Facing Feelings, not Facts.

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“I’m just angry at what this leaves me. The price is too low.”

After many months in negotiation, I wondered what my client was thinking. But instead he seemed thrown around by his emotions.

The deal I was trying to help him with involved his lifetime work, the sale of his business. He trusted me, I think. But the deal looked like it could go off the rails.

I thought, With all the challenges requiring ‘go-no-go’ decisions, what’s the use of me knowing he’s afraid or angry?

“Do I care? Do I need to go there?” were my thoughts. Then I gave him the plain facts: “Here’s the good news; at least it’s pretty good news. Now you have all the information that you need to make a decision.”

I kept talking through the deal, ignoring his feelings; “And if you slow this down, you’ll see that it could all unravel.”

The deal almost broke apart because emotions were the deciding factor. But we had a listening broker, who worked through his client’s emotions. The numbers worked, but his emotional fear had to be acknowledged and responded to.

I was surprised how hard it was for me to pivot from financial data, the movement of the deal, to focus on emotions. (Was it greed; fear?) The logic of the transaction was clear, but that wasn’t to be the decider.

I’m getting better at facing feelings, and not leading with facts. I may have all the facts, but they can’t “fix” what will happen. What helps is hearing emotions; like reading the body, the strain in a voice, the shifts in energy and mood.

But it’s the next action which scares me.

That’s when I should acknowledge and respond to their feelings, to show I hear them.

Maya Angelou was right: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Writing about emotions is teaching me what’s important in my responses. It’s hearing a client or a friend’s feelings, then showing that I’ve heard them.

I might be only a week ahead of some of you on this learning curve.

For those ahead of me, please help! What have you learned about responding to emotions like fear or greed?

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I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn or Facebook​

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See you next week,

Grayson

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