He doesn’t sit down. He sort of… paces into the chair… “Okay. I had a moment yesterday in the standup.” He rubs his forehead like he’s trying to erase the memory.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“I was giving a status on the vendor work. Clean update. Then MARK cut in and corrected me, confidently and incorrectly with that tone people use when they’re showing off power.
And I got sharp. Not loud, but sharp enough that the meeting went silent for a beat too long.
After he pinged me ‘All good?’ I stared at it like a live grenade and rewrote my reply 4 times before not sending it.
This is not who I am at work. I don’t do emotions. I do plans and outcomes. Resolve it and move on.” He pauses.
And the worst part is I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like my brain is running a ‘Mark’ shaped background process.”
I nod. “Are you worried because you had a reaction… or because you can’t control the fact that you had one?”
He looks offended, which is how I know it’s the right question. Because he’s not the type who lives for intensity, he treats it like a software bug.
There are two kinds of “intense” at work:
One kind is the repeat performer. The person who:
-escalates quickly
-cycles through interpersonal plotlines
-processes emotions out loud
-needs constant validation
THAT’S NOT HIM.
Then there’s the “stable” person who hits an anomaly. The person who:
-internalizes
-contains
-gets quieter, not louder
-becomes hyper-careful and hyper-competent
-experiences intensity as disruption
THAT’S HIM. And that’s why it feels heavy instead of exciting. For this type of person, intensity isn’t entertainment. It’s an operating system error.
We discuss the standup slowly, like replaying security footage. He shares:
-Mark hadn’t been in vendor meetings.
-Mark had asked him for notes 2-days earlier… and seems not to have read them.
-The “correction” landed in front of peers and leaders.
And the worst part? He could feel the room default to the confident voice, not the accurate one.
So, it was a bad moment AND a collision between his identity AND the fact that competence does not always win in public. AND “Stable” people fear what feelings might make them do.
My client’s not panicking because he’s “like this all the time.” He’s panicking because he’s not. Exceptions are harder than patterns. A pattern comes with a warning label, an exception shows up like: “I’m new and will be living in your body until further notice.” We move forward by working our SNAK levers.
SKILLS: What do you need in the moment? A boundary. A calm interruption.
NETWORK: Who’s your reality-check? A steady human who won’t inflate or minimize.
ACTIVITY: What action moves you? A direct conversation. A decision about what to do next time.
KNOWLEDGE: What’s the pattern underneath? Is it about respect. Visibility. The story matters because it drives the reaction.
Your turn, have you had a work moment where you didn’t recognize yourself and, what do you think it was about under the surface?
