Written by: Anand Safi, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“Finding Calm in the Chaos” ‒ easier said than done.
There is no magic wand to make this change happen or a mantra that will cause overnight success with this. It takes time to put this into practice and reap the rewards of this mindset and operational dynamic. It does not matter when you start practicing this since it will become permanent thereafter.
Let us look at two scenarios, a personal life one and a professional workplace one, to showcase the impact of this superpower.
1. In Personal Life
Think of your latest argument/ verbal fight with anyone. The one that was a heated exchange and ended in an unpleasant way.
Reflect on what led to this being so chaotic in the first place? A core reason might simply be the sheer aggression and need to get your point across. When both the actors in a conversation do that, it leads to CHAOS vs a healthy debate. Each person becomes tone-deaf to what the other is saying and simply adds to noise by proving they are right, and the other is wrong.
CHAOTIC ARGUMENT
The Superpower:
For the above situation, imagine if one of the persons maintained their patience and calm in that moment. It takes courage and habit to hold back your nerves and approach the argument with a more polite and soft take. If one person stayed CALM, the entire conversation could be geared towards a better sensible conversation and meaningful outcome vs each trying to get their own favorable outcomes!
2. In Professional Life
I have worked for the past decade with various technology companies. My role has been a part of the engineering team in some form whether as an Individual Contributor or as a Team Lead and an Engineering Manager (recent times).
A critical aspect for any technology company is to deliver quality software with 100% uptime(ideally) and ZERO production issues. This never is the case though and often, there will be a critical situation that emerges. The more common terms in the industry are “war room”, “production outage”, “Priority 1 issues”, “firefighting” etc. In such situations, it is perceived that jumping to the solution right there and then is critical.
The Superpower:
While I do agree that is certainly needed but having the right temperament matters. Creating a situation of panic and chaos might lead to being scrappy and causing more harm than help.
Taking a moment to get a sense of the situation and trying to investigate one cause at a time — essentially a CALM & COMPOSED approach will make the process easy and reaching to a solution quicker!
WHY IS IT HARD TO PRACTICE CALMNESS?
One of the primary reasons this is so difficult for many folks to put this into practice is due to what is commonly known as “Anxiety Disorder”.
·Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States alone age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.
HOW CAN YOU OVERCOME IT?
What has personally worked for me all these years and continues to be:
Making this a habit and being patient with the process
Reflecting at the end of the day or at the end of a conversation on any “not-so-great” chaotic occurrences
Working towards maintaining harmony rather than win the argument or own the situation for my benefit
Practicing pausing during the moment of panic to take a step back and think of the bigger picture
Thinking of all the past instances where not finding calmness did no good
At the end of the day, this can seem a tad bit superficial to digest since it must be a natural ability than a forced one. I still have my own instances of not being able to find calmness and failing to keep calm in rare moments.
It might be impossible to get rid of being short-tempered at times completely since we are humans but with the process, patience and plan — one can limit the rate at which this happens and witness the wonders of this superpower: “Finding Calm in Chaos”.
Anand Safi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Anand currently serves as a Senior Engineering Leader for Mark43 – a public safety software company. Over the past decade, Anand has progressed from starting as an aspiring engineer to becoming an engineering leader.
Anand also is a Startup Advisor, Volunteer Board Member and an established tech mentor outside of his role. He loves reading about engineering culture, team dynamics and new advancements in tech.
