One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
I know it’s hard for you to keep your cool during meetings.
And, by “you” I mean me.
I can get triggered and respond with emotion instead of intention and end up with results I DON’T want.
Of course I don’t really know if it’s hard for you too, but I suspect it might be.
If my suspicions are accurate, try these 6 techniques to keep your cool during meetings.
The foundation of this approach to keep your cool during meetings
As a meeting leader you want to be “calm, cool, and collected” as the saying goes.
You want to act purposefully with intention when you’re leading meetings.
In other words, you want to be the best leader you can be.
There are many ways to approach this topic of how to keep your cool during meetings and my thoughts on this could fill a book.
For now, I’m going to build on this thought as a foundation:
“The best leaders are the most self-aware leaders.”
So, the first five are primarily focused on mindset and self-awareness.
Number 6, however, is purely tactical because it’s SO good and I use it all the time.
Let’s get started.
6 techniques to keep your cool during meetings
❄️ Recognize Your Signs
❄️ Respect Your Limits
❄️ Know Your Buttons
❄️ Be Objective
❄️ Persevere
❄️ Breathe
1. Keep your cool: Recognize Your Signs
You know what it feels like when you’re starting to get agitated during a meeting.
So to keep your cool, pay attention to those signs your body is giving you.
Taking this simple step will set you apart as a leader because while everyone’s body gives them warning signals, not everyone will recognize those early indicators.
You know this is true because you’ve witnessed “meeting meltdowns” and they are NOT a pretty site.
And they’re no way you want let yourself become the person melting down!
Here are some common signs your body may give you:
🚩 You get hot (especially around your face and neck)
🚩 You feel a tightness in your chest
🚩 Your heart starts to beat faster
🚩 You start to tremble or shake
🚩 Your skin begins to get red
🚩 You feel a knot in your gut
🚩 Your hands start to sweat
🚩 You tighten your fists
🚩 You hold your breath
🚩 You clinch your jaw
🚩 You fidget
It’s different for everyone but I expect you’ve experienced some or all those physical indicators telling you to take steps to keep your cool.
Many of these are quite familiar to me!
When you’re listening to your body, you’ll be ready to keep your cool during even the most stressful meetings.
2. Keep your cool: Respect Your Limits
Another technique to stay self-aware and keep your cool is to think about what’s going on in your life.
It’s important for you to do this BEFORE you join a meeting – especially if the meeting is a stressful, high-pressure environment.
Take a moment to reflect on the factors that may be influencing you and ask yourself some questions like these:
🔷 Did you sleep well last night? Lack of sleep might cause you to respond poorly.
🔷 Are you stressed at home? Issues with kids, spouses, and aging parents take a toll on you.
🔷 Are you hungry? The term “hangry” wasn’t coined for no reason.
You have limits like everyone else.
When you aren’t fueled with rest and nourishment and experiencing pressure from the challenges of life, you won’t perform at your best during meetings.
Give yourself some grace and respect your limits that come with being human.
You may even want to be vulnerable with your coworkers and tell them in advance that you may not be at your best.
A statement like this will give them more compassion if you aren’t able to keep your cool with them like you normally do:
“Hey, guys. Things didn’t go well with my mom last night at the hospital and I didn’t get much sleep. If you notice I’m being short with you, please say something to me.”
Your coworkers will likely empathize and support you because they’ve been in similar situations too.
3. Keep your cool: Know Your Buttons
This simple phrase can transform your life if you let it.
“People can push your buttons because you have buttons.”
The message is simple and clear, but it’s SO hard to put into practice.
If you can learn to not let things get to you, you won’t lose your cool.
A wise pastor of mine used to say this:
“A sign of maturity is what it takes to offend you.”
By knowing what triggers you, i.e. your “buttons”, you’ll recognize when people in meetings are trying to push them.
When you’re a meeting leader driving progress in your business, some people will try to distract you from your mission by trying to provoke you.
When you’re asking hard questions that need to be asked, they’ll attack you to protect themselves.
The fewer buttons you have, the harder it will be to upset you.
You’ll keep your cool and stay on task.
This leads to the next technique.
4. Keep your cool: Be Objective
Being objective also comes with maturity.
The same wise pastor said this to me many times:
“You never fully know what’s going on in another person’s life.”
And with this statement he encouraged me to strive to be kind and compassionate and extend grace to other people.
Those words from church are true in the business world too.
How does that wisdom apply to being objective to keep your cool during meetings?
Here’s an example.
You are probably not the real motivation driving that person who is trying to push your buttons.
It’s likely not about you. But rather about them.
Their own personal issues and insecurities are contributing to their behavior.
So, strive to not take things personally during meetings – even though this can be SO hard.
Stay objective.
Deal with what is true based on data.
As a meeting leader, you must recognize the importance of people’s emotional responses, but you can’t let emotion drive you or your meetings.
However, because you are human, it will happen.
5. Keep your cool: Persevere
There will be times when you are unable to keep your cool and you’ll respond in a way you won’t like.
Your response may not be obvious to everyone else but you’ll recognize it.
You’ll know you let your personal issues get in the way of doing what was best for the group or the business.
And, the more self-aware you become, the more you’ll see that happening.
This is not because you’re getting WORSE as a leader. It’s because you’re getting BETTER.
You’ll see your flaws in your character more clearly. And you’ll see how your actions impacted by your imperfections.
Try not to let this discourage you.
Be kind to yourself as you are to your coworkers.
Extend grace to yourself as you do to them.
And keep going – persevere.
6. Keep your cool: Breathe
As promised, this last tip to keep your cool during meetings is purely practical.
I use it and I know it works.
I first learned this technique in Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead.
It’s called box breathing or tactical breathing.
Brown quotes former Green Beret Mark Miller who explains it this way:
- Inhale deeply through your nose, expanding your stomach, for a count of four.
- Hold in that breath for a count of four.
- Slowly exhale all the air through your mouth, contracting your stomach, for a count of four.
- Hold the empty breath for a count of four.
This breathing technique calms your body and your mind and decreases stress.
In other words, it will help you keep your cool during meetings.
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
You can find a set of helpful Dare to Lead resources on Brené Brown’s website (click here).
I use some of those resources in this blog post: Can A Kind Leader Be Successful? (click here).
If you’d like to learn more about box breathing check out this article: “What is Box Breathing?” on WebMD (click here).
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere now. It’s a powerful tool to save you time and money.
Descript uses AI to power audio transcriptions in 22 languages:
Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Malay, Turkish, Polish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Croatian, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Slovak, Catalan, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Latvian, (and English).
Wow!
If you need your audio transcribed in English or any of these languages, click here to follow my affiliate link and give this AI-powered tool a try.
That’s All for this Issue
If you’ve been in stressful meetings with me, you may have noticed me using the box breathing technique.
I’ve had coworkers who would ask me after meetings, “You okay? I noticed you were taking some deep breaths in there.”
That tells you technique “6 – Keep your cool: Breathe” works because they weren’t asking me why I blew up and started throwing a fit (which could certainly have occurred if I didn’t start box breathing!).
And, it also tells you that I’m writing from my personal experience in struggling to stay “calm, cool, and collected” during meetings.
If you struggle in this area, know you’re not alone. I’m right there with you. And so are many others.
Hopefully these 6 techniques to help you keep your cool during meetings will help you like they’ve helped me.
If that’s true, please take a moment to share this with your coworkers because they are probably looking for ways to improve in this area just like we are.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
New To This Newsletter?
Subscribe here so you don’t miss what I share in the next issue.
Want To Help Others?
If this issue helped you, it will probably help someone else. Please share it with your connections to fuel the global movement to Stop Bad Meetings!