When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surley
Marcus Aurelius
I was away from my apartment for months..seasons even. I was hitchhiking around the country and ended up wintering on the beach in key West. As I was returning "home" on a plane. I say home but this is the days before cellphones I had zero communication with the house for months. I left a roommate there and asking him to make sure the rent and utilities got paid. I really did not know what I was rolling into. So on the redeye going west I visualized the front of my apartment building....there is my door, bedroom and living room windows...all broken out, with black scorch marks above them.
I figured anything I encountered would be better than that...and if I was prepared for that I could deal with anything.
I found the same tool beneficial in business meetings, walking into a weekly progress meeting, a budget analysis, called to a jobsite for a problem...
On the way I would visualize the worst. Not solve it, not prepare solutions, rebuttals, or responses. Simply sit in the turmoil, experience the stress level of an imaginary situation...and be able to stay calm and be able to think when presented with issues that needed attention.
I hitched from the airport into town. It was about 9am on a Sunday morning. There were bodies in every chair, scattered around on the floor, coffee table full of beer cans. Some groaning some stirring most passed out. There had been a party...but looking around it was only a party...other than the jackets and bodies and beer cans the place was rarely clean...stepping over folks with my backpack and duffle was fun and as I entered the kitchen...it was mostly.clean too...just party remnants. There was juice and eggs and bacon in the fridge. I let the bacon start sizzling and the house start stinking before I dropped the needle and cranked up Willie and Waylon.
