DRIPS.

Hello dear reader - welcome to this week's Wednesday Weekly.

Ten days before moving out of my house there was an issue with the water pressure. Several visits from the plumber later and we determined it is most likely a leak.

There are a few things you don't want to happen before you leave your sold house, and discovering a leak underneath a concrete floor is pretty high up on that list of nightmares.

When the specialist leak detector visited, he told me about an elderly lady he had visited just before Christmas last year, whose house had a significant leak that no one knew about.

I had a pressurised cylinder system, so saw immediately from the valve reading that the pressure was dropping. Edna wasn't so fortunate. She had an older, gravity-fed hot water system. And a horrifically high water bill.

Her family decided to replace the hot water system with a pressurised system, and that's when the leak was discovered.

However, it had gone undiscovered for as many as 7 years. An estimated 50,000 gallons of water had leaked and after several years the drips had caused catastrophic damage to house. Edna was moved out and for 6 months the entire lower floor of her house was ripped up, dried out, and replaced.

I quickly tempered my reaction to my little drip in the hallway.

However, I regularly think of Edna's situation and of our need to continuously monitor our emotions and reactions. 

Many people go through life simply reacting. 

There's no consideration of the reaction, or its consequences; it's an impulsive response. We see it at work in colleagues and in our leaders, and we see it at home with our partners and children. The petty arguments, the passive aggression, the short replies, the revenge behaviours.

If we don't regularly monitor our responses, the dripping of the things that annoy or trigger us eventually result in a moment when everything breaks. The argument, or clash, or flare up of emotional tension.

It takes time and persistence to override our learnt behaviours, but stick with it to prevent the build up of tension. If something is triggering, address it. In Q&A sessions I'm often asked how, and there's no complicated, special way: you simply say it how it is. Calmly and honestly. "I feel angry/upset/sad/annoyed about this".

However, leaving it there relies very heavily on the other person, or people, having the same level of emotional intelligence, so it helps if we can take control of the entire situation, which in turn helps us feel much more in control of how we are feeling:

"What you have just said/done has triggered something in me. I feel angry/upset/sad/annoyed now and this is why.../and I'm not sure why so need time to process how this has made me feel. I know you won't have said/done it with the intention of upsetting/annoying me so I'm telling you so you can be aware."

Communication is king. Always. 

Happy Wednesday,

Jez

PS. My new book is almost ready (2 are being released this year) and I'll soon be opening a page where you can register to be the first to know of its release with an exclusive launch discount.