professional communication

It All Comes Back to Fear & Love

It All Comes Back to Fear & Love

Yep. We’re going to say it again: we don’t stop being human beings when we become employees (as a gentle reminder).

As humans, we all have emotions, which can sometimes manifest in some questionable approaches to employee to employee, supervisor to employee, and employee to supervisor behaviors, interactions, and exchanges. Have you noticed? As we’re fond of saying, there’s a reason for everything: emotions can get in the way of effective, concise and direct communication, which can then lead to our work environment becoming a place where feelings guide the professional space as opposed to thoughtful, intellectual, rational and intentional goals aimed at a common purpose and directive. Feelings can be illogical, mercurial, random and often incomprehensible. It’s just part of being human. As employees, however, we really need to be mindful of how feelings are very different from rational thought. Feelings are not analytical, impartial or judicious, all characteristics of a well run business.

The thing is (and not going all “kumbaya let’s give one another a hug” here), every single human emotion can be boiled down to two fundamental emotional sources: love and fear.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says: “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.” (OK, a little kumbaya. To add a bit of gravitas, The Atlantic and The Harvard Business Review among others, have published articles discussing love and fear in business, but you take our meaning).

SO. How do these two disparate emotions manifest at work?

Let’s Talk About Self-Love: Self-Care to Make Yourself a Better Professional

Let’s Talk About Self-Love: Self-Care to Make Yourself a Better Professional

Around Valentine’s Day every year, we like to take the time to think about love in a different frame. Love of others isn’t the only important thing. Love of self and an understanding of how to weave love into personal and professional relationships is a foundational part of having a healthy social life. This year, we want to talk about using self-care to make yourself a better professional.

FIG Role Model: Sherry Turkle

FIG Role Model: Sherry Turkle

The “Margaret Mead of digital culture,” Professor Sherry Turkle is an incredibly accomplished person.  She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT, and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Because she has been studying people’s interaction with technology since the birth of the earliest personal computers, she is an incredible source of knowledge on the ways we use technology as a social tool and how it affects us as a part of our psychological lives.

Spring Cleaning: 5 Negative Social Habits to Throw Out Now

Spring Cleaning: 5 Negative Social Habits to Throw Out Now

We all have our bad habits. We’re human, after all! However, another great part about being human is the fact that we can decide to work on our bad habits and grow out of them. One of the areas in which people have the most bad habits is in social interaction. Here are five of them you can start working on today.

Future Image Group on "Undervalued the Podcast"

Future Image Group on "Undervalued the Podcast"

At Future Image Group, we believe in helping others succeed, whether it’s a young professional in the world of business for the first time struggling with social anxiety, or a Baby Boomer who’s nearing retirement and is nervous about leaving their company in the wrong hands.

5 Ways to Overcome Social Anxiety

5 Ways to Overcome Social Anxiety

Do you become overwhelmed or anxious in social situations? You’re not alone. According to The National Institute of Mental Health, 12.1% of U.S. adults experience some kind of social anxiety at some point in their life. Of those who are affected, an estimated 29.9% had serious impairment, 38.8% had moderate impairment, and 31.3% had mild impairment.