Ed Batista on the “MESS” Hack to build Emotional Capacity

Ed Batista is a prominent Executive Coach in Silicon Valley who counts technology company CEOs and leaders in various fields as his clients. He coaches senior executives who are facing a challenge or who would like to be fulfilled and effective in their roles.

Ed is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaches a course called “The Art of Self Coaching”, and used to teach “Interpersonal Dynamics” (popularly known as “Touchy Feely”), the schools’ most popular elective. 

In today’s episode, our second with Ed, he talks about the “M.E.S.S." hack for building emotional capacity so we can regulate our responses to stressful situations. If you've ever had a knee-jerk reaction to tough situations, regretted actions you've taken in response to triggering events, and would like to be more intentional about your actions, this episode is for you!

Ed has been blogging since 2004 and has a wealth of resources, as well as game-changing and practical thought leadership on his site: www.edbatista.com. If you can’t hire Ed as a coach, his blog provides generous insight into “The Art of Self Coaching”, “Touchy Feely”, and his thoughtful approach. You can also check out this post he wrote on managing emotions, that touches on his discussion with us. We highly recommend it! 

Transcript:

Ed: Over time, we've got to build our capacity for emotion regulation, and there some just foundational practices that enable us to do this.

I am not a fan of cheesy acronyms. I rarely use them, but there's one that has sort of I think some value to be this idea of getting messy, M E S S engaging in some type of mindfulness practice and meditation is a particularly useful tool in that process. Meditation is not for everybody.

And I think it's important to also bear in mind, meditation is not going to be a a sort of a shortcut to a state of bliss or some kind of break; meditation is really a, from my perspective it's a practice in attention management, noticing where our attention is going and cultivating the ability to direct our attention more deliberately.

 "E" in this is for exercise. Getting some kind of regular physical activity allows us to be more attuned to the physiological signs of emotion, including the sense of  oh, I'm, I'm feeling urgent. I'm feeling some urgency. I've got to rush through this experience. 

 S for sleep.

 When we are well-rested we are so much more capable of regulating our emotions. There's a ton. I mean, there's many, many benefits to being well rested, but that is one of the most important ones. 

 And finally S for stress reduction by which I mean, not necessarily avoiding distressing circumstances.

 It's not the case that we have to, or even should aspire to a sort of stress free life. That's  I think that we'd actually, we'd miss a lot of excitement if that were the case. However there is also a lot of research on  the impact of low levels of chronic stress.

And  that can take  anything from  an unpleasant commute, which of course is on a lot of people's minds as they consider returning to the office, disturbing noises that, that make it difficult for us to stay focused. When we experience low levels of chronic stress again, our capacity for emotional regulation is substantially diminished.

So if we're, in some cases, we're able to identify those sources of chronic stress and and shift our experience quite significantly. I'll just when I used to commute back from Stanford to San Francisco on a more regular basis, essentially I had a choice of two routes and one was a, a shorter trip.

But much more stressful, lots of traffic, lots of  just much more chaotic. And the other longer route probably took about 15 minutes longer. Took me out to ocean beach, this beautiful stretch this beautiful drive, beautiful view of San Francisco. And I realized, oh, if I just take the longer route  take 15 more minutes experience, much less stress,

and then I arrive home, yeah, in a much better state of mind. Also very connected to this overarching idea of the impulse to hurry is a signal to slow down because  if I felt like, oh, I have to get home in the  in the most economical  way, I've got to be very time efficient, that actually was rarely true, and only contributed to me arriving at home in a great feeling, more stressed and less able to  connect with AB at a, at a fruitful way. So even just saying, Hey, the extra 50 minutes is actually going to be a bonus it's less "economical", less "efficient". But it's a much better use of my time.

Agnes: Thank you so much for sharing this story. I think lot of people could relate. And I loved that you shared not only how leaders in the moment, right, can be cognizant. Wow. I'm I have the impulse to hurry and how can I reframe myself? How can I manage myself in the moment? How can I challenge some of the assumptions? How can I check with my body? 

And also the capability to, or the practice, long-term practice to build capability right around. And I love the, thank you for sharing that codename of "MESS"y  that helps to think about  the things that are important. And yeah. As I know you and the work that you do it's is that being able to problem the things that are happening in the moment for someone, but also you, I know that you feel so strongly about building people's capability and supporting them around that. 

Ed: At like recognizing this is this is very much an organic process  that it's rooted in our commitment to practices that have an impact on us physiologically obviously exercise, but also meditation. Other forms of mindfulness are  they  research and I'm familiar with suggests that with.

Basically eight weeks of consistent meditation  say 10 minutes a day. That's where we start to observe measurable differences in brain structures and neural networks. So  there's a, there's an organic basis to all of this. It's not just an intellectual dynamic. I, I. Add  a a theme in my practice over the last year has been helping leaders deliver bad news.

 I've had to talk to so many leaders over the past year who had to either in some cases conduct layoffs in other cases,    report disappointing business results. And those conversations are really hard.  Leaders feel extraordinarily. Responsible, I feel a sense of failure.

 Emotions are charged and in those contexts  this is where I think this mantra that you can post a hurry as a signal to slow down can be so useful because if a leader just tries to rush through a difficult experience like that if they feel a sense of urgency to kind of get it over with they're probably going to be a lot less deliberate and thoughtful about how they express themselves.

But they're also going to miss the opportunity to help other people navigate through their own feelings that are coming up in that context. It's not just slowing down to, to influence ourselves. It's also about slowing down to make room for other people in their responses, because  in many cases when you're.

Delivering bad news to somebody they're going to have a strong response. And as a leader, you've got to, as a leader, you've got to help them complete that process, which  to be clear, it doesn't mean that these kinds of conversations  take hours and hours. It just means can I make a little bit more room to ensure that I'm helping the people to who I'm delivering this bad news or with who I'm having this difficult conversation also have the opportunity to slow down and manage their own response.

Agnes: Thank you for so much for sharing this specific example. I think a lot of people can relate whether it's delivering by news or engaging in difficult conversations. And yeah, the impulse of wanting to get it over with just because we feel this discomfort with the emotions that are coming up and wow.

Just the ability to slow down as you mentioned the benefits around for yourself, but for others who to really pay attention and connect with others. Is so helpful. As we wrap up, what is, I would love to ask. What is what advice would you give your younger self?

Ed: I don't feel well, certainly. I think the the headline would be trust yourself? I think I certainly it was a lot, I was less trusting of myself, less trusting not to say that our intuition and instincts are always spot on. But I've certainly learned. Over the course of  15 years of coaching, how important intuition is and how my ability to access that intuition and make use of it not just in a coaching conversation, but in my life more generally is quite useful.

I'm reminded of a show. A colleague who you may know as well, Bonnie Wentworth who has been it was a tremendous influence on me at the beginning of my coaching career. And she taught me something really, really valuable. She said  when you feel an intuitive sense that something's there you're probably right.

Something is there, but your intellectual interpretation of what it is maybe wrong. So hold the intellectual interpretation very loosely, right? But trust that there's something there that your intuition is telling you something. But question  be skeptical as to  what it might actually be.

And so I wish I'd learned that years earlier but it has quite useful over the last 15 years as a coach. 

Agnes: Yeah, I, again, I love how you are  we are so to focus on the cognitive intellectual piece, right? Whether when you mentioned earlier and you incorporating kind of the somatic experience, the meditation exercise, all the physiology and in been here really kind of holding kind of loosely the intellectual kind of data that's happening, but also trusting kind of the  voice or things that are coming inside and really balancing that, especially  with high achievers who are kind of.

Yeah. Trained to really think a rational way.  I love that you and incorporating and have a whole kind of a whole holistic approach and like data coming from different senses as well. 

Ed: Yeah. But it's, it's I would say it's become an increasingly important part of my practice over the years.

Agnes: Great. Thank you so much for sharing. How can people find you if they want to learn more about you and your work? 

Ed: Oh, thank you for asking. I am. I am reliably@edbattista.com. E D B AT I S T A. And I've been actually been blogging regularly since 2004 and I still do it. It's still a practice that's very near and dear to my heart.

I'm also, I have on Twitter as a, at the two-step, but I actually mainly tweet about my dog. And that's also a space though where I share new posts. So  writing is very important to me in it both a a chance to kind of learn and refine my own thinking and a chance to really. I mean, if I hear a client, if I hear three different clients raise the same issue that tells me, oh, there's an article I got right there. So  , that's been the work that I've been also very, very involved in for the last 15 years or so. 

Agnes: Yeah. If you are not a subscriber of Ed's blog, I strongly encourage it. I'm a faithfully kind of read read his blogs and he's really made an impact on me personally, but also professionally.

So I've always kind of eager to see what he writes. And so 

Ed: Thank you. That's very good. 

Agnes: Also put in the show notes more information about   your website and where the people can find you as well. 

Ed: Thank you. That sounds great. 

Agnes: It's been such a pleasure to have you. Thank you for your generous time to share again, being here and yes, thank you very much.