If you’re a professional looking towards climbing the next rung of the corporate ladder, then you must be able to demonstrate the trait of emotional resilience.

Teams look up to their leader for directions and inspiration in challenging times. Of course, you are human and don’t have all the answers. None of us do.

But demonstrating grace under fire and keeping the team working as a cohesive unit to achieve the daunting task at hand is sure sign of Gravitas and Executive Presence.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founder and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation, surveyed 4,000 college-educated professionals (including 268 senior executives) to find out what coworkers and bosses look for when evaluating executive presence.

Three criteria proved critical:

1. How you act (gravitas): 67%
2. How you speak (communication): 28% (check out my post on vocabulary and executive presence)
3. How you look (appearance): 5%

Gravitas signals intellectual expertise, but also confidence and credibility. Senior executives picked projecting confidence and grace under fire as presence’s most important qualities.

Simply put, your actions or reactions are important. Let’s go deeper into the subject.

What is your reflex action when you get bad news?

Do you react to negative experiences from a state of rage or grace?

Many times, our reaction to our environment and the events in our life create even more stress for us. There are many ways that we can control our reaction and hence our stress levels. I recommend building your positive reflex action.

In other words, help yourself by controlling the effects of your negative experiences by building a positive psychic and spiritual foundation to attract good things in your life.

I learnt a long time back that it is not the actual experience whether positive or negative, big or small that determines how my life is turning out but my response.

When I was younger, reading about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival or finding out about the massacre of innocents would upset me. My knee jerk reaction would have been to express my outrage about the state of things on social media along with others in their rants and complaints.

Fast forward today, by building my positive reflex muscle, I am able to step back from the situation and assess it for what it really is. After that, I take actions both at a personal and community level that can actually make a difference in the long run.

How do you react to Life’s curve balls?

Our reactions to our life’s experiences are based on the state of our mind or awareness of life which in turn is from mental acceptances. The pattern of thinking, which is formed from these mental acceptances, governs our reaction to life.

The habit pattern of reacting in a specific way to an experience is a conditioned reflex.  Since a negative reaction to a negative experience produces further negativity, I needed to re-train the reflex of my mind and condition its reaction to negative experience with a positive rather than negative reaction.

Just as in the Pavlov’s Reflex that we all learnt in school, one needs to first set up the environment for the success of this retraining. Accept that the reflex would be applied to every negative experience that occurs in one’s daily life.

We also need to accept that every experience that happens in life has a hidden spiritual good which one may not be able to see at the time of the experience.

Facilitating a Positive Reaction

To facilitate the positive reaction, use daily positive suggestive affirmations to create the foundation for using the negative experience as a conditioned reflex signal to react positively.

Become aware of the impact that negativity has on one’s physical self and the resulting cynicism that robs us of the simple joys of life.

Understand that when faced with a negative situation, one has the choice of how one wishes to react.

Changing one’s mindset to react positively to a negative experience or trying to find something beneficial in that experience can be challenging initially.

It takes time and practice to re-condition one’s mind to replace the existing conditioned reflex of reacting physically to a negative experience with a more positive reaction.

It also requires developing the skill of mental toughness.

Karmic Ally Coaching’s Solution to Facilitate a Positive Reaction 

To facilitate the positive reaction, use daily positive suggestive affirmations. This creates the foundation for using the negative experience as a conditioned reflex signal to react positively.

This is also the first exercise that I share in my Self-Improvement Strategies Workbook.

Become aware of the impact negativity has on one’s physical self and the resulting cynicism that robs us of the simple joys of life.

Understand that when faced with a negative situation, one has the choice of how one wishes to react.

From my experience I know that changing one’s mindset to react positively to a negative experience or trying to find something beneficial in that experience can be challenging initially.

It takes time and practice to re-condition one’s mind. To replace the existing conditioned reflex of reacting physically to a negative experience with a more positive reaction.

2 Simple Techniques for a positive mindset

When we are trying to change the way we view the world and our own mindset, becoming aware of our actions is just part of the solution. We need to gently retrain our mind at the subconscious level too.

I’m going to share 2 techniques that work well. Even if you think they are too metaphysical, believe me, they work.  The techniques are:

The Art of Invocation and

Using Negative Thoughts to our Advantage

There are times when the original negative reflex surfaces but that too can be viewed positively by studying it and determining the weaknesses in the conditioning, much like repairing cracks in a wall with reinforced material. The benefits exceed the efforts to recondition.

By gaining further positive control over ourselves, we enhance the strength of the Law of Attraction in our lives. At the same time, we open the pathways for better health, happiness, success and prosperity making the challenges that life presents us easier to overcome and move forward.

Your turn, how do you reframe your reactions to create a positive change for yourself?

Do you demonstrate ‘grace under fire’ or is there some inner work to be done?