DAY 76 OF 100 DAYS SELF-REINVENTION SERIES- When Provoked, React to the Outcome and not the Provocation!

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.?In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Victor Frankl.

“You don’t have to like him, Peter. You just have to do business with him.” – Peter Bregman

I was searching for information on becoming a more effective leader when I stumbled on one of Peter Bregman's several articles in the Harvard Business Review titled:

“To Get What You Want, Don’t Go with Your Gut”

The title caught my attention. I had thought that the right thing to do was to go with my Gut before now. Perhaps on a different mood, I will let go of the article, just thinking that the title was meant to catch my attention. But I have read numerous articles by Peter Bregman, and I know he writes cool stuff that elevates me in the Harvard Business Review. The article was short, meaning I could easily find its logic in 5 minutes or less, so I read it. I was glad I did.

Many times we think our Guts mean a connection with divinity, source, God, or whatever we call spirit. But that isn’t what it is all the time. In every conversation or chance meeting, we want an outcome. What we should do is keep our focus on the outcome so intensely that we don’t get swayed by the shenanigans of the interaction. Our actions are most usually the programmed responses in our subconscious. Many times, when we say we are going with our Guts, we are actually going with the programmed response of our subconscious. As many of us know already, the greatest deliverance we need isn’t from bad friends and bad relatives; it is from our own subconscious and its effort to dictate our lives. Our subconscious doesn’t care what we want out of the event; it is automatic and very powerful – even before we try to think, it tells us already what we should do. All of us have had the experience of meeting someone for the first time and having an opinion of the person even before the person utters a word. That opinion is usually not you; it is your subconscious, using its very high-powered CHATGPT to come up with a solution to every encounter. But we did not come to have a solution; we came to have an outcome. This is a great learning experience for me and one I gleaned from reading the article by Peter Bregman.

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Below is an excerpt from Peter Bregman’s article –

“About five years ago I took on a new client in New York City. This company had lawsuits against it, high turnover, and terrible press. One of the first people I met was a senior leader we’ll call Hunter.

“Look Peter, you seem like a nice guy,” Hunter said with a smile as he looked at me from across his desk, “but there have been several consultants before you and there will be several more after you. If you think you’re going to change the way we do things here, well, you’re mistaken.”

Hunter smiled at me again and I had a strong, visceral reaction — I immediately disliked him.

After leaving the meeting I called my uncle Guy, a successful businessman in London, and told him the story. “I can’t work with this company.”

“Why not?” Guy asked. “Hunter. Honestly?

?I really don’t like the guy.” I answered.

He laughed. “You don’t have to like him, Peter. You just have to do business with him.”

Guy was right. And he was pointing out a habit that costs many of us tremendous opportunity. Our reaction to an event creates an unproductive outcome.

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Bottom of Form

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In my case, the?event?was that Hunter told me I wouldn’t be effective. My?reaction?was to dislike Hunter and avoid working with him. The?outcome?would have been the loss of that client.

This simple event-reaction-outcome chain governs most of our spontaneous action. Something or someone hooks us and we react. Someone yells at us, we yell back and create the outcome of a damaged relationship. It’s not that we?want?a damaged relationship, it’s just what?happens?when we yell back.

And that’s the problem. The most important part of the chain, arguably the only part that really matters, the?outcome, is collateral damage from our reaction. It’s not intentional. We’re reacting to the?event. The?outcome?is simply fallout.

But, this time, before making that mistake, I paused; which gave my rational self time to negotiate with my emotional self. And, lucky for me, during that negotiation they must have agreed to call Guy for advice.

Guy offered an alternate chain. Focus on the outcome, then choose your reaction.

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Bottom of Form

Rather than focus on my personal reaction to Hunter, Guy suggested that I focus on what I wanted, which was to grow the business.

When an unsettling event occurs, pause before reacting. In that pause, ask yourself a single question: what is the outcome?I?want? Then, instead of reacting to the?event, react to the?outcome.

In other words, stop reacting to the past and start reacting to the future.

If someone yells at you, pause before yelling back. Then ask yourself what outcome you want. If the answer is “an improved relationship,” don’t yell back. Instead, in a normal voice, empathize with their anger and ask some questions about the concerns raised in the midst of the screaming. That’s a reaction that will achieve a better relationship.

Here’s the hard part: You react to the event because it’s asking you to react to it. But just because the event?catalyzed?your action, doesn’t mean it should?determine?it. How you react can and should be determined by the outcome; by the future you want to create.”

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I learned from this short piece that we need to continue learning how to widen the SPACE between STIMULUS and REACTION. Doing this requires a degree of intentionality and listening. In every conversation, try and ask, what do I want from this conversation? Is someone complaining to you? Before you jump into the solution mode, try and ask “What does he or she want from me?”. Practicing intentionality in every conversation can deepen your success rate and win you a lot more victories in life.

Remember that when you are provoked, it is really not you that was provoked – it is your beliefs, your unconscious, and your thinking. Practice more intentionality and reap the rewards you want in every conversation – WIN 100% SUCCESS RATE IN EVERY ENCOUNTER!

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