For this blog, I will share a key insight that is often somewhat misunderstood in today’s environment. Let me offer the basic insight and then expand on it expressing the truth of it. Let me say that it is a concept voiced by an author named Charala Rush in her book and to begin, let me share her quote:
“A mixture of a SOFT HEART and STRONG BACK is how we should walk through this world!”
Notice that the focus is total truth and the one that I serve models this. Many in today’s world use a dysfunctional approach to be successful. As the reader knows, many faith-based groups and nonfaith-based groups do this dysfunctional approach.
The reader will be aware of how many times people across our society try to simply focus on the heart and they engender heart felt emotions. They do this because when someone does this, they use to be able to control those that listen to them. This dysfunction is also expanded because when someone’s emotions are in control, this takes over their true mental processing and their Situational Awareness drops off. Because of this, their focus is simply on pushing their emotions through the struggle. The problem is that their emotions may die with no awareness of what to do next. The real result can be a failure or also the time and effort to get there could be way down the road.
In true situations in life, your heart must be calm and your brain able to process the appliable situations and clearly see what is needed. Do you need to be solid and strong? Yes, there are many times when this develops. When your family is at risk or perhaps some other critical aspect, you cannot let your emotions disconnect your processing and strategic planning.
Also, when you think of your team at work, if they see you getting emotional often, you will totally disconnect their trust in you and you have stopped modelling for your team. There have been 2 times in my life that I had to be ready to employ my martial arts in public to protect a guy and his girlfriend. Afterwards, my girlfriend said that it was amazing to see in the thug’s face and body language that “They did not know how to deal with a guy who was outnumbered but very confident, courageous and calm!”
So, I challenge the reader to apply and model Charala’s truth about focusing on SOFT HEART and STRONG BACK when things get challenging.
Let me leave you with a couple of questions:
1. What must you do to Grow this mindset in your team?
2. What do you need to enhance your awareness of what is current in your team and what needs to change?
3. How are you going to enhance your modeling of SOFT HEART & STRONG BACK?
Randy Swaim, Coaching for Relevance, LLC