Fitness training
Feeling felled by some heavy weights we retreated to our separate corners to sit through the discomfort. A coding catastrophe nearly timed us out but our fitness training pulled us through.
Enabling The How #217. Reading time: 5 minutes, 39 seconds
A couple of weeks ago we experienced a few days where it felt as if we had been thrown into a boxing ring with a succession of heavy weights. We were adequately trained for our own weight category and possibly could have taken on the next level but we were caught off guard.
We know how to manage our emotions pretty well. However, there are times when too many proverbial punches are thrown our way. We cannot duck, bob and weave fast enough. A jab here, a left hook there and suddenly the air seems to have disappeared from our lungs.
As each other’s trainers we started yelling instructions to one other across the ring. Unfortunately in the fracas we seemed to be speaking at cross purposes. Neither of us could understand or appreciate what the other was saying, which increased frustration levels to red alert.
When Matthew is under pressure he goes quiet, you could call it sullen. Chantal expresses. Loudly. Then leaves the room in a huff. You could call it a scene. We do this in the safety and security of our work/life bubble. We try not to rain our less than pleasant behaviour on others. We understand our idiosyncrasies and allow for them. For a while.
The devil of dispute
In the moments during the days that surrounded this particularly unpalatable experience, we were tempted to react, to lash out, to argue and blame. The desire to bring others into the fray was awakened by the devil of dispute.
How delicious it would be to gather a squad of supporters around us to spread our sore story. We could get them as fired up as we were. With righteous indignation we could stand tall, arms crossed and shake our heads as if at the perpetrator. How could they? Would be our story. How could they? Would be theirs too.
We didn’t. We kept quiet and licked our wounds. We sat as wave after wave of difficult emotion crashed over us. Disbelief. Disappointment. Anger. Rage. Frustration. Despair. Sadness. Eventually acceptance. It was a little like going through a version of the grief cycle on fast forward.
In the beginning we were hardly stoic or on the same page. Individually we pulled apart to nurse our hurts. Collectively we carried on with our daily tasks with a little less enthusiasm. Our minds, needing some certainty, made up narratives which started to cleave an invisible wedge between us.
It only took three days to topple the silence and force some conversation. The jumble of thoughts that those difficult engagements had initiated were spoken. In the listening and the hearing many misunderstandings were cleared between us.
Building emotional fitness is crucial
As more days passed by we were able to come, eventually, to a place of acceptance. With acceptance came a sense of calm. All the little niggles, the big upsets, the middling irritations settled into a smooth okayness. No cages were rattled, no insults were slung, no words said out of turn. It was a relief to let it all go.
As it transpired, everything worked out for the best in the end. Each issue was resolved in its own way. Somewhat surprised and certainly relieved, we reflected that so much harm could have been done had we acted on those unpleasant feelings. It had not been fun sitting with all that discomfort but it had been worth it.
“It’s what we mean when we say that building emotional fitness is so crucial,” commented Matthew as we sat down to our weekly pizza and salad treat, later in the week.
We have a definition of emotional fitness that says:
Emotional fitness is an ongoing developmental process of deepening self-awareness, attunement to one’s body and emotional state, and comfort with openness and vulnerability. It encompasses a growing ability to hold discomfort and consider a resourceful course of action or response. This concept includes resilience and the capacity for coming back after faltering, supporting and promoting physical, psychological, and relational well-being.
When we consider how full of conflict society can be, and how easy it is to stir people up, we think that a little more emotional fitness would do wonders for many.
Matthew’s cracking project
As Matthew got back to his big cracking project he was rewarded by a notification that pointed to a way to do it more effectively. He is working with AI getting it to code some software. Before you groan, or sneer, or snap back that AI is going to take over the world, just know that we have not been strong proponents or opponents to the surge in AI interest and investment.
AI is not going to take over the world, of that Matthew is very certain. Matthew is the primary AI user at 5th Place and he has written an article published on LinkedIn called Thin-king is dead. What AI can’t hold and what we must.
We use AI as a tool in our business. Currently we use five different AI services, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Midjourney for images and Claude for the coding of this software application we are developing. It is remarkable what Matthew, on his own using Claude, has been able to produce in only a few weeks.
He was eating through chats at a rapid pace and crashed the system once. Copying and pasting rules and requirements, he gobbled through 50 Claudes. We upgraded the amount of chat space, which helped. Then he saw this message about how to use Claude for coding in an even more efficient way.
“This will make things go so much quicker,” he said, rubbing his hands in glee.
Claude catastrophe
Matthew has dabbled with coding and project managed developers in a previous life, albeit more than twenty years ago, but is currently not a coder himself. He has had to learn as he goes with this project of ours. His past experience set a good foundation but there is still much that he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know.
This past weekend everything, and we mean everything, Matthew had been working on to date was deleted. By Claude. To say it was a shock, is to say that the sun is a lightbulb. Thankfully Matthew had backups. Yet, he still could have gone into a panicked spiral, as days of work had been obliterated.
He could have beaten himself and, metaphorically, Claude, up. He could have sat in a sullen stupor for the rest of the weekend. He could have felt so debilitated by this set back that he could have given up on the project.
Although peeved and frustrated, Matthew was able to, in his discomfort, consider a resourceful course of action. It meant painstakingly feeding Claude all the backups, reteaching Claude all that had already been and ensuring processes are in place to avoid any future coding mass destruction.
“It’s all part of the learning process,” said Matthew on a particularly blustery, cold afternoon walk.
Indeed, it is. Learning comes in all shapes and sizes. It can feel clumsy, result in disappointment, and requires commitment and tenacity. We learnt from our boxing ring week. Matthew learnt buckets from his Claude catastrophe. We emerged humbled and hardened. Toughened by the setbacks that tested our resolve, grateful for the training they afforded us and transformed by the possibilities they revealed.
Until next time.
Yours in feeling,
Matthew & Chantal