It’s midafternoon, day one traveling across the country to meet my coach to get the newest of the newest in leadership land.

I’m doing literally nothing. Just waiting at the gate for my second flight. Just staring in front of me at the hundreds of people walking by. Most of them are spacing out – just like me – while pulling and carrying stuff. Others are looking at their smart phones.

My staring is interrupted by a thought. Tea. I need a cup of tea.

Acting upon that thought, I get up, and get one. Slowly I walk back to the gate.

Back at the gate I sit down again, sipping my tea.

After a while I realize that I’ve been waiting a long time. My plane should be leaving soon. I get up again and walk closer to the gate. The flight is NOT listed anymore.

“Yes, we cancelled that flight already 20 minutes ago”, the woman at the desk informs me.

My first thoughts are not so nice. More like, “Well, couldn’t you have announced that one more time and not just once exactly when I’m getting my tea? Now all the passengers of the whole flight are in front of me getting the last seats on the day’s only remaining flight.”

Then a slight feeling of panic rises in me. I need to get a flight tonight otherwise I’ll miss my coaching sessions.

I rush over to customer service. A lot of people in line. And I’m all the way at the end. Most people are on their smart phones. Not in a panic. Just talking or texting calmly. But I realize that the calmness is just appearance when I give the woman next to me the airline phone number that’s faster than waiting here in line.  Even when I’m 50 feet away heading to the new gate she is still shouting “Thank you!”

On The Way Back Home

Days later back at the same airport.

Standing in line at gate E49. Flight has not been cancelled. Grateful for that one.

Passengers at gate E51 have already boarded.  Door to their gate closes, desk employees leave. A man comes running to gate E51. Big bag around his shoulder. He is totally out of breath. He runs to the desk in front of the gate. No one there. He rushes to the window. What a relief. Plane is still there. He spots an airline employee and a discussion follows. Employee disappears. Man waits patiently. Employee returns minutes later. The movement of the employee’s head is a solid “No.” The man stays calm.

Employee leaves and the man walks around slowly and calmly. Just when I was thinking that this passenger takes missing his flight calmly, he runs to the closed door of the gate and start hitting it with his fists. Bang, bang, bang. All his frustrations he put in those blows.

What was going on in his mind? I don’t know. Somehow he needed to be on that flight. I feel sorry for him. His stress levels are sky-rocketing. Airport traveling can make your stress levels go from zero to almost hundred in no time.

I remember being at the Denver airport earlier this year, ready to travel to Belgium for my niece’s wedding and the connecting flight turned out to be a problem. No outgoing flight for me that day. Where do you think that my stress levels wanted to go?

Our stress levels can go up any time. Maybe not always to 100 but high enough to create discomfort. The mind doesn’t like stress. The result is that worst scenarios pop up out of nowhere.

And you don’t have to go anywhere to accelerate your stress. Your calm leadership routine at the office can be interrupted by almost anything:

… sneaking a peek a your iPhone during a meeting and seeing an email from one of your managers with the subject line, “Call Me ASAP”.

… or getting ready for an important meeting and noticing that not all the ketchup made it to your mouth

…. or in my and my co-traveler’s case – cancelled flights.

How To Handle Stress:

Stress starts with thoughts. Thoughts that can quickly degenerate into fearful scenarios. Scenarios starting with a missed flight become an incredible nightmare in seconds. Fighting those thoughts doesn’t help. Fighting is putting fertilizing on them.

Even though you know it’s all thinking, it doesn’t help to realize that. The only thing that helps is one thing …. get back in the present moment.

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