If you sprain your ankle, it throbs and hurts. That’s pain. If you go into stories of “why me, why now?” – that’s suffering. Pain is inevitable in business and life. Suffering is a choice. 

As a leader, you can set the tone for how your organization deals with pain, and you can choose to not invest in suffering. This pandemic continues to present countless opportunities for these powerful and very challenging practices. 

• What does your business gain from pain? From suffering?

• As a leader, what do you gain from each?

• Do you recognize suffering is a choice?

• Are you willing to let go of suffering?

Four Amare Ways to Deal with Pain & Suffering in Business

1. Accept what is. When there’s pain, there’s pain. Laying people off, deals falling through, pandemics happening – all painful. Look pain in the face. The greater your acceptance and the less your resistance, the easier it is to work through the pain and get to the other side.

2. Find the love. Even in deep pain, you can find tiny moments of uplifting and connection. Notice them, feel them, and cherish them as a source of strength and perspective. This also opens the door for more positive moments to come in.

3. Speak the truth. Tell your people at the right time and with compassion what’s going on and what is painful. If you see a solution, share that too. If not, enlist their help in discovering what’s next.

4. This too shall pass. While it may feel like a trite axiom at times, you can hold this as an eternal truth that provides a degree of comfort in hard times. Just don’t use it as a way to avoid dealing with your or someone else’s pain.  

Inviting Amare Leaders for New Amare Podcast!

Do you know a leader who’s on this path and putting love to work, even in small ways? Contact me and I’ll invite them on my new Amare Leadership podcast starting soon.

Today’s Amare Wave Wednesday Quote

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space

is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our

growth and our freedom.”

—Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning & holocaust survivor

Thanks everyone for tuning in to Amare Wave Wednesday! Do YOUR one amare thing today to improve your business and grow the wave! 

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With Amare,

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