Your Framing Changes the World

The way we frame things mentally determines how powerfully we’ll be able to handle them.

I auditioned for Spamalot at a local theater last night. After checking in, they informed me that I was in the very last audition slot. That gave me the “opportunity” to listen to my competition as they sang their audition songs. One by one. While I waited with growing trepidation on the cold, unforgiving wooden bench outside. Trying very hard to smile. (It was an acting audition, after all.)

Each person came out complaining apologetically. “When I performed that aria at Madison Square Garden, I hit the high C with so much more resonance.” Or, “gosh, I forgot all the words, so I just improvised new, rhyming lyrics riffing off of a 13th century Olde English translation of the Song of Solomon.” By the time it was my turn, I was a nervous wreck.

But then, some part of my brain found The Answer. As I stepped through the curtains into the auditorium, the thought came to me: “Forget auditioning. Perform. You have two awesome minutes on stage. Give the audience your absolute best!”

One Thought Changes Everything

Suddenly my attitude changed completely. When it’s time to step on stage, there’s no time for practice or judgment. It’s commitment time. By framing this as a performance, rather than an audition, my nerves vanished. I was suddenly alert and happy (I love performing, after all).

I walked confidently to the pianist, gave him my sheet music, and proceeded to sing my song confidently, dramatically, and with full attention on the small audience that just happened to be the directoral staff for the show.

Nothing about the situation changed except my thinking. An “audition” was scary. A “performance” was exhilarating. The right thinking led to a mental and physical state that let me give my all. Last time, I “auditioned,” was a nervous wreck, and didn’t get the part. This time, I “performed,” gave it my all, and had a great time. My all still may not be good enough to get the part, but at least I had fun performing, which I love.

I tried this again during the dance audition. We got to dance twice. The first time, I was a total wreck. You’ve heard of two left feet? I have seven left feet. And they’re all superglued together. It isn’t pretty. But right before the second dance, I thought to myself, “this is performance, not audition! You may suck, but give the audience the best you have to give.” With that change of attitude, I remembered the entire routine and made it through with all the grace and artistry I could bring to the combination.

We Can Choose Our Frames

How you think about situations before you deal with them will affect the options you find, the actions you’ll take, and how resourceful your mental state will be when you start to deal with them.

Next time you find yourself nervous, sad, angry, apprehensive, or anxious, try a new framing.

If you’re going in to a “critical negotiation,” try a “new, mutually profitable relationship” instead. You’ll stop concentrating on the risk and instead you’ll start finding ways you can both benefit from the relationship.

If you’re on a “failing project,” start thinking about “a chance to rescue something good.” You just may find a way to use what you’ve learned and built in a new way that makes the project successful.

If you’re dealing with an “obnoxious, unreasonable person,” try connecting with “a good-hearted person who has really poor social skills.” Seriously. You’ll find your attitude changes.

Try explicitly reframing stressful situations. Are you fooling yourself? Maybe. But maybe you’ll fool yourself right into finding better, more resourceful ways to handle your challenges.

Don’t be a victim in or out of the workplace.

I have said many times in my podcast and out of it that if you can take some measure of internal ownership for bad things that happen in your life—even ownership of very small parts of the situation—it can lead to a feeling of deep control and responsibility in your life. It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you can say, “I chose to live in that flood zone, and I can choose to rebuild there or somewhere else,” you’ll actually feel less of a victim of your flooded home.

Try it!

Think of a situation where you felt victimized: Today, the checkout clerk was moving in slow motion, ruining my life.
Find (a) one thing you did that you could have not done, (b) one thing you didn’t do that you could have, (c) one interpretation you had that might have been wrong>
Now describe the situation to yourself in terms of those answers: Today, the checkout clerk was moving slowly, which I (c) interpreted as incompetence (rather than, say, physical disability or a slow computer). I could have (a) decided not to buy the product just then, or (b) left the store without buying anything, or offered to help with the register.

Whether or not your behavior changes in the future, re-telling your narrative in terms of your contribution to the situation will often leave you feeling much more centered and in control.

Engaged employees perform best.

Gallup Organization has been looking at employee engagement for many years. They’ve famously found that only a small percentage of our workforce is actively engaged at their jobs. Often, company discussions about people policies center around employee well-being as an underlying principle driving HR policies. Wellbeing refers to perqs like vacation time, flextime, and so on.

I just read this Gallup research summary that asks: Should a company put effort into employee wellbeing policies, or into employment engagement policies? It turns out to be easy to answer: the greatest driver of wellbeing is employee engagement, not perqs. The research shows that engaged employees perform far better than non-engaged employees, even if those non-engaged employees are given a lot of workplace perqs (e.g. more vacation time, etc.).

Also interesting, though not mentioned in the conclusion, is that flextime is also tremendously important. Having engaged employees and giving them flextime gives the greatest boost to wellbeing.

I know when I’m engaged, my whole life seems better. Next time you’re wondering how to improve workplace morale, instead ask how you can help improve engagement. That answer might change your entire culture.

An apology: 8 Secrets of Success

In my post about Richard St. John’s TED talk, I critiqued his research methodology and spent the entire post pointing out flaws. I was wrong. He has since contacted me and pointed out that my assumptions about his research were incorrect. Indeed, he did his research correctly. I did not do mine correctly.

If you check out the post on Eight Secrets of Success, my points still hold for a significant amount of the success literature out there in the world. But not Richard’s. His research was solid and I apologize sincerely for assuming otherwise.

Perhaps we’ve found a ninth law of success: research!

How do you find real community in a wired world?

I really enjoyed Marina Keegan’s article “The Opposite of Loneliness.” The word I’d use as the opposite of loneliness is “community.” Community has been shown to be an important part of a happy, fulfilling life. Of course, there’s no economic model attached to community, so not only do we not manage it, we disregard it in our calculations and decisions.

It’s something I’ve thought a lot about the last 5-10 years, as it’s become apparent to me that the grown-up world we’ve created doesn’t provide much opportunity for it. Any sense of “we’re in this together” that may have existed in America seems to be long gone. The prevailing question seems to have become “How can I get mine and avoid giving any of it to anyone else?” Of course, if you feel like you’re in a community, getting yours becomes much less important, since you feel like someone’s there to help if you really need it.

The very things that we call “progress” are, I believe, a big part of the problem. Easy transportation and telecomm have made it easier ad easier for us to isolate ourselves in suburbs, with our work lives being played out far away, with people who don’t share our interests, who don’t like us, and who don’t live near us. Seeing someone once a month at a planned dinner out for two hours becomes the new definition of “friendship” (second only to the definition of friendship that involves reading someone’s status updates on social media).

If you have hobbies or interests that naturally lend themselves to seeing others (e.g. team sports), that can be a source of connection. But even there, it’s not clear to me that it’s the kind of connection Keegan is talking about in her article. I recall the feeling she’s discussing, and indeed, college is the last time I felt it.

For all you post-college folk out there, please share! How do YOU find community in your life?