In general, traveling makes me feel good about the state of the world. It brings out the best in humanity, and at times the worst. Even through the worst, through delays and annoyances and misunderstandings, I have held to the belief that the world is good and most people are good people. I challenge myself to see that, to ask - “If they are a good person, and want to do a good job - how do they define good?”
This solves many misunderstandings where my interpretation (negative) doesn’t match someone’s intention (positive). I love to use my superpower of curiosity to explore this!
Sometimes events happen that really confirm that. I had such, when kindness and compassion saved me from a long cold night at a Chinese train station. It also returned my phone to me in the Shanghai airport when I left it in a bathroom. And helped me solve a lost passport in Germany, where an expat colleague’s six year-old helped me get the police report I needed.
And while it’s fantastic to have one’s world view affirmed, I think the most important thing is realizing and acknowledging the influence we have in things seemingly outside of our control.
I’m an absent-minded person (note all the above misplaced phones and passports). I’m up in my head, with all kinds of ideas, thoughts, and connections. I’m insanely driven to achieve things in line with my purpose. I also have a tendency to forget details that enable things to happen.
Especially when I’m excited about a big idea.
But I know that. I acknowledge my weaknesses, and have developed systems to manage myself. It’s a part of being effective, and a system problem solver.
But even good systems fail. That is where we need people (read Amy Edmondson’s The Right Kind of Wrong, a book that I think should be mandatory reading for anyone working with or within a system - which is, all of us!)
Today really was proof of what amazing people will do when things go wrong.
I was scheduled on the 9:40 SAS flight from Gothenburg to Copenhagen. As my husband had a meeting at 8:00, he dropped me off at the airport early so he could be at the office at 8:00. I checked my passports three times, making sure that I both had passports, and they weren’t my husband or daughter’s (read, preventative measures from a previous system fail).
I have been somewhat stressed lately, looking at my phone constantly. Unfortunately, I assumed I had it. I recall patting my pockets and felt things on both sides. Check left - passport. Check right - phone.
My husband and I had a really good conversation on the way to the airport. We reflected that the HRT that I had started was improving my mood and generally were feeling grateful for our relationship and each other. Such good discussions, I didn’t look at my phone.
He dropped me at the airport and headed on to work. I went to check-in and started the process,. I have a mismatch in the names between my Swedish and US passports that makes it a little trickier to check in, so I can’t check-in online for USA travel where I need my US passport. I explained in a friendly way, and she checked me in. Then she asked for the emergency contact. I wrote my husband’s name, and reached for my phone as I haven’t memorized his new number since we moved back to Sweden.
No phone. Only glasses and chapstick.
I checked every pocket and every possible place.
OH… NOOOOOO….
I must have left it in his car. But I have no way to contact him, because I don’t have a phone and I don’t know his number. My distress was likely written all over me.
The check-in agent offered me her phone, but I thought panickedly that I didn’t know the number. I couldn’t look it up either, as he has a company provided phone. Then I remembered I could look up our daughter’s phone and try it.
A bit of hope, quickly dashed as it was 7.50 and she had already turned in her phone at school.
Then I remembered FaceTime audio calling by AppleID. Thankfully, the very patient and supportive check-in agent had an iPhone. I started messaging my husband, who stopped and turned around to head to the airport. I told him my phone must be in the car.
He stopped and searched but couldn’t find it. However, thankfully he recalled that I had my iPad and could do Find My iPhone from it and the free wi-fi at the airport.
My phone was at home. 40 minutes from the airport. During morning rush hour and a morning with snow and black ice.
Since I had the iPad now, I returned the iPhone to the check-in agent. We agreed that he would make it to boarding time if all went well, but then she offered to inform the gate and allow some extra minutes.
I let my husband know the extra margin, to keep him from taking risks I knew he could take for me to bail me out.
I tracked him on the iPad on the trip home and played the sound so he could rush right in, grab it, and take off again. He had 50 minutes to boarding.
I went back to check-in and shared that he had the phone and we had enough time for him to make it. Then, I told her how grateful that I was to her, her kindness and compassion, helping me instead of saying “not my problem”. She said that she of course wanted to help me, that she really didn’t see another option.
The story ends with my husband making it back with plenty of time for me to clear security and I even needed to wait at the gate a few minutes to board.
I’m filled with gratitude to the amazing woman at SAS Check-in, and my hero in an electric car (play Bonnie Tyler) who has bailed me out too many times to mention.
I also am so glad for the years of work on myself that allowed me to share my dilemma with others, without blame. In the past, I would take out my own failings on others. As soon as I became aggressive or angry, they would enter fight or flight mode. I would set them up to be against me by my own actions. Then it’s a negative spiral of behaviors, events, and reactions that convince me that people are bad and the world is against me.
When I have learned to view people as genuinely good (and believe me, I struggle like crazy with this. Some people still do naturally annoy me and trigger my own fight or flight) and treat them as such, they reciprocate.
When I am kind, they are kind.
When I am in a mess, they want to help me out of it.
It’s in our human nature to be kind and helpful to people around us. When we aren’t threatened. When we are threatened, we act in a way to protect ourselves. We are pre-conditioned not to help, as our first priority is self-protection.
I have spent the past few hours thinking a lot.
First of all, how did my system fail and what can I do better next time.
But largely and most importantly, how did all my actions and behaviors from this morning build a situation that turned what could have been one heck of a mess (missing my flight, missing a launch event commitment tomorrow, considerable expense and hassle) into another confirmation of the goodness of the world?
What if I had criticized my husband and complained the whole way to the airport?
Would he have been as willing to postpone his own meetings and take professional risks for my mistake?
Of course we both laughed that if we hadn’t had such a good conversation that maybe I would have noticed I didn’t have my phone.
What if I had been nasty or cold to the SAS agent when I approached her?
What if I had been angry and blamed her/SAS for the name issue?
What if I would have been fine to the point of missing the phone, but then exploded at her?
She certainly wouldn’t have loaned me her personal phone, and taken so many steps to help me.
I was lucky today. But I also built extremely powerful systems of human interactions that could save me where my own system failed.
I also choose (and am able to do it most of the time) to give a positive warm energy to the world. My favorite praise is that someone feels good or better just being near me.
It might mean I waste energy sometimes, building a connection that I don’t need. But, hey, with the state of our world, if we can put a little positive, kind energy into the world, isn't that a great thing in itself?
The world is a kind and compassionate place when we choose to be and build that system around us. Almost anything is possible together!
What energy are you putting into the world?
What system are you building?
Would you like to make changes for you or your team?
Reach out to explore together.
Me, I have never been so grateful to be in Copenhagen Airport!
Leadership Development With Nspir
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