Sunday Night John: A First Impression Duet

Tonight's blog has a guest writer, Chris Alexander. Chris give his take on his first impression upon coming across my website, and then I respond, enjoy. 

If you’ve ever worked in a large company, you know that its culture can affect you in many ways and is created by the people we work with, the policies we hold and the traditions we create. About a year ago when our company decided to expand a department within our agency and hire a new Behavior Support Specialist; I knew whomever they choose would be on my team.  I couldn’t help but wonder how our new team mate would affect how things run and how our team works together.

My boss mentioned one of the candidates had a funny last name, John Derryberry (pretty funny right)? My boss also mentioned he was a public speaker. When the announcement was made that he got the job, I was curious and wondered what would this guy was going to bring to the team. 

Most inspirational speakers make me cringe because they can be a little over the top with the emotional talk. But I agree with positive attitudes, I look for the best in people and forget the rest, the basics of what most speakers talk to us about.  These are traits I try to show in my everyday life, qualities that probably brought me in some way to working with adults with disabilities. My cringe probably comes from the fact my mother use to thrive on Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and many other “inspirational” speakers.  I find these grandiose versions of public speakers a turn off.  How was I going to work with one of these guys on a daily basis?  What he going to make me share my emotions everyday?  Was he going to preach to us about the power of positive thought?

I hadn’t ever really looked up a future coworker, but I couldn’t resist checking out someone who was a public speaker. I entered his name into Google and with one click his website popped up as my office mate and I were waiting to make some off hand comments about our new public speaker colleague.

The first thing I noted was emotions seemed to matter to John. In fact it is one of his major talks. I read through one of his blog posts and a few of his messages. Then exclaimed (with a nice eye roll): This guy is going to want us to talk about our feelings. I assured my office mate from what I had read that this guy was going to try to bring us into an even feelier mode. Something I wasn’t very interested in. Someone trying to tear down or make me talk about the barriers I had constructed to shelter against my struggle of being over-involved with adults with disabilities was not what I had in mind. 

But after meeting him, John didn’t turn out to be that guy. I stopped cringing at all inspirational and public speakers after meeting him. He was practical, experienced, and while he wanted us to deal with our own personal experiences and move on from them for the better, he didn’t want to hear me spill my guts. What I took from the first impression wasn’t at all what the reality turned out to be.

-Chris Alexander

As you may have read in my previous blogs, switching jobs after 9 years of working with abused teens was a bit hard for me.  Tackling a new company with a new mission, new clients and new colleagues is always a process.  But luckily, the people that welcomed me into my new position helping mentally and physically disabled adults have been so friendly, smart and willing to work as a team to do what is best for our clients.  Chris Alexander in particular has been a force for me to draw from and bounce ideas off of.  I love having smart people around to challenge me. 

After a few months of working together, Chris and I have gotten to know each other’s professional philosophies, have become friends, and he even let me in on the secret that when I got hired, people were nervous about my public speaking message: “Share Emotions, Emotions Matter.” They thought I was going to waltz in and starting asking everyone to share their sob stories and try to fix them.

I told Chris that I picked the words of my website to convey a message. I want my message to say emotions are healthy to talk about. I am not looking for emotional cry sessions; I just want to give people permission to entwine emotions into conversations with those they love.  When people come by my website, read my blog, or hear one of my talks I want them to walk away emotionally healthier. But I know I can’t control how my audience will perceive my message or what exactly they will take away from my talk.  There will always be people like Chris whose first impression will be to recoil at the thought sharing emotions.

I feel we often attempt to control every story we share, every emotion we have, and any message we send. We want people to come to the same conclusions and realizations we did. This is truly impossible to accomplish. Once we click send on a message or once we allow the words to come out of our mouths we lose control over our message and others now have the freedom to interpret. We have to allow people to come to their own conclusions, and respect their thoughts and feelings.

 When it came to Chris and my new co-workers I had only one option: to believe that over time the way I interact, the way I communicate, and they way I share emotions to be effective in showing them that I’m not looking to get touchy feely, but nudge the world towards perusing responsible emotional health in their own lives. I will continue to refine my message and I will always allow others to come to their own conclusions and thoughts.  I strive to interact with the world so my message can be heard overtime. Chris and my new co-workers first impression changed not because I tried to control what they thought of me, but because I allowed space for them to realize my message was worthy.