About five years ago I took on a new client in New York City. This company had lawsuits against it, high turnover, and terrible press. One of the first people I met was a senior leader we'll call Hunter.

"Look Peter, you seem like a nice guy," Hunter said with a smile as he looked at me from across his desk, "but there have been several consultants before you and there will be several more after you. If you think you're going to change the way we do things here, well, you're mistaken."

Hunter smiled at me again and I had a strong, visceral reaction — I immediately disliked him.

After leaving the meeting I called my uncle Guy, a successful businessman in London, and told him the story. "I can't work with this company."

"Why not?" Guy asked.

"Hunter. Honestly? I really don't like the guy." I answered.

He laughed. "You don't have to like him, Peter. You just have to do business with him."

Guy was right. And he was pointing out a habit that costs many of us tremendous opportunity. Our reaction to an event creates an unproductive outcome.

In my case, the event was that Hunter told me I wouldn't be effective. My reaction was to dislike Hunter and avoid working with him. The outcome would have been the loss of that client.

This simple event-reaction-outcome chain governs most of our spontaneous action. Something or someone hooks us and we react. Someone yells at us, we yell back and create the outcome of a damaged relationship. It's not that we want a damaged relationship, it's just what happens when we yell back.

And that's the problem. The most important part of the chain, arguably the only part that really matters, the outcome, is collateral damage from our reaction. It's not intentional. We're reacting to the event. The outcome is simply fallout.

But, this time, before making that mistake, I paused; which gave my rational self time to negotiate with my emotional self. And, lucky for me, during that negotiation they must have agreed to call Guy for advice.

Guy offered an alternate chain. Focus on the outcome, then choose your reaction.

Rather than focus on my personal reaction to Hunter, Guy suggested that I focus on what I wanted, which was to grow the business.

When an unsettling event occurs, pause before reacting. In that pause, ask yourself a single question: what is the outcome I want? Then, instead of reacting to the event, react to the outcome.

In other words, stop reacting to the past and start reacting to the future.

If someone yells at you, pause before yelling back. Then ask yourself what outcome you want. If the answer is "an improved relationship," don't yell back. Instead, in a normal voice, empathize with their anger and ask some questions about the concerns raised in the midst of the screaming. That's a reaction that will achieve a better relationship.

Here's the hard part: You react to the event because it's asking you to react to it. But just because the event catalyzed your action, doesn't mean it should determine it. How you react can and should be determined by the outcome; by the future you want to create.

Maybe a colleague comes to you complaining about a situation she's in with her boss (event). How should you respond (reaction)? If the outcome you want is her feeling supported, then listen to her with empathy. If you want to help her, then offer solutions. If you simply want to get back to work, then find a graceful escape.

This is particularly useful in personal relationships. When a problem is presented to me (event), my instinct is to solve it (reaction). On the other hand, what I want most with my wife Eleanor is a strong vibrant relationship (outcome). So when she comes to me with a problem, instead of immediately trying to solve it, I ask her what she wants me to do. Listen? Solve? Coach? I am surprised, disappointed even, by the number of times she says "just listen." Wait, I want to tell her, I have ideas. Solutions. I can help. But after almost 10 years of marriage I've realized that listening is sometimes all the help she wants from me. So I listen.

In the end, I continued to work with Hunter and his company for several years. Instead of focusing on Hunter, I focused on the goal of creating a more functional, productive management process for the company.

At one point, I was back in Hunter's office, planning an offsite I was going to lead for him when I saw my book on his bookshelf.

"Have you read it?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, "and it's not bad."

You know, I thought to myself, I might like this guy after all.

Not that it matters.

-Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Publishing

Life is fun.

Forgot that somewhere along the way.

i put this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvOlJo3nnsM

Definitely worked. I know it seems like a long time ago, but thank you all for your prayers from the last post. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time (except for the fact that I just woke up), and things are going better in a lot of ways.

Got a big next couple months up ahead. I'll be living like a rockstar for a little while, right out of a suitcase. Starting next week:

November 25-29 - Thanksgiving in Amarillo
December 8-12 - Finals
December 18-22 - Cruise to Cozumel
December 23/24-January 2 - Christmas in Amarillo
January 5-24 - Trip to Philippines with Shane, Zach Fisk, Zach Olsen, Matt Perez, Jim, and Jim's grandkid.

Pretty jazzed about it all coming up. I'll tell you what I'm not excited about at all though, is the song that I had to write and now perform in a couple hours in front of my guitar class. It's about how much I hate my guitar class. Should get an A.

I'll leave you with something that happened earlier this week that made me want to go out and get my conceal and carry. Kyle and I were going to visit some people and he told me we should go visit this dude that wrote in to the Loop in response to his newspaper articles, only calling himself "the New Testament Believer." This guy was iiiiiiintense, and had just told us about ten minutes before that he had a problem with his temper. The following is an excerpt from the conversation.

NTB - "I tell you what, I don't like them methodists. I went to their singles nights last christmas, and they had these parties where everyone got to pick a gift from the tree. But then they started STEALING from each other!! I don't wanna be associated with ANYONE who steals from people...pack of thieves."

Kyle - "Yea those parties can get kinda out of hand. We don't believe the church is for that, definitely not to have christmas parties."

Brady - "Especially not white elephant gift parties."

NTB - "Well I don't like white elephant gift parties either!! I don't want their cheap junk they pass off as gifts! Everytime I get one I just wanna throw it back and them and hit them in the face!!!"

Brady - *mild chuckle*

NTB - (Looks straight at Brady, slowly, dead in the eyes) "I also don't like it when people laugh at things I don't think are funny."

My pride usually gets in the way of me doing this, but this time I know I need it. There are a lot of things in my life that I'm struggling with, have been struggling with for a long time, and its really starting to take a hold on me more than usual. I need your prayers for strength and encouragement, those are the things I'm really lacking right now. There was a time in my life where I used to believe that everything I was fighting with could be handled myself, but now I'm starting to learn the hard way just how untrue that idea is.

2 Corinthians 2:3-11