OG Tuesday Issue #178

OG Tuesday #178

Start your morning with this affirmation:

Today’s checklist: What to do after losing your temper, swipe the guiding values of inspired thought leaders, decide to be more present, and remove distractions from your office decor.

YOU DO YOU

Lost your temper? Regain trust in 4 steps

We know you’re not afraid to do you, and that sometimes, you get angry. You might even, from time to time, express that anger a little more…energetically than you intended.

Even those with the coolest heads lose their temper from time to time. It happens. While it can be damaging, especially if it happens in an important meeting, for example, there are steps you can take to regain trust and minimize damage to your career and reputation afterwards.

Step 1: Check in with yourself about exactly what happened to be sure your emotions aren’t blurring or coloring the situation.

Thinking about the facts creates some emotional distance and helps you avoid coming across as insincere or defensive when you apologize.

What did you do or say?
When did you say it?
Who was present?
What triggered this specific event?
Are any underlying, chronic stressors throwing off your sense of balance?
How did the people present react?

Step 2: Apologize to everyone involved.

Convey your sincerity by covering every item on this checklist:

Acknowledge exactly what you did.
Express that you find it unacceptable.
Communicate your regret.
Take responsibility for your actions.
Announce your intent to change and exactly how you intend to change.

For example: I apologize for tossing the entire cookie tray at Mark during last week’s meeting. My actions were unacceptable and inexcusable, and I regret not using more restraint and also causing discomfort and fear. To make sure this doesn’t happen again, I will be working on anger management strategies with a professional on a regular basis.

Step 3: Say more, if you want to.

After you’ve made your apology, you have an opportunity to explain why you believe you lost your temper at that particular moment. (If you’re not sleeping well because of a new baby, for example.) These are not excuses, but explanations. Openly sharing adds human context to the situation and could make the road to forgiveness and mended trust less bumpy.

Step 4: Invite everyone involved to express how they feel about the situation.

This last step gives everyone affected by your outburst a chance to feel heard and get any lingering ill will off their chests. Don’t feel you need to address every comment. Just listen.

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LEVEL UP

No time like the present

You know you should be present during those sacred moments when you’re not at work. It’s one of the official intentions you wrote down for 2024, and in a leatherbound journal no less. Your family and friends deserve to interact with you, the undistracted version of you.

But…being present during off-work hours has proved harder than you thought. So many little things grab your attention, including worrying that you’re not being present enough.

TEDx Youth speaker Sammie Fries has a golden rule about being and staying present:

“Remember that right now is an opportunity that you need to grasp.”

Sammie acknowledges that dwelling in the past or planning for the future is a practically universal tendency. However, being constantly tugged away from the present also makes people unhappy.

She urges listeners to accept the tendency in their thought patterns but also to take responsibility for disrupting them.

So the next time you’re talking to someone special and finding yourself making plans about what you’ll make for dinner and when you’ll squeeze in a trip to the grocery store, stop. Take a minute. Then leverage the enthusiasm you felt about planning toward the simple pleasure of focusing on what you’re doing, right now.

TOGETHER WITH CLICKUP

Use This in Your Next 1:1

Create and maintain a good working relationship between manager and employee.

One-on-one meetings are your chance to connect and align with the people you manage in the most effective way possible.

The perfect 1:1 meeting template keeps all of your agendas — tailored for each individual — in one organized place.

⭐ This template does just that by laying out roles, expectations, and how to best implement a feedback cycle.

📄 Get the 1:1 meeting template free here.

GET MORE SH*T DONE

Put on your thought-leader shoes

Imagine living the life of a thought leader, a bona fide expert in your field. People would practically beg for your ideas, and you’d have too many paid speaking invitations to accept.

Now imagine that you don’t just have to imagine it. No one is born being a thought leader. Everyone who gets the label took deliberate steps to earn it. Enhance your personal brand by working toward establishing your own unique expertise and thought leadership.

Start by swiping these core values of people who’ve made themselves practically synonymous with “thought leader” in their respective areas of expertise.

Focus on building expertise around your true passions.

Elaine Lou Cartas, an entrepreneur recognized for her expertise in female leadership strategies, had an epiphany shortly after graduating from a master’s program: So far, she’d been doing only what everyone else wanted her to do.

Only when she reflected on what she really wanted to do did the pieces come together for her successful coaching and consulting business. The journey to becoming an expert in any thing will be more clear, fruitful, and rewarding if you love that thing.

Center your thought leadership around the people it could help.

Jane Frankland, an advocate for women in cybersecurity, adheres to a core value of rising by lifting up others. She says true leadership comes from empowering, not controlling, people.

Jane made it her mission to empower women in cybersecurity. That overarching goal led her to do research, create trainings, write blogs, and speak in front of global governments. The natural result of those efforts:

“I’ve become a voice for the voiceless, a women’s change agent (bordering on rights activist), an influencer and role model to many,” she says.

Use your expertise to build something.

Kathryn Finney is an entrepreneur, a futurist, and the author of Build the Damn Thing: How to Start A Successful Business If You’re Not a Rich White Guy. As her book title suggests, she’s passionate about inspiring people to build and create.

“It’s great to have a vision and a belief — you need that as your north star — but then you also have to build the spaceship to get to the star, right? If not, the star will forever stay in the sky, and you’ll always be on the ground,” she said in an interview with In The Works. “You’ve got to know how to build the thing that gets you there.”

Remember leaders have no influence in isolation.

Alicia Garza, strategist, organizer, and co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter, reminds people that “hashtags don’t start movements—people do.”

People don’t just listen to thought leaders. They’re inspired to take action by the power of their ideas. To be fair, not all thought leaders inspire sweeping social movements, but they do all have ideas strong enough to get reactions and bring people together, even if it’s just a few people.

WATERCOOLER TALK

Is your workspace what’s distracting you?

We all know our brains affect our productivity and focus at work. Sometimes, difficulty concentrating doesn’t come from your head at all. Office decor can affect the quality of your mood and your work in ways you don’t always notice because it’s just part of your environment. Unlike the dings, buzzes, and flashes coming from your devices, decorative distractions may not seem like distractions at all.

Workspace distraction: Lamps and light fixtures that create a glare on your computer screen.

Focused fix!

If your office has a natural light source, position your desk so you can get more natural than artificial light.
At night, turn off your computer and turn on all the lights in your office. Notice if and where the glare falls on your black screen. Move lights around to minimize glare points.
If you have light fixtures you can’t move, consider swapping out regular bulbs for adjustable ones you can dim when you notice glares.

Workspace distraction: Your decor features dark colors and/or intricate, busy patterns.

Focused fix!

Upgrade your space with decor featuring subtle patterns and bright, energizing colors such as yellow, orange, light green, and light blue.

Workspace distraction: You don’t have storage solutions that perfectly match all your stuff. In other words, your space is cluttered.

Focused fix!

Lay out everything you use in your space on a daily basis.
Consider what kind of storage you need to keep your necessities organized and easily accessible. Can you remove anything you probably don’t need on a daily basis?
For example, maybe you don’t need that entire bucket of pens and pencils you knock over constantly. Maybe you can store those somewhere else and keep just a few on your desk.

Workspace distraction: Your walls are too cluttered.

Focused fix!

A little decor can be inspirational and mood boosting, but too much can tug at your brain every time your eyes scan over it.

Workspace distraction: You’ve got wires, cables, and cords all over the place.

Focused fix!

While it’s not realistic to go completely wireless, putting a little time into streamlining wires can create a much calmer workspace.
Place a little storage bin near your desk to hold chargers and cables you’re not actively using but will need soon.
Use twist ties and clips to keep wires clear from the most high-traffic areas on your desk.

Workspace distraction: You’ve got notes and lists galore.

Focused fix!

Use a whiteboard or a corkboard to create a master hub for all your notes and reminders. Mount it on the wall so it doesn’t take up space on your desk.

STAFF PICKS

4 Office Supplies We’re Loving This Week

📝 Spruce up your office supplies with this “Vintage” color palette of sticky notes. We’re all about finding little joys in work and these hit the assignment.

🖊️ Why get boring pens when you can get these ombre colored ones that low-key transport you back to those good ‘ol Lisa Frank days?

⚡ Organize your desk with this cute pen/pencil holder — we appreciate that it rotates as well.

✅ This to-do list notepad makes planning your day more enjoyable (and comes with stickers!). Kick your day off with one thing you’re grateful for, list your to-dos, and crush your day.