Moreover, the data shows that benefits and pay rank sixth or seventh in a ranking of the top ten reasons employees are engaged at work. In those organizations which rank high in employee engagement, the vision of leadership is ranked near the top, along with open and transparent communication and how their direct manager treats the employee.

In the Marine Corps the motto is, “Officers Eat Last.” As leaders, the officers make sure the troops eat first, a far different approach than used in many businesses today. Leading and caring about your people creates a winning organization with highly engaged people.

If you want an organization that is highly functional and exceeds your competition in growth and profitability, then remember to eat last. Feed your employee’s first with care, honesty, openness, and opportunity and then hold them accountable to perform.

So why write a blog about a silly incident? Because of the lesson to always be free enough to laugh at yourself, and the silly and moronic things we do. I meet far too many people who suffer with the seriousitis disease. Serious with everyone they meet.

Lighten up and enjoy your life, and remember to always order a GA-TOE-RADE for breakfast. More importantly, stay away from the adult table for it is harmful to your health.

Doing things differently

I take a slightly different approach when doing my job. I learn every day from the best possible source — my clients. The truth is, if you get your client to open up and learn what to look for, no amount of research and planning will match the insight you’ll gather during a routine client meeting.

I typically prepare for a client meeting by reading the detailed notes from the prior two sessions. I allow the meeting to unfold, but I do keep mindful not to drift from the issues the client wants to confront.

If you listen carefully, you may find a source of a problem, a hidden solution, behavioral patterns, hidden issues and maybe even the secret to unleashing someone’s sense of joy and purpose.

Knowing gives you power

My client Rose works as a senior executive in the professional services industry. Despite being exceedingly successful, she struggles building meaningful and lasting professional relationships. During one of our meetings, she asked me how come she found it so easy to play and socialize with colleagues but found it so difficult to work with them.

I asked her about her early social experiences and listened attentively, looking for clues.

She shared she had a wonderful and loving childhood and that from the ages of 10-14 her family went through a nomadic period, moving a total of four times. She told me she found it very difficult to feel a sense of belonging during that time.

Although Rose didn’t think experiencing so many changes as a child affected her professionally, the fact is that her problems engaging with clients, colleagues and friends may very well be a lingering defense mechanism against creating expectations and emotional bonds.

We connected the dots and concluded that she resisted engagement with colleagues because the constant moving during her childhood triggered a fear of attachments. As a child, she resisted engaging with other kids her age because she knew, subconsciously, that she would move again.

During coaching, we co-actively discovered that without true engaged relationships, business or otherwise, it was difficult to find common ground and build rapport with clients and colleagues, which resulted in Rose finding it next to impossible to do her job effectively.

If knowledge truly is power, Rose is now in a position to make more empowering conscious decisions. She still has a long way to go, but at least now she knows the source of her hesitancy for engagement and can do something about it.

Digging deeper

The conscious mind represents less than 1 percent of our brainpower. The 99 percent is submerged below the surface— our subconscious mind. That’s where all of it brews — our choices, fears, obsessions and anxieties. So while we may try to teach and train the conscious mind, no 5-star resort convention, 8-step method, ancient secret or catchy mantra can fully reach below the surface.

Most of us struggle with some version of the fog of distress. It numbs our lives and interferes with our relationships, our careers, and even our health. Much of this distress stems from unresolved hurts, persistent low self-esteem or some vague sense of anxious unease. Even if we were blessed with wonderful parents and stable childhoods, at a young age we are unable to truly comprehend and resolve emotional hurdles. Things will hurt and scar us. We will experience things that may seem insignificant at a glance and that will seem to fade into the atmosphere, but later in life they will reemerge in the form of fear, self-doubt, guilt and other negative feelings.

These feelings can engulf our subconscious and affect every aspect of our lives for years to come.

What you can do

An initial and simple activity you can try to help you discover where your vague sense of unease comes from is to have an interview with yourself. Analyze your early and adult life with an open and non-judgmental mind. Dig deep. Did you experience any traumatic events in your life such as the death of a loved one or a car accident? Were you ever threatened, harassed or bullied?

Sometimes events don’t have to be considered traumatic to have a deep and lasting impact on your life. Even the most insignificant brush with uncertainty, such as Rose’s nomadic childhood, can reemerge during your adult life and prevent you from experiencing it to its fullest.

Live your life fully, joyfully and openly, and when you become aware of some sense of vague unease, acknowledge it and remember to have an interview with yourself.

I checked the car every hour just to make sure no one in Brooklyn used it as a park bench. My happiness was attached to this shiny new car. One fateful day, I noticed a key scratch along the driver side door. My happiness dissipated and my mood became dark and gloomy.

My reaction is what happens when we define our happiness and moods from objects or people outside of ourselves. The client likes me therefore I am happy. The prospect said no, therefore I am depressed and melancholy.

Our only chance for true happiness, joy and well being is when we define ourselves from the inside out, not the other way around.

When we hand our power to anyone or anything outside of ourselves, we are handing over our own personal power to forces outside of ourselves.

We create our own happiness and well being by how we think, the affirmations we use, and the pictures we form in our head.

Use powerful affirmations such as, “I am bold,” “I am courageous,” and “I have abundance in my life,” and you will discover that whatever happens on the outside will not effect what happens on the inside — not even your shiny new car getting dirty.

On a conscious level, when asked how to best allocate their time, business leaders will undoubtedly mention delegation as a major factor in leadership. As professional business coaches, we ask clients to focus on their vital skills and systematically remove clutter from their business and personal lives. Without question, most business leaders are in full agreement.

However, when faced with truth, it is far more difficult to remove clutter unless you are willing to be conscious and mindful of your choices.

Consider a client who is a physician. He complained that he has little time to focus on more strategic aspects of his practice because he always ends up doing the work he delegated to his staff. During medical school he learned to be a perfectionist and a solo problem solver. Those traits served him and his patients well when he went into practice as a general practitioner. Now that he owns his own clinic, he recently became aware that his long -standing tendency and habit to micromanage had become a hindrance to himself, his practice and the engagement of his employees.

He realized that he was reticent to delegate important work because, in the past, the results often failed to meet his standards in getting it done the “right” way or getting it done fast enough. He admitted his ingrained belief was, “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”

When advised to try a different strategy that included providing staff members more specifics about the results and time frame he expected, he discovered they could meet or even exceed his expectations. The result is the physician is now free to engage in long-term strategy planning.

In order to execute upon a new way of thinking, it is vital to be conscious of our habitual thoughts, and open to looking at ingrained ways of thinking. Counterproductive habits are difficult to give up because they serve a purpose. In this case, the habitual response to delegation preserved and protected the physician’s self-image: “Only I can do it right.”

Those who are willing to investigate and challenge their own deeply held beliefs often find their original assumptions were not correct — a discovery which enables change and personal growth.

Anyone reading this blog needs to text or tweet all your friends and share this new discovery called a simple breath.

The good news about a simple breath is: IT IS TAX FREE — well, at least for the time being.

Coaching is a joyous occupation because of the privilege of working intimately with so many fascinating people. No matter what stage of life, all my clients carry the stresses of work, family, and the little voice which is always shouting at them to be more of this and less of that.

My advice to them all is to stop the train, get off, and take a simple breath of air.