¶ Responding When Caught Off Guard
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 . 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 . 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 . 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 ? 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 . 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 .
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 ?
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 . 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 .
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 . 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 .
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
¶ Setting Boundaries and Responding Wisely
do . 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 . 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 .