Red Diamonds Newsletter: Interviews, Insights, Wisdom and Advice
The Red Diamonds Newsletter is a weekly publication on communication, decision making, behavior, trust, conflict, professional relationships, courage and resilience, reputation and smarter crisis management. It regularly includes interviews with bright, wise minds and accomplished, difference-making people.
This Week’s Contents
Successful Leadership Through Uncertainty
(Expertise: Madhu Jeyakumaran, founder and director of Think Stride)
Emotional Intelligence:
Identifying and Naming Emotions Can Help Us Become More Resilient
A definitive approach for our professional and personal lives
(Expertise: Rachel Green, director of the Emotional Intelligence Institute)
The Foresight of Credibility and Trust Building in Relationships
(A brief yet important, valuable observation and recommendation)
A Thought About the Wrongs We Commit
(Your invitation: what is your viewpoint?)
What Hard Things Are You Committing to Doing?
(A Six-Slide Slideshare on LinkedIn)
The Benefits of Frequenting the “Emotional” Gym
(Expertise: Long Quach, Psy.D., clinical psychologist)
The “Best Of”: The Emotional Gym, Well-Being and Optimal Performance
(Conversations with Meagan Turner, Lynette Kearney, Shelby Ring and Michael James Nuells)
Keyboard Warriors, Judgment and Reputation Danger
— A politician is facing intense heat from different directions
(LinkedIn article)
What Will You Do?
— Past errors, even when you’ve forgotten, are not always dead
(LinkedIn article)
It’s Possible Your Reputation is so Terrible You Can’t Legally Protect It
(beBee article)
Comments and Questions
About
In our professional and personal lives, uncertainty is part of the human experience. Organizations require and expect leaders who can wisely, safely, effectively navigate through it. How that gets done, and well, is not always crystal clear or simple.
It becomes much more possible with the expertise that might not be “top of mind” or well understood and practiced.
Madhu Jeyakumaran, founder and director at Think Stride, talks about it in this smart, deep-dive, valuable, interesting piece of insight and advisory:
A Red Diamonds Features story
Successful Leadership Through Uncertainty
Resilience is an evergreen topic of conversation in this newsletter because our lives require it for survival and success. We go through pain, a lot of it.
Rachel Green, the director of the Emotional Intelligence Institute and specialist practitioner, converses about the challenges we have; the differences in our experiences, reactions and responses and how we can grow more resilient in our professional and personal lives, not only for greater health, but for the benefits of those around us and for our reputation.
A Thrive Global story
Identifying and Naming Emotions Can Help Us Become More Resilient
— A definitive approach for our professional and personal lives
In conflict or our exclusive focus on our own needs and “wants” we do not always exercise the wisdom of forward thinking in our professional and personal relationships. If we did, we would implement stress management, anger management and the morals and self control to think big picture as much as the “moment.”
Doing this would create greater possibilities for problem solving in the future with people that can hurt us if they choose by doing nothing or other forms of negative behavior in reaction to our past shortcomings.
First, the headline:
How the trust between Adam Silver and Chris Paul will shape the NBA’s restart
The excerpt:
“When speaking with players, coaches, executives, referees and even typically skeptical agents in recent weeks, their display of support for Adam Silver reveals a remarkable building of capital in his six years as NBA commissioner.”
Brief Analysis and Recommendation:
“…remarkable building of capital in his six years (of leadership).”
That’s relationship capital as much as revenue and profit for the NBA, its owners and players. Adam Silver has played the long game, building relationships with character, compassion and pursuing shared interests.
That has earned him credibility, trust, influence (even from LeBron James himself) and powers of persuasiveness. All that did not come quickly or by focusing only on self interests, which is the error most individuals (and organizations) make in human interactions.
Think empathy, put yourself in other people’s shoes and then seek insight and clarity on what is important to them. That’s the door to building future trust on which to draw on when it’s extremely important.
Do this and your trust “capital” will grow and you will experience, in the vast majority of cases, less resistance and disinterest in problem solving future challenges and conflicts.
Wrongs can’t be undone. Our reputations must own them. Yet we can choose to summons sustained motivation to humbly do what we can, what is possible — and much is possible — improve situations, heal hurts with compassion and show we do recognize harm done and do want to make right.
What are your own thoughts about the wrongs done — not by other people, but ourselves, when we’ve been the ones who have caused pain — deep and lasting pain?
What is your moral or philosophical belief system about what comes next, in the immediate moment, and the short-and-long term?
Please share your well-spoken, as concise-as-possible thoughts. I will publish the best, if I receive responses.
You can write RedDiamondsNews@Gmail.com
This short Slideshare talks about the hard things in front of us and the reputation opportunity they present.
A Slideshare on LinkedIn (six slides)
What Hard Things are you Committing to Doing?
We usually don’t seek out “hard” in our profession (and business) outside of what’s already expected and demanded of us yet maybe that’s a mistake we’ve been making, at a great cost.
This presentation could inspire you to question your belief system and decision making, possibly choose differently and take a new path in your professional and personal life. Do more hard things, well.
Last week I came across a link in a tech newsletter about going to the “emotional gym.” I was intrigued.
After reading the short amount of text with that link it inspired a story idea, because don’t seem, collectively speaking, to invest in our emotions with focused time, attention and a “workout” to get into, maintain or improve our mental “fitness”, emotional balance and well-being in our professional and personal lives.
Long Quach, Psy.D. and a clinical psychologist speaks to me about it in this article:
A Red Diamonds Feature:
Professional and Personal Benefits of Frequenting the Emotional Gym
A Thrive Global story:
Professional and Personal Benefits of Frequenting the Emotional Gym
Here are some additional voices on the topic on the emotional gym. A thank you to grad student Meagan Turner, editor Lynette Kearney, entrepreneur Shelby Ring and actor Michael James Nuells for their courtesy, generosity of spirit, knowledge, insights and personal practices.
The “Best Of”
A Thrive Global story:
The “Best Of” Feature: Four Voices Converse on the Importance of and Commitment to Emotional Fitness
The keyboard or our cell phones provide quick and easy access to venting our negative emotions or opinions online that could carry risk. We don’t often consider these risks and consequences. Maybe we should, for the benefit of our reputation in our professional and personal lives.
People often aren’t thinking their best when they communicate online. It’s an epidemic of emotional overwhelm, psychological safety, poor decision making and disturbing human interaction that leads to too-common occurrences of career and personal consequences.
Here’s one leader who has not seen his crisis coming. This story is not just his, it’s someone else’s future story, possibly soon
This piece looks at how even the media is upset at this repeat offender. That, and when shirts are being made with your name on them in a negative light — yes, it’s a sign that conflict is also reputation crisis. What now?
A LinkedIn story:
Keyboard Warriors not Always Exercising Sound Judgment and Protecting Reputation
What will you do or would you do if long forgotten transgressions come to light or if you didn’t understand that your choices from years ago were hurtful to other people?
Comedian, talk show host and actor Jimmy Fallon has had to figure it out.
The social media storm hit him hard. A short article takes a look at what happened, how Fallon reacted and responded, what would have been smarter (important lesson), how he stands now and what his future still requires.
A LinkedIn story:
Errors May Not Permanently Be Forgotten and Buried
It can’t be possible, can it, that a reputation can be so poor that we can remain walking on the street yet we can’t defend our name? It is possible.
This story looks at a person, once well known, whose reputation was so sordid that the judge didn’t mind communicating that the plaintiff is of such poor character that no one can insult or harm him more than himself.
Ouch: a little humiliation with that legal discouragement and expense.
A beBee story:
It’s Possible Your Reputation is so Terrible You Can’t Legally Protect It
Do you have comments about the newsletter, something you’ve read in it, or do you have questions? Reach out to RedDiamondsNews@Gmail.com.
Michael Toebe is the writer of the Red Diamonds Newsletter and also hosts the Red Diamonds Podcast: Michael Toebe (found on numerous podcast platforms). He is a specialist for reputation, professional relationships communication and wiser, more successful crisis management.
Until next week…
”In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
Albert Einstein
And
“There’s a way of doing it better — find it.”
Thomas Edison
