went that far, but it was something along those lines. His kids opened it and their reaction didn't match his playbook. They were happy, they said thanks and then they moved on to the next present. There wasn't that big celebration that he was expecting. So what does he do If he's not holding on to his playbook? He can be like yep, that's how kids act. Some presents land, some presents don't. If he does hold on to his playbook and he's caught off guard by his kids' reaction, he might get angry at his kids for not being respectful or not being grateful, or he might feel disappointed like he messed up and he didn't buy the right gift.
Speaker 1:
That's why we don't want to expect the perfect scenario. We want to understand what we think our perfect scenario is, and then we want to understand that it's probably not going to happen. And that goes for scenarios. That goes for people in our life. Marcus Aurelius has this quote that gets thrown around a lot Say to yourself early in the morning I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. I think I've said it on the podcast before. I repeat it here because it's a reminder don't expect people to act the way you think they should act. Don't expect them to say what you think they should say. That's one way to get ahead of being caught off guard. Number two learn to care about only the important stuff. So what are the important things in your life? What do you want to give your energy to?
Speaker 1:
I was doing yoga teacher training a bunch of years ago when we were living in Colorado, and I remember this scene very vividly. It was right after we had just done three hours of training and stretching and meditating and incense were burning and just chillness. And we leave and I was the last one out, and as I walk out of the studio it's on the second floor. I'm looking down in the parking lot. This other lady that's in my class, she's like 65 and she's crossing the parking lot and a car kind of zooms past her a little fast and she just goes what the fuck? And she just throws up both of her arms and I was caught off guard. But the example I'm saying this is because she decided to give her anger energy to that car.
Speaker 1:
The opposite of how that scenario could go reminds me of a totally different scene that I was in. Brenda and I were in our friend Steve's truck driving like 45 minutes in Costa Rica to this hospital because I had a 104 degree fever and we were in a really remote place and he was also like an older guy, about 65. And he's driving and we're on this tight road going up the mountain and there's a car behind us that just flies by and nothing from Steve. No tension arises, no, noесть, cigarettes, reaction. He just says go for it, dude, and that's what we want more of. Like that car had to have caught him off-guard, maybe, probably jumped into a little fight flight, but he didn't react to it. He opened it up.
Speaker 1:
And that's where we want to get with the little things in life, with the trivial stuff rise above it so it doesn't matter because it's not where we want to spend our energy. Like, we want to be the dad that's at home and not get mad at the little stuff. Not get mad really often. When we do get mad, we want our kids to know that it's something important and and this looks different for everybody. But when kids don't pick up after themselves, or their rooms are a mess or they say the same thing 20 times, those might not be the times to Use our energy, to discipline, to argue, to get mad.
Speaker 1:
What's the important stuff? What are your non-negotiables? Is it honesty? Is it being disrespectful with your words? Like? Are those the times you want to get mad? Learn to care Only about the important stuff and you have to define that for yourself. But this is at work, this is in relationships, this is when we're in public. What are you giving too much energy to right now? There's this quote or perspective. I don't know who said it, but the filter is if it's not gonna matter in five years, don't give it more than five minutes. We'll decide what we get worked up about.
Speaker 1:
More than likely, the things that are catching us off guard aren't very important, aren't the things we want to be Exuding a lot of time or energy to, and the goal around all of this is to be the kind of leader who doesn't get worked up easily, who's open, who is resilient. It's the kind of guy that it's gonna take a lot to ruffle your feathers. Now I could hear you saying I don't want to get walked on, I don't want to just be a pushover. If a similar Situation is catching you off guard on a consistent basis, don't just let it go. There's probably a boundary that needs to be set. If someone keeps interrupting you in your office and you just roll with it all the time, you might need to put your foot down and say hey, if you want to get on my calendar, this is when you schedule time to get on my calendar. Other than that, it's like don't bug me, I'm working, I got my things to do.
Speaker 1:
Putting some boundaries in place is an awesome way to not be a pushover, while avoiding being the guy that lashes out and gets angry and tries to control every situation that comes his way.
Speaker 1:
So we're not gonna Expect scenarios to work out the exact way that we think they're gonna work out. We're gonna decide what the important stuff is and what stuff we just need to let go of and not give our time and energy to, because people are going to Say what they're gonna say and people are gonna do what they're gonna do. And instead of Flipping into that fight or flight mode and having tunnel vision and being really reactive really quickly, we can stay open, we can have a conversation, we can ask some questions, we can be reasonable and Respond wisely instead of off the cuff. We don't have to agree with what people say and we can also stay open. That's what I got for you guys today. When you get caught off guard, notice your body going into that fight or flight mode and Open up, release the expectations, decide if it's important enough and Respond. For that, have a great week and catch you next time.