Daily Lab: Calm in the chaos
Practicing calm when things are tough.
Marketing is a creative endeavour.
And creativity is one of those things that diminishes when we’re stressed, under increasing pressure, or caught up in the chaos of the moment.
It happens all the time: A business struggles, so it panics. It launches a deep discount, or tries to rapidly expand, or breaks the bank on a big advertising campaign.
And this just increases the chaos without helping the bottom line, and the cycle repeats until it simply can’t anymore.
But when things are tough, that’s when we need to be calm. So we can make better decisions that buy us the time to keep making progress.
As Dr. Dan Dworkis wrote in The Emergency Mind, “Finding calm in the midst of chaos is not easy, but it is something you can work to improve.”
We might feel that responding to chaos with excitement shows that we’re invested, but staying calm when things are chaotic is a sign of experience, not apathy.
As Dr. Dworkis wrote, “Inexperienced leaders pace aimlessly while yelling orders to everyone indiscriminately or mumbling them to no one. They micromanage the small decisions while losing sight of the big ones, and try to overpower the uncertainty and pressure by simply ‘grinding through’ the problem.”
And that’s how people burn out and burn bridges.
But with experience, “your strategies are built not on taking more actions, but on slowing down to identify and then execute only the best possible actions … in that moment.”
So, “the next time you find yourself in a tense but non-emergency situation,” Dr. Dworkis wrote, “look for and attempt to generate moments of calm.”
Staying calm is something we can practice, and it’s something worth getting better and better at.
Because it makes us more creative, more capable, and more patient—with ourselves and others.
So if you’d like to learn how to practice calm in chaos or in a crisis, I invite you to learn more about “Outer Crisis, Inner Calm.”
On October 27th, we’re hosting an online 2-hour conversation and workshop with Dr. Dan Dworkis of The Emergency Mind Project.
During the session, you’ll learn the strategies that high performers and emergency specialists use to operate at their best when situations are at their worst.
So if you want to do your best work even when things are tough, chaotic, stressful, or uncertain, I hope you’ll join us.
Learn more and buy your tickets here.
