Equanimity
As part of my ritualistic hazing upon joining the Guild executive team, I was asked for my word of the year ahead. I had failed to anticipate that question (whereas I was all set for two truths and a lie, or my favourite book/movie, or my karaoke song choice, none of which were asked!).
I had to say something quickly, because I'm not great with silences. My previous executive team used to have this awkward zoom silence in executive meetings as we awaited the CEO's entrance, and I was frequently the source of the disruption to the peace. I didn't have too much hesitation before plumping for equanimity.
Equanimity is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by the experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind.
It's possible that if I'd paused for thought, I might have leaned into intentionality instead, but I'm glad I didn't. Instinctive responses in these situations tend to be more authentic rather than manufactured, and looking back on it, I believe the choice was important and apt. Someday later I may write about the dissonance you're experiencing at me calling an instinctive response a choice - but the words are intentional (hah!).
What does equanimity mean to me?
People often talk about finding ways to avoid stress. I have a contrarian view there. I welcome the appearance of stress in my life. It simply means that there's something happening with something that matters to me, and it's a trigger for me to choose a response to drive a great outcome. If something is of no import, then I won't feel stress, and that's also a signal that my attention is better directed elsewhere.
Like all great generalizations in life, recognize that there are always variables, but the constant here for me, and I believe should be for anyone, is in understanding your agency with stressors.
Life has a lot of potential stressors, and they can and will hit in all facets of life, and at all levels of Maslow's hierarchy. I personally have and do run into these everywhere from basic financial pressures, to personal relationships, to outcomes at work, to the seemingly trivial but actually burdensome task of getting 11 grown adults to show up for a cricket game at the right time and the right place (the one who will forever be looking for parking half an hour after the game starts knows exactly who he is).
Absent some semblance of equanimity, I'd have been destroyed by now. I very much do feel stressed, and I very much don't always operate with perfect equanimity, especially internally. I'm human, after all. However, I am pretty good at choosing my way back into a state of equanimity when I lose it.
If we have to start a game with fewer than 11 on the field, we'll do it. Last season we started one with 8 - and somehow only conceded 6 runs in the first over of a T20. Not being frazzled and frantic was 90% of that battle. (The other 10% was largely a thoughtless approach from the opposition - and I have no qualms about accepting luck when it's on my side!)
I've seen and learned in life that you simply cannot perform if you're operating in fight or flight mode. As a leader, whether because you have a large team on paper, or because you're an individual who is trying to ensure peak performance from everyone in the game with you, if you are in that mode, then it's not just you who will fail to perform optimally, it's your whole team.
Why is it apt for the journey ahead?
The notion really is apposite at any juncture in life, but it's perhaps exaggeratedly so for my year ahead. There's a lot going on in my personal life that covers the spectrum from exciting and scary to sometimes excruciatingly painful (quite literally in the case of one of my fingers!). In the midst of that, I went with a big uproot and change in my professional career which comes with its own set of impacts, and then there's the unusual and highly unexpected set of challenges that come with going into a cricket season as defending champions (sorry, have to keep bringing that up because it doesn't feel plausible yet even after the fact).
All of these take a lot of work, and will definitively involve significant uncertainty paired with unexpected challenges and missteps. There will be great days and bad ones. Things will break. Hearts will break. Some people will be thrilled, and some will be unhappy. Some people will have their lives changed, and others will question value. There will be amazing partnerships forged, and once great ones may be lost. Great people will come and go.
Each of these applies to every walk of life, and in all of that, each of us will have enough to deal with without allowing every fluctuation to fluster us and destroy our ability to operate rationally and reasonably. And in the midst of all this, that one bloke will still be looking for a parking spot.
To emerge at the other end of this journey, both individually and collectively in each of those arenas, having ways to maintain an even keel will make all the difference. Important to note there that while we often tend to focus on staying calm and composed when things are bad, I also avoid getting carried away in the good moments.
How do I do this?
Firstly, I'm not writing an advice column, and I'm not qualified to do so, so I don't have all the answers here. I can only speak for me.
There's a part of this that is just inherent in my nature. My own parents might observe (you should ask them to validate) that they have been frustrated in the past with my lack of excitement at great news and my phlegmatic responses to tough news. I have no idea how or why I reached that way of being early on, but there's no doubt that it's enabled me to start from a solid footing.
The key things that I believe empower me to maintain equanimity are:
Conviction and clarity that my responses to a situation are my choices, and that I have agency over them. Nobody else, nothing else, has the power to determine them for me. Put another way - you don't get to make me mad, I get to choose whether or not I am mad.
Intentionality around controlling the controllables. I have a point of view on what I can actually influence, and I therefore don't worry about that which I can't. This is not a loss of agency - rather it's a focusing of it.
I don't worry about how others perceive me. That's probably a luxury that I have run into later in life (I'm only halfway through my life, so take that in context). My experience tells me that a lot of loss of control is in conjunction with a desire to affect other people's perception and judgement. Consider how football fans often favour the player who runs about like a headless chicken, versus the one who waits patiently for their moment. You'll hear a barrage of "he doesn't care," because we are often so shallow that we want some explicit manifestation of a state of mind that will make us happier. Think also of a parent, screaming at a kid in public for something done wrong. I posit that very often, they are actually putting on a show to ensure that others see that they are in control - the irony of which is beyond amusing.
I have a small but meaningful network of people who a) care, b) listen, and c) bring me back down to earth as needed.
None of this means that I'm always operating where I would ideally like to be - but it does mean that I'm cognisant of where I am, and taking ownership of getting to the right place.
Why it can cause problems
It's not all sunshine however, and there are downsides that I have to keep an eye out for.
I often don't celebrate the wins enough
I will have people ask me why I don't care (see my comments on fans and sportspeople above)
If I'm not careful with both of the above, the message that will get out is that the outcomes don't actually matter, that "it is what it is" - and that's not a success or winning mindset
This is where the power of choice comes in. We've all read and talked about the duck that looks calm on the surface but is paddling away furiously underwater. Sometimes, without sacrificing equanimity, it might behoove me (or you) to be very calm under the surface, but find a way to convey urgency and import up top. Context, as always, is decisive, and the choice has to be made every time. The power lies in remembering that none of this is about trusting in fate or destiny and ceding control - quite the opposite.
It's been fun to see how that simple question has already led to other motions in the workplace.
We're currently opening every CPTO Leadership team meeting with a little human touchpoint of where everyone is on the equanimity scale - a scale that we've invented.
A zero puts you in completely unhinged territory. A 5 places you dealing with an up or a down (or maybe both at the same time) and being off your even keel. A 10 is the proverbial duck only it's just as calm both above and below the surface - a state of zen, if you will.
I did absolutely love it in the first week of doing this when one leader piped up and asserted that if we're not all always above a 5, then we're in problem territory as a leadership team. An astute observation - leaders not just exuding calm, but genuinely operating from a place of calm and composure is more often than not a key difference between a successful dynamic and operation and an anarchic and oppressive one.
Of course, our scale now goes from 5 to 10, because nobody's going to cop to below 5 after that. Unintended consequences are real in life!
Rohan, you are someone who I have looked up to for over 20 years. Equanimity suits you well.