You’re productively engaged in your day, with an overall sense of well-being. You glance up to see a colleague at your door appearing frustrated. She references a recent email of yours and says it has inaccuracies. She wants to talk with you, as do three other colleagues waiting with her. What do you do?

Let’s say you invite the group in and begin to listen to their concerns. While listening, you feel a rush of emotions moving through your body. You become slightly tense, even a little agitated. How could they possibly see the email message in the way they’re expressing? You privately squeeze your hands together to contain your rising emotions. You want to interrupt and defend yourself. Yet, you know if you do, this conversation may not end well – and that is not what you want.

You begin to recall key points you’ve learned about the brain. You know the brain scans outside stimuli (this time – their comments) and filters them through your amygdala, to determine if they are safe or a threat. In this example, your amygdala senses threat and moves into a “high alert” state of protection. You also know that you have a short time, seconds, to decide how you want to respond before your emotions take over and possibly hijack or sabotage your thinking, unless you’ve developed ways to stay intentional in highly emotional encounters.

In today’s world, we have empirical evidence supporting the importance of leaders dedicating time to developing an intentional mindset of possibility thinking over negative thinking. Take for example Martin Seligman’s work in Positive Psychology, or David Rock’s SCARF model, or Barbara Frederickson’s studies showing a positive to negative ratio of 3:1 for healthy organizations. The list goes on and on and we can’t ignore what we’re learning.

Shirzad Chamine and Robert Kagen, two well-respected authors and educators, talk about ways the brain hijacks our thinking, all under the guise of self-protection. Chamine, in Positive Intelligence (2012), says we carry around an invisible Judge inside our head constantly judging others and ourselves, and typically the judgments are not pretty. If we listen to our Judge in combination with one or more of nine co-conspirators – Chamine calls them Saboteurs like the Controller, the Stickler, and the Victim – then we are headed down a negative pathway. That also is not what we want.

Let’s go back to the scenario above that involves you. When you feel that people are judging you incorrectly, what are some of your response options? You could stop the conversation and ask them to leave. That might happen as your Judge and Controller remind you that you are the Big Boss here and you don’t have to listen to what these people are saying. Or, you could choose to have your mind serve you in an intentional way. You could remember who you are at your core and the vision you’ve set for yourself as a leader. Chamine calls this portion of your mind your Sage. It’s the part that focuses on empathy, joy, hope and other positive emotions.

You remember the Three Gift Technique Carmine offers and quickly come up with three scenarios where this uncomfortable situation turns into a gift or an opportunity, even if it doesn’t happen overnight. You choose this option and quickly create gifts that come as a result of this meeting. Stronger relationships, clarity of ideas and broader responsibilities from the group are the gifts you see as you take a deep breath and begin to respond. You say, “Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention…”