In this episode, we’re gonna be talking about anxiety and how to deal with it. It’s really easy to see if somebody’s angry or upset or anxious. But it’s way harder to tell if there’s anxiety because it doesn’t show up in the same way as other people. Anxiety is more common than you think. In fact, if you wanna do some Google searching on it, it’ll blow your mind. Record rates of anxiety, dealing with anxiety, and Google searches are all over the place. This is something that’s crazy, but it’s also pretty common.
So remember in that last episode, I said, assume that every one of your people that come into whatever you’re hosting, whether it’s a staff training or a customer orientation day or a new student orientation day, or just coming home from school, people would rather be somewhere else. Just assume that because the fact of the matter is, there’s a lot of stuff being piled on people’s shoulders right now. And you need to come from a different place in order to make a connection. So you can either assume people are either anxious or angry with you for just walking into the room. They’re probably not overjoyed to see you in the majority of cases. And if you walk into it like, “Oh, how can I help? How can I improve this? How can I, because in the previous episode, we dealt with angry people. In this one, we’re dealing with anxious people.
So if you walk in, how can I help? Let me tell you the first and easiest way to deal with anxiety. The very best way to deal with anxiety is to remember a couple of episodes ago, then this one, and that one was crucial. So if you didn’t write that down, write it down because you are dealing with anxiety or anger. Anger is from the past. Anxiety is in the future. So this is somebody that’s walking into you and they have uncertainty about the future. So right off the bat, before I even finish the word, you should be thinking, you know what I could do? Like you should be in your head saying, “How could I use that? What could I do? This is an important point. How could I help people who may be anxious about dealing with me, maybe anxious about the course that I’m putting on, maybe anxious about the lesson we’re about to do?
Well, the first thing you do is state the plan, and then, well, let’s step back. You’re actually going to plan your state, which is how it’s going to go. And then you’re going to state the plan. So if you put stuff up like that, if you say, okay, guys, I just want everybody to know what to expect. Do you know what that does right off the bat? It lowers anxiety for everyone because if you know what to expect, you know, okay, this is going to be a threat to my, uh, you know, nervous system. Or it’s not going to be a threat. I’m going to be asked to speak. I’m going to be asked to recite. I’m going to be asked, or I’m going to be tested, to state your plan on how things are going to go for these people. for all. People really start to build confidence and lower anxiety. Do you know what doesn’t happen in an anxious environment? You can’t learn anything.
We’ve talked about the importance of presence if you’re in an anxious state because you’re not present. You must keep your people present and pull them out of the future by saying, “no, no, no. Don’t worry about that. That’s not going to happen. We’re not going to have, uh, you know, a fire alarm. We’re not going to have, uh, a pop quiz today. We’re not going to have public speaking, uh, seminars or public speaking, uh, demonstrations right now. So calm down, here we go. This is what we’re going to do. And then, once you’ve stated the plan and you stick to it, people will start to believe you more. So, doing what you say you’re going to do and having people be able to trust you. Oh yeah. That’s so, and so I know what to expect from them. They are, and they behave in a way that I can trust, and trust is the other thing.
So when you’ve got, every one of us has had someone in our lives who, when they walked into the room, they had no idea what to expect. It was a, uh, I call it a, prove-her-show. So when you walk in, you don’t know if you’re going to get Mother Teresa or if you’re going to get Helter Skelter. It’s just like, whatever you walk into, it’s a gong show. I promise you that it will increase. I mean, it increases it for me. And I’ve spoken to hundreds of other people and they’ve said the same thing. That is it for them. So if you are that person that J and Hyde were just referring to, just know that people are walking on eggshells around you. People are already feeling really anxious about being with you because they don’t know what to expect. And you’re going to find that in that environment, people are going to try their best to move away from you.
You are not attracting people. You are pushing them away in this day and age. People want to know what to expect. They want to have a higher level of trust because that’s another thing that seems to be lacking a little, as you may have noticed in our society. So by building up trust, setting expectations, and then actually doing what you say, you’re going to think of the value you bring to the marketplace. By doing those things, Think of the value you bring to your fellow coworkers, your, uh, staff, your fellow students, or whatever your situation is. This is a universal principle. Come into a situation where your behavior is predictable and state what you’re going to do and then do that thing. And you’re going to find anxiety levels. started to drop significantly. If you can add a little humor to that and let people know what their future looks like with a little higher level of certainty, you’re going to garner an even better response.
So guys, whenever you’re designing anything, and it’s easiest when we’re talking about this to talk about something like a staff, try raining. When you’re onboarding new people, think of the level of anxiety they have when they’re coming into your organization for the first time. And they’re like, I don’t know, is everybody going to be a jerk? What’s the culture like, guys? This is like your absolute gold zone to set some crazy new standards to create a culture that you want to be in. And people can thrive in it to create a culture of innovation and inspiration. This is where it happens during that timeframe right there. And whether you’re teaching a class of eight-year-olds, or whether you’re teaching business executives, what your new culture is going to be like in your institution is up to you. This is the moment you can go out, make massive differences, regardless of whether you’re running a one-man shop or you’re running a fortune 500, and it all starts with doing what you say. You’re going to do it by setting expectations. Following those expectations and being predictable macaroni are not deep principles, but they change future outcomes. Take this, use it, and implement it in your life.And you’re going to see some massive changes in your engagement with people.
