To my husband, everything is a business transaction.  His new obsession and I mean obsession, is buying and building classic BMX bikes.  He buys them on Offer-up, eBay, the swap meet, bike shops, and people he has met through word of mouth.  My husband loves BMX bikes!  That 15-year-old boy inside him is so stoked to be able to own all these rare “Old School” bikes he dreamed of from his childhood. He recently bought a very expensive old school frame from the ‘80s that had a seat post that wasn’t correct.  The seller assured him that it would be easy to remove so he bought it as is.  He tried for days to remove this seat post to replace it with the correct one. He heated it up to contract the metal, trying to pound it out, spraying it with lubricant, trying to twist it and pull it out, all with no success.  Every day he got more frustrated with this bike and his purchase and ultimately himself.  He got so frustrated and angry that he called the seller (whom he has purchased many things from in the past) and told him he wanted to return the bike and get his money back. Did you get that?  He was angry with himself, that is where everything starts.  My husband is zero to 100.  On most days this works in his favor in business because he can get shit done almost instantly that would take many people, myself included, weeks to contemplate and plan before even getting started.  This was not one of those days. My husband was raised in lack and scarcity, so that is where he defaults. He assumes the worst before getting all the facts.  His mind races to the negative without even taking a breath. How many of you can relate to this type of thinking?

A couple of days went by with no word from the seller.  I told him, “Cut your losses and move on.  You bought a used bike from the ‘80s on Offer-up.  It’s your bad for not having him remove the seat post before you bought it.”  But no, not my husband, he goes to this very ugly, dark place where there is never enough.  What is the opposite of lack and scarcity? The opposite is abundance, excess or surplus.  This particular situation is not my shit-show, so it is very easy for me to live in abundance where there are always enough BMX bikes to go around. There is an excess, even a surplus of BMX bikes in my own garage as far as I am concerned. But this, this my friends, is my husband’s shit-show! He is back somewhere in his past, feeling ripped off like there is not enough and his anger escalates to the point of no return.  Everything is now pissing him off, especially me giving him advice and trying to calm him down.  I know from experience it is best for me to not engage with him at this point or it will only get worse between us.  He hates when he feels like I am “psychoanalyzing” him (his words not mine). I am a business strategist; high-level executives pay me to train and coach them on business structure, strategy, building business culture, and how to lead with integrity. But he is not paying me for training or asking me for my opinion on this business transaction.  Even though I am sure I could coach any reasonable person through this situation with a simple visualization and breathing exercise I know it is not productive for a wife to coach her spouse. It just sounds like nagging or bitching to them. I have to take a deep breath myself and just walk away so I don’t unintentionally exacerbate the situation. At this point, he went full bat-shit-crazy calling and texting the guy over and over again with no response.  This only feeds into his “I got ripped off” feeling making it stronger.  How many of you have had this happen to you? You start in one place and end up in some really dark place and have no idea how you got there? An easy exercise to try when this happens is to check in with yourself and ask a couple questions like, “Where am I feeling this tension in my body?” Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Breath into that area of your body, and exhale, releasing the tension with your out breath.  Now ask yourself to remember a time in your life when you felt this way before.  How old were you?  What was the situation? Are there any familiar smells you can recall? Take another deep breath in and hold it for a few seconds. Remind yourself that this is not that time or place, this is not that past situation. There is more than enough, and you are safe and supported. Again, exhale and release the anger/fear/tension from this past experience with your out breath.  Take a few more deep cleansing breaths until you feel a sense of calming relief.

The very next day, the guy calls my husband and apologizes for not getting back to him. My husband apologizes for being a d*ck and all is well.  Really?  Just like that, all is well. Why do we have to get to the bat-shit-crazy stage before we can see a situation for what it really is?  Why don’t we give people the benefit of the doubt before we launch all our old shit at them?  Why? Because we have not healed that part of ourselves that we see in them.  If we truly want to live a happy and prosperous life, we must begin to heal the wounds of our past. We must release all the old “bad deals.”  We must recognize that “what I see in you is a reflection of what I see in myself,” good and bad. How we lead ourselves, our families and our personal lives are all reflected in how we lead in business. If we are constantly coming from a place of lack and scarcity, there will never be enough.  But, when we choose to see the good in people, we will see the benevolence in the world, and we will find ourselves surrounded by abundance.