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Dov is a great guy. The CEO of a professional services firm, he’s been successful by any measure. He’s financially secure. He’s happily married with several children. He’s active in his religious community. He’s smart, well read, reasonable, and likable. He’s the kind of guy you’d enjoy talking with at a dinner party.
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Then again, the other day, in anger, he threw a telephone across the room, nearly hitting someone.
“That’s not who I am,” Dov told me. And it’s true. I know him. And I’ve never remotely experienced him that way.
Now, throwing a telephone is pretty extreme. But if you take it down a notch, Dov is not alone. Lisanne is another incredibly successful leader in a different company—someone whom I personally like and respect tremendously. She’s been receiving feedback that she’s rude, abrupt, uncommunicative, and harsh. When I discussed the feedback with her, she said the same thing: “That’s not who I am.”
Dov and Lisanne are, mostly, right. It’s not who they are. Usually, anyway. And it’s certainly not who they want to be.
But, under the wrong conditions, it is who they are. Sometimes.
And it’s not just Dov and Lisanne. While most of us would resist the temptation to throw a phone, many of us still manage to lose our tempers more easily than we’d like. The other day, I yelled at my kids—yelled at them—for fighting with each other at the breakfast table. I immediately regretted it.
And then, a little later, I was on the line with an AT&T representative, and, after forty-five minutes of getting nowhere, I lost it again.
It’s not just anger. We blow people off. Don’t return phone calls. Don’t pay attention when they’re telling us something important. Many of us, at times, act in ways we don’t like and don’t recognize as ourselves.
I think I’ve figured out what’s causing it: overwhelm.
We have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Which results in two problems:
1. Things fall through the cracks. We don’t answer all our emails. We don’t return all our calls. We don’t really listen. And this insults and disappoints others.
2. We live in a constant state of dissatisfaction. Feeling ineffective. Feeling insufficient. And so we disappoint ourselves.
In both cases, our tempers get short. Because there’s nothing more frustrating than having good intentions and not living up to them. It feels unjust. Like a child who spills something and then cries, “But I didn’t mean to do it.” We don’t mean to be mean. But we lose all tolerance for anything that slows us down or that makes demands on us that we can’t fulfill. And we get angry at others for our own feelings of inadequacy.
I wasn’t angry at the AT&T representative for wasting my forty-five minutes. I was angry at myself for having stayed on the call that long. And I wasn’t angry at my kids for fighting as much as I was overwhelmed with cooking waffles and pancakes and oatmeal and setting the table and getting the syrup and the orange juice and making a nice breakfast. But I was so intent on making a nice breakfast that I ruined it.
Planning ahead, knowing what to do and what to ignore, using our calendars strategically: All those are good—and important—daily strategies for managing our day. But we need something more. We need a discipline—a ritual—that can help us stay centered and grounded throughout the day. We need something to remind us who we really are. Who we want to be.
For me, that something is a beep.
Each morning, I set my watch—you can also use a phone, computer, or timer—to beep every hour. At the sound of the chime, I take one minute to ask myself if the last hour has been productive. Then, during that pause, I deliberately commit to how I’m going to use the next hour. It’s a way to keep myself focused on doing what I committed to doing.
But, for me, the chime rings deeper than that. When it goes off, I take that deep breath and ask myself if, in the last hour, I’ve been the person I want to be. In other words, during that pause, I deliberately recommit to not just what I’m going to do, but also who I’m going to be over the next hour. It’s a way of staying recognizable to myself and to others.
Because if we’re going to reverse the momentum, we need an interruption. As soon as I yelled at my kids, I regretted it. Which interrupted my self-defeating behavior.
That interruption was all I needed to remind myself that I was not that kind of father. I stopped everything I was doing and sat with them, held them, and apologized for raising my voice.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the interruption were a chime rather than a yell? And if it came before I lost my temper?
But most likely, your chime won’t come at exactly the right time. How many of us lose it exactly on the hour?
It doesn’t matter. Because losing control, becoming someone you’re not, happens over time. It builds throughout several hours. And that once-an-hour reminder, that one deep breath, that question about who you want to be, keeps you stable. It keeps you you.
Maybe your issue isn’t losing your temper. Maybe it’s multitasking. Maybe it’s being so overwhelmed you don’t know where to start, so you don’t start anything—you just surf the Internet. Maybe it’s letting your mind wander while someone is talking to you.
Whatever your issue, when the beep sounds, take a breath and use that one-minute pause to ask yourself whether you’re being the person you want to be.
Ask yourself if you’re trying to accomplish too much. Or if you’re focusing on the wrong things. In other words, disrupt the source that destabilizes you. Reduce the overwhelm. Reconnect with the outcome you’re trying to achieve, not just the things you’re doing. Then you’ll react less and achieve more.
When Dov threw the phone, he immediately regretted it. And he’s still working to make up for it. Because, unfortunately, one dramatic disruptive act outside the norm quickly becomes a story that defines the norm.
There is a way to change that story, though. To create a new story. But it’s not dramatic. It’s deliberate and steady. It’s consistent action over time.
We need to remind ourselves of who we know we really are. And then we need to act that way. To be that person. Constantly, predictably, minute by minute and hour by hour.
The right kind of interruption can help you master your time and yourself. Keep yourself focused and steady by interrupting yourself hourly.
