Written By: Lauren Howard
One of my employees seemed . . . anxious.
She told me before that she has anxiety, and as someone who went through a recent bout of stress and panic, like, I get it.
Whoooo do I get it.
The cool thing about building relationships with everyone who works for you is that you tend to know where to meet them when they need something.
I also knew that hearing from me that she should just take time off to relax would make her more anxious as she worried about all of the things she wasn’t doing.
For the record, the only person who would hold her to that standard is her, and her taking the afternoon would have been my preference. The offer stood, but I knew it was unlikely to be accepted.
I could have just let her know there were resources available and moved on. I don’t have to intervene, and in some cases I don’t because it’s not right for the person.
But in this case? I had a pretty strong feeling I could relieve some of the pressure—even if just for a minute.
When I went through the aforementioned bout of anxiety and panic, I found something really stupid that has helped me every day since.
I just had to start by making myself look like a total moron.
Moron is pretty close to my baseline, so I was down.
I called her to chat about nothing in particular. We were on video, and I could see everything that was weighing on her, even as she tried to hide it.
Man, do I know that feeling.
Mannnnnn, do I know that feeeeeling.
Without a lot of prompting, I asked her if she would do me a favor. I told her I would do it with her, but that she had to just follow some really simple directions.
She was hesitant, but she obliged.
I had her stand up from behind her chair.
I stood up too.
I had her put up both of her fists.
I squared up too.
I had her rapid-fire punch the air with those fists.
I did too. Actually, I did it first.
I’m not sure that she actually believed me when I said it, but seeing me do it made it clear that this was funny, but I wasn’t joking.
She hesitated at first.
Punch. Punch. Punch.
“OH MY GOSH THIS FEELS GOOD.”
And punch and punch and punch.
Punch. Laugh. Punch. Laugh.
Eventually, I looked like Grover running away from the monster at the end of the book, and we were both laughing too hard to do anything other than sit down and catch our collective breaths.
She cracked a real smile, and I knew we had made a dent.
She also knew that she was welcome here, with her anxieties and quirks and stresses and all, and that we would not only accept her as is but support her however she needed to be supported.
Back to work she went. She knocked out everything that was outstanding and got a jump on the next set because of course she freaking did. She’s amazing and anxiety doesn’t make her any less amazing.
Meet your people where they are in ways that they need to be met, and don't be afraid to look a little dopey while doing it. The ROI on it is immeasurable.
Image by Vasilis Caravitis on Unsplash.
Founder & CEO at elletwo
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