About three years ago, I attended this roundtable talk related to business development where the speaker said, “It’s important that you check your emotions at the door.”
I immediately raised my hand and said, “I don’t agree with that. To be emotional is to be human.”
Folks who suggest you stifle your emotions are people who are afraid of their own emotions. They want you to put a lid on yours, so their emotions are not presented with a situation where they might “escape” from their bodies.
Who makes up this jibberish?
I don’t have a work personality and a play personality. I have one personality — my own. If I were to stifle my emotions, that would mean I’d be channeling a robot, that I’d have two distinct sides to myself that I need to juggle.
Work face. Play face. Work Face. Play face.
Why would I want to do that? Way too complicated.
If you’ve seen Bicentennial Man, then you know that the robot in the film searches for the humanity most of us take for granted. The entire movie is an allegory for what it means to be human.
Portia: Sometimes it’s important not to be perfect, Okay?! It’s important to do the wrong thing…!
Andrew: To do the wrong thing?
Portia: Yes!
Andrew: Why? Oh! I see to learn from your mistakes…
Portia: No! To make them! To find out what’s real and what’s not! To find out what you feel?! Human beings are terrible messes, Andrew…
Andrew: I grant you that …
I see this is what is known as an irrational conversation, isn’t it?
Portia: No! This is a human conversation. It’s not about being rational. It’s about following your heart.
Not showing emotions makes people feel crazy. I’m convinced it drives a lot of folks off the deep end because they’ve been taught not to show emotion or to feel shame if they show it.
I remember all the crying and sadness that went on when Princess Diana died. People who never knew her weeping everywhere. It seemed to me that her death gave people an opportunity to share their humanity with each other. To be human in a world that increasingly wants us to act like non-humans, to be these perfect little robots that are made to ask, “Did you find what you need?”
I don’t know who came up with the notion that we have to repress ourselves in business. Honestly? I could never do it. It makes for a really shallow relationship with your clients.
Just the other day I returned some “slimy” beet salad I bought at the supermarket and described it as such. The person at the customer service window took one look at it and said, “That looks nasty!” Then, we laughed about it. Today, I saw him again and we joked about it.
I felt a connection with him that I don’t normally experience at the supermarket. It made me think, “What a cool guy!”
Honestly, how can you feel alive if you don’t express your emotions? You can’t. You’ll feel dead inside. What good is that? How would that make you a better business owner?
I keep thinking about the CNN story I read this week, about the Greek Model and her husband who picked up the Syrian refugee floating in the Aegean Sea about one hour away from being dead after struggling out there for 13 hours. They picked him up and she hugged him and kept him warm while her husband performed his medical magic.
She said, “I was sobbing (the whole time), because from the moment I saw the person in the water my soul became so deeply saddened that it felt like I was in his position,” she says.
“I didn’t think at any point if what we’re doing was dangerous, if it was allowed or illegal — a human soul was in danger and trying to save this person was for me the most natural thing in the world.”
I read that article and thought, “This is what life is all about, being human, showing emotions.” And for me that includes play and work, or PLORK as I like to call the combination of the two.
You might also check out Mira Kirshenbaum’s book: The Emotional Energy Factor. She writes that 70% of our energy is emotional and that if we want to feel free, we need to tap into our emotions.
Think about a dynamic speaker you’ve heard. Was this person a monotone drip or did s/he reach out and touch your heart and soul with his/her emotional energy?
You’ll win over more clients by being a real person than by being a stepford business owner.
Next time you feel an emotion coming on try to embrace it. Then think about what that emotion wants you to understand about yourself.
Thanks, G.
PS
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