Photo credit: Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix
It can be very hard to keep a straight face, also for a top professional. Were you also moved by Viktor Axelsen’s tears?
He talked about friendships: how important they are and how to be a good buddy. Just returned home, with the gold medal around his neck in his hometown Odense. Surrounded by family and an entire happy city cheering for him. That’s when the watery glasses came on.
We are humans. Not above nature, and not separate, completely different, existences, depending on whether we are at the job or not. We always carry our nervous system with us, appropriately designed and refined through millions of years, to signal with emotions.
Emotional outbursts are powerful, and can be a scary experience. That does not change the fact that they occur, we just do everything we can, to feel something different if the emotion does not appear “appropriate”. We learned this growing up, how many has not heard eg “That’s nothing to feel sorry for” – ??
Forcing your body to feel something different is almost impossible, and far more difficult than just letting the emotion pass.
An emotion erupts, flows through the body and wears off quite quickly. It is a rather non-specific and coarse signal. Emotions are physical, something we feel in the body. The same sense of unease occurs when you experience fear of heights, falling in love and giving/receiving negative feedback.
Emotional outbursts can also be extremely effective, in a second creating a close connection between people. That happened in Axelsen’s case: a superhuman’s authentic vulnerability. I loved every second.
Crying on the job is recommendable in very special situations only, like this one. Normally, values are a better guide – check this post for more.