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Some conversations last five minutes and somehow leave you exhausted.
You were fine before they walked into the room. Now you’re irritated, tense, anxious, or replaying the conversation in your head.
So how much of what you’re carrying is actually yours?
In this episode of the Maine Responder Podcast, Elliott talks about paying attention to what we absorb from the people around us—especially as first responders and leaders. We don’t get to avoid every difficult conversation, and sometimes the uncomfortable conversations are the ones we need to have.
But we can become more aware of what we carry away from them.
And there’s another side to it: if other people can change the energy we bring into a room, what are we bringing into theirs?
Because eventually the shift ends. You get in the car. You drive home. And the people waiting for you didn’t step in whatever you stepped in that day.
Check your shoes.
You might have stepped in some sh*t today. That’s life.
Just don’t drag it through the house.
Elliott: People talk to me all the time. And I've always believed in being accessible. Some call that an open door policy, which honestly, I don't even know why that's a term. If you have to announce that you have an open door policy, you just might not actually have one. The point is, when I'm at work and in life, I want to stay connected to the people that I work with. Many times those conversations is where a bond of trust is started. In a small department, you're gonna have a lot of those and you're gonna hear a lot. You're gonna hear complaints, frustrations, stuff that's going on at home, maybe even more than you wanna hear. That's part of the relationship building and and leadership. a few years back I started noticing something that I wasn't paying attention to previously. There are conversations where we talk for five or ten minutes and at the end of the conversation Maybe whoever you're talking to has a way But I still leave the conversation feeling pretty good. Then there's those other conversations, five minutes, and I'm fucking exhausted. Like nothing catastrophic was discussed. But whatever they brought into the room was The energy, the urgency, negativity. I ended up absorbing some of it. And so I started to wonder how much of what I'm feeling in those moments was actually mine. Because 10 minutes before the conversation, I was completely fine. Noticing the shift in my mood got me paying more attention to the conversations. Not just at work, everywhere. How do how do I feel when I'm around certain people? Do I feel better? Energized? Do I feel like myself? Or do I walk away feeling tense, irritated, or maybe even at times manipulated? We've got to protect that energy. And I don't mean in the woo-woo sense, but we'll take it however you want. And be careful what you're absorbing. Pay attention to what happens. We affect each other. If you're a first responder, you're gonna absorb some of that. In policing, you can be a hero before you get out of the cruiser or you can be an enemy before you get out of the cruiser. you don't get to control what somebody else is carrying when they meet you. And leadership isn't surrounding yourself around everyone that makes you feel good. Sometimes the person is telling you something that you need to hear in that moment. So this isn't about avoiding uncomfortable conversations. It's about noticing what you carry away from them. imagine you walked to your you didn't notice it you get in car you drive home Maybe you walk through the front door with your shoes on. Now it's on the rug. You walk into the kitchen. Now it's in there. Living. Now everybody gets to enjoy it. Nobody in your house stepped in that shit. But you did. And you brought it home. And I think we do the same thing emotionally. Somebody dumps something on us at work. We have a shitty conversation. Somebody's anxiety seeps into our core. Somebody's well crafted words can be as ambiguous as the Mona Lisa's smile. was that nice or was that a mean thing? You know, that's how you kinda leave a conversation sometimes. Somebody complains to us for 20 minutes and suddenly we're pissed off about something that we weren't pissed off about 20 minutes ago. Then we get in the car and we bring it home. Our families get a different version of us. Maybe we're a little quiet, maybe we're a little short, maybe we're sitting there physically. But mentally we're still having a conversation with somebody who isn't in the fucking house. And nobody at home stepped in the shit. We just tracked it in. If you listen to the podcast recently, know I've been bringing up a lot about intent. where my time goes, who gets it, who gets my attention. And I think this is another piece of that. I can't control every person that I interact with I can't eliminate every draining conversation. That's not real life. and it's certainly not leadership. But I can start to notice. I can start to notice that every time I talk to a certain person I leave feeling a certain way. I can notice when somebody else's nervous system starts becoming mine. and I may decide that not everyone gets access to my unlimited time. Shorten the conversation. Create a distance. recognize that's theirs and I don't need to pick it up. Sometimes you have to deal with it. However, you can still notice what happened before you walk through the front door. there's another side of this that I don't particularly love thinking about. if other people's or energies right start to affect me, then what am I doing to theirs? When I walk into a room stressed, do other people become stressed? when I'm frustrated, does everybody suddenly feel like something's wrong? When I call somebody into my office, what happens to them? before I've even said a word. That's leadership too. We're all carrying something into the rooms that we enter. The question is what? And maybe it's also deciding what I'm unwilling to carry further. Some of the buildings at work. Some of it belongs to somebody else entirely. Some of it needs to get dealt with. maybe before we walk through the door tonight. Check your shoes. Because you might have stepped in some shit today. And that's life. Just don't drag it through the house. Stay safe.