Read the article based on this episode, “The Fog.“

Powerful emotions can derail, disrupt, distract, and disorient us. If we don’t learn how to handle strong emotions, they will begin to lead us and our company, department, or family.

In this week’s episode of the Lead Different Podcast, Russ Ewell gives us a spiritual and emotional antidote to emotionalism so we can reinvent our leadership.

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Read the transcript

Russ Ewell (00:00):
Hey, I’ve been doing some thinking about the four D’s. If you’ve read some of my stuff already, or you’ve heard podcast, you may have heard me talk about the four D’s people have questions.

So what I did is I put a little something together. This is just rough cut. Just sat down and said, let’s do it. The four D’s of emotionalism. Yeah. I didn’t say that before the four D’s of emotionalism. That’s what it is. Me, I’m a very emotional person. Maybe you are too. And as leaders, if you’re an emotional person and really all human beings are emotional, it’s just a matter of how aware we are of those emotions.

How much willing to talk about those emotions? I know for me, a long time I was repressed and suppressed in my emotions. Didn’t want to deal with them. Spock was my favorite guy.

Russ Ewell (01:08):
So as my emotions became more to the surface, I realized I had powerful emotions and those emotions could derail me. They could disrupt me. They could distract me. They could disorient me. Those are the four DS disoriented, distracted, disrupted, and derail.

You know what? One of the leaders we know about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was on an extraordinary track to be an incredible leader. Then he got hit by polio disorienting. Jerry West, one of my three, four favorite players growing up, I read a book written by Jerry West by basketball, complete with pictures and tips. And that’s how I learned to be a better player.

But later on in life, I realized Jerry West, from his biography, had to deal with some emotional health issues. And so incredibly distracting. Magic Johnson. I’ll never forget when he announced in 1991 that he had AIDS disruptive. And Robert F. Kennedy, when his brother John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he went into a place where he literally was completely derailed.

Russ Ewell (02:18):
Didn’t know what he wanted to do, lost his sense of purpose and lost his sense of meaning. All of those things were by really great people F.D.R. One of the three, four greatest presidents of all time, Jerry West, the logo in the NBA, magic Johnson, widely considered one of the top three or four players of all time. Robert F. Kennedy, one of our best leaders in history, but how did they get there?

They handled being disoriented. They handled being distracted. They handled being disrupted. They handled being derailed. How do they do it? When I’ve read their histories and watched documentaries about them? I realized three things.

One, they face their fears. That was a key. Two, They stopped their fears. They stopped letting their fears control them three. They kept hope alive. They realized that they had a destiny. And you know what I learned from all that the four D’s provide a path and emotional and spiritual antidote for emotionalism.

Russ Ewell (03:22):
That’s right. The four D’s provide a path and emotional and spiritual antidote for emotionalism. And what do you have to do? You have to attack it at its point. What point? Disorientation, how do we deal with that? Then I could tell you many stories. I’ll try to tell you one.

At the end, this orientation is handled by keeping your focus. Number one, keeping your purpose. Number two, staying on your path. Number three, and remembering your destiny. So that’s how we attack Disorientation. How do we detach distraction by remembering five things? I’ve experienced them all. Stop overreacting. I do it all the time. Stop overreaching, guilty, overthinking, totally guilty overloaded. Well, of course, if you overreact, which I do overreach and overthink, you end up overloaded.

And guess what? When you overreact overreach, overthink and get overloaded, you end up overwhelmed. I’m too proud to admit I’m overwhelmed, but it happens all the time.

Russ Ewell (04:23):
How do you know burnout? You lose motivation. That’s the stage of distraction. And we have to attack all of those five. We have to go after them disruption, once we’ve been disoriented. And once we’ve been distracted, the next thing we know we’re facing disruption.

Our emotions become our leader instead of us leading out of our core values. And instead of us leading out of our true North, instead of us leading from a place of depth, we go superficial and just go by how we feel. And before we know it, not only are we being led by our emotions, but our department, our company, our marriage, our family, is being led by emotions too.

And when we’re led by emotions, I can tell you from personal experience, we began to act against our own best interests. I have too many stories to even tell right now about how many times I did things to make my life worse because I was letting my emotions lead.

Russ Ewell (05:17):
And once we’re disrupted, guess what we get derailed. That’s it disoriented, distracted, disrupted. And then derail. What happens when we get derailed? We’re thrown completely off course, wherever we were heading. We’re not hitting there anymore. We are knocked out dreams, visions, and destiny. They evaporate.

See, here’s the thing though, the 4 D’s, they explained my life. Honestly, I think they explain any life. It’s difficult to recover from the 4 D’s, but you can do it. How do we know? Well remember what I told you at the very beginning, FDR Magic Johnson. Remember those guys? Jerry West, remember him, Robert F. Kennedy. Remember him. We got all the, the, the leaders we need to look at and you know how they did it. Each one of them did it this way. Rescue, they got rescued. They got a second chance.

We need to look for relationships. When we’ve been derailed, we need to look for relationships that will encourage us, that we can have a second chance rebuild character.

Russ Ewell (06:15):
If you go back and you look at each of those people, each of their character was stronger after their difficulty than it was before. So we got to rebuild re-imagined once they got rescued, knew they had a second chance. Once they got rebuilt and they knew their character was stronger, they could reimagine their life with a new vision and a better vision.

And finally, once you get rescued, rebuilt, reimagined, guess what happens? Radical change, reinvent yourself. How many times has Madonna reinvented herself? How about that one? Incredible. Huh? How many times have you seen people reinvent themselves? It’s rare, but it happens. And it’s the four DS that get you there. They may sound bad, but they ended up good.

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