Anger And Fear
Sep 25 2011

I’ve written a lot about love, laughter, and heartache on my blog, but not much about anger or fear.  Those are hard emotions to write about.  Most of us were taught not to let our anger show and that we should control it.  But we’ve seen a few people in our life and on TV lose their cool.  We’re told there’s no reason to be afraid.  There’s no such thing as ghosts.  There’s nothing under your bed.  It seems to me that those two feelings/emotions have big hairy monsters in our minds associated with them.  They can sometimes be more irrational than real because most of us are not being chased by sharks or big hungry bears, but when we feel these emotions, they feel so real!  They can paralyze us.  They cause stress.  They cause health problems.  They can make us think we are not good enough or not worthy of love and happiness.

Entrepreneurs and pretty much anyone who has a job and/or is a full time parent face these demons every day.  It’s how we deal with it and how we treat others that counts.  Compassion can alleviate fears.  Empathy and encouragement can help people achieve things they never thought they could.  Fear and Anger can make people get things done (e.g., dark ages, torture, and slaves who built the Egyptian pyramids) but it can make them sick and unhappy at the same time.  It can cause a ripple effect on society, on their spouse, or their kids.  If people are unhappy at work, it has been shown they are more abusive at home and don’t treat their co-workers well.  I believe encouraging, loving environments create exponentially better outcomes.  Is it because I’m a woman?  I don’t think so.  I think Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, many great business leaders, and Gandhi felt the same way.  Maybe they don’t get as much media attention but go find the places in your city that are consistently voted the best places to work and you’ll see successful businesses with great leaders who care, trust, and believe in their employees.

We are all flawed humans, but the thing that keeps us connected is empathy and love.  Without that connection and belief in each other, we might as well be on an island alone or dead.  We can start businesses and scare people to do what we think they should, but the best will leave because in the modern world they have other choices than to be beaten & downtrodden and to lay bricks while being whipped.  You’ll end up with “yes men/women” who are too afraid to tell you what’s really going on because they are scared for their livelihoods.  But you’ll be surprised at the psychology of some of us humans because a lot of us don’t realize our genius.  I’ll leave you with a quote from Jeffry Fry’s daily email he sent out July 16, 2011 that’s still in my inbox and printed & pasted to the pillar near my cube at work:

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.”    –Albert Einstein

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