It’s ok to show your emotions; how a death in the family made this abundantly clear for me and my business

I have something to admit; I’m a walking contradiction:

My work is all about EQ and emotional intelligence but I very rarely display emotion in my everyday life; my girlfriend calls me out on it all the time.

“How can you go into companies and advise them on emotional intelligence when you keep everything bottled up all the time”.

In my head this makes perfect sense; I am there to spot and comment on the emotions of others or the impact of emotions on groups and how things that are going on affect how they work together. This doesn’t mean that I’m there to share all my inner thoughts.

As I talked about in my last blog, being an external advisor is much easier than advising yourself. It’s the same with emotions; I can happily spot how a situation will play out and how people will be feeling without necessarily displaying any emotion at all.

This is all good and well but sometimes emotion gets the better of you and there’s nothing wrong with that, as I discovered this week…

It’s been a difficult week

Exactly a week ago, I was in the middle of running one of my favourite training courses for a client when I had a missed call from my sister.

In one of the coffee breaks I rang her back and she informed me of the terrible news that one of my aunts had passed away that morning.

It was sudden but not necessarily unexpected yet still it was a blow. Despite this, I went back to the training group and carried on as though nothing had happened.

My aunt was a remarkable woman; she had gone from a small town in Palestine to living in California and working for many years at the Federal Reserve in the US and then back again to Palestine in her retirement years to teach at a local university. She had overcome numerous challenges and hard times, but did it all with a smile on her face and brought joy to many people’s lives. More specifically, for me and my world, we had built quite a bond as I had spent several holidays with her through my formative years.

Despite my laidback attitude, I was really hurt to lose her but you wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at me — I was like an ice sculpture.

It wasn’t until the next day when out for dinner with my girlfriend that the emotion got the better of me and I ended up in floods of tears.

There is no playbook for handling bad news

Despite what I told myself, everything was not alright. Throw in the fact that her death sent shockwaves through my family and it was little surprise that it impacted my business life too.

Not only did I have to down-tools almost immediately to spend time with my parents and siblings but even more than that I was simply not in any mood to do my work effectively.

I joined a few calls and found myself distracted as I thought about my aunt and held back the tears. Where I did participate, I know I didn’t give 100% and this showed as my ideas were limited, my enthusiasm low and generally I was a fraction of myself.

What made matters worse was that I decided not to share the information with anyone so I can only imagine what regular clients and new contacts made of the meetings.

In the end, I just cancelled everything across numerous days unless 100% essential which meant no new business development, rearranging important client workshops (much to their disgruntlement) and no communicating to my colleagues — it definitely had an impact on Shiageto.

This is not a situation unique to me

If you think about it, how often must something similar be happening in your company or your team?

Sure, losing a loved one is an extreme, but everyday we all receive bad news of differing degrees and we wouldn’t be human if it didn’t affect us. Many of us (even if we are in tune with our emotions) will go into work or other situations trying to carry on but our effectiveness will be diluted by trying to deal with the emotions we are experiencing.

These people will seem distracted, or not interested. They may answer questions incorrectly or display other emotions in front of others (e.g. anger or quietness in a meeting because they are feeling overwhelmed). Without context, this can seem strange or get them into difficulty.

Do we truly recognise this in others or ourselves and accommodate it?

What have I learned?

I can categorically say now that my response to my grief was the wrong thing to do.

If I could go back, it’s not that I would have ploughed on, it is that I would feel less scared to share more about what had happened and not be so afraid to show some of my emotions.

I know this is easier said than done but it’s important; the massive impact on IQ, EQ and FQ from any bad news is so great that it’s a travesty not to give others the heads up and to ask for help.

If you don’t then you are actually compounding the issue (not protecting them from it, as my brain foolishly believed). Even those who know you well, if they are not briefed, will think something is amiss and then wrongly make assumptions as to what it may be.

I deeply miss my aunt and this won’t change but I hope that being more in tune with my emotions will mean that I can overcome her loss sooner than I may otherwise do.

In the meantime, if we meet, I may tell you that I am ok but that may not be the whole truth for now. For my part I will try to open up more and share what I am really feeling. I also commit to doing the same for others who may be silently dealing with hard times too.

Addendum:

Thanks to all the responses I’ve had to my blog; it has been amazing to see the outpouring of support so I wanted to thank you all so much.

It has also been pointed out that I should mention that keeping things bottled up is a perfectly acceptable coping strategy to survive and get through work/the day/raising kids/etc. There is nothing wrong with doing this until you feel comfortable to share how you are feeling with someone else.

Talking to loved ones, seeking therapy, having a good cry and many other actions are perfect responses to any situation like this.

Whilst those around you may want to help in difficult times (and we can all try and look for the signs of those going through tough situations so that we can create the space to talk), sometimes it is easier to reach out to an external professional. Check out this link if you want to know more about finding a therapist

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness.

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ