Yesterday, my wife was at home on sick leave, and she started watching a film called “The upside of anger“. She sent me the following two pieces of dialogue.

People don’t know how to love. They bite rather than kiss. They slap rather than stroke. Maybe it’s because they recognize how easy it is for love to go bad, to become suddenly impossible… unworkable, an exercise of futility. So they avoid it and seek solace in angst, and fear, and aggression, which are always there and readily available. Or maybe sometimes… they just don’t have all the facts…………..

Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That’s what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It’s real, though – the fury, even when it isn’t. It can change you… turn you… mold you and shape you into something you’re not. The only upside to anger, then… is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they’re not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm. Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child.

Fascinating reading in themselves. Also yesterday I was faced with two situations from clients. They were angry, but was their emotion a cover for something more relevant?

CASE STUDY A: My client, Fred, told me how he was providing a service to his client, when everything started to go wrong. Fred began to shrink into his usual “I am not good enough mode”. All he could see was five minutes down the line with people screaming at him and the fear of being kicked off the contract. He was furious with himself, taking the blame for what had occurred, until………..

Then Fred managed to take a step back. Things go wrong, he said to himself. He recalled that he was not responsible for the original spark that had launched a negative chain of events. Above all, Fred realised that his client had placed the firm’s trust in him so that he, Fred, would take control at such moments of crisis. An hour later, the client was thanking Fred profusely.

Fear had created anger, when in fact there had been a golden opportunity to prove one’s skill set.

CASE STUDY B: It is some years since a former client, Dave, kicked me out. I had no idea why he became cheesed off half way through the project. Excuses flowed but they did not add up.

Last night, I heard about the mega success of a rival to Dave’s group, which had really kicked in just when I had been with Dave. I suspect that at least some of Dave’s anger had been an outlet for his envy.

Of course, the alternative should have been for Dave to set up an alternative strategy. The aim should always be the very best that you can be rather than meekly copy others. However, that option would have forced Dave to recognise that others were doing better than him.

As a business mentor, I am asked to help people to move ahead by changing. Sometimes, this process kicks off by forcing the client to recognise that their emotions and reactions are in the wrong place.