What They Do Not Teach You in School About Crying During Work

By Larry Chiang

I’ve cried at work.

When you entrepreneur as hard as I do, you cry. Dont believe me?!

Did you see the movie, Jerry Maguire?! When the star, Rod Tidwell played by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, gets to a career inflection point with a multi million dollar contract, he cries.

Plot spoiler: when you get a 7 figure check, you cry. I cried. Everyone cries. Mine was from Discover financial services. I sold and still sell credit cards to college students.

Here is how to cry at work during good times and bad:

-1- Embrace crying.

The more you try to contain your cry, the more you well-up and cry more. Embracing a cry is very counter intuitive. You see, in school you’re labelled as a cry-baby.

If you cry at work 2-5x like me per week, you’re a mother scratching legend. If you cry at work, embrace it and know that legendary people cry during good and bad times.

-2- Tear Management.

Let the tears stream down your face. Tears are nearly impossible to spot from a stage, across the table and are invisible to cameras unless you’re getting a close-up shot long lensed.

Tears are hard to see but wiping the tears away is a tell-tale signal that your weak. Cry and be proud.

Yes, you should catch yourself not being proud. I gather myself up. Open up my heart shakra. Re-route the energy of the emotion into production and kinetic energy… Which leads me to

-3- Re-Route My Crying Energy in Cathartic Action Energy.

Have you read my book’s Chapter 7. It’s on sex. Well, I take energy that is sexual in nature and re-route and re-purpose it for work & entrepreneur energy.

Remember, you’ve already re-routed crying energy into actionable energy. That guy that made you cry in the seventh grade got you to ace AP chemistry and wear out three stairmasters. Now, you’re dating me. Nice.

So, all you have to do now is pattern replicate yourself. But faster. In the same room right there at work.

-4- Give Your Hands Something to Do

Instead of wiping tears, use your hands to take some notes.

Hands will betray your emotional state much more than the tears. On that note, your body will physiologically give away your emotional state much more than just crying. It leads to my next point…

-5- No Crying in the Semi Fetal Position

Hands and elbows off knees. Period. And know that your voice will crack and sound weird so you…

-6- Speak Loudly and Past the Frog in Your Throat.

Don’t clear your throat. Don’t select emotional charged words. You are crying because you’re in shock due to a situation you’re just learning about now.

Say one simple word that works: “Unbelievable!”

Do not clarify what you mean by “Unbelievable!” Just keep saying it. This is to be used in conjuction with your exit strategy…

-7- Have an Exit Strategy

Say “Unbelievable!” and just walk out. Re-enter the room pretty quickly but leaving while you’re getting screwed (hopefully) is an option.

ENGR145’s Anchor Concept: Lemonade and Gua Gua Guacamole

It moves you to the right on the entrepreneur bell curve

CEO of Duck9 Stanford University Entrepreneur in Residence, Emeritus

Duck9 = “Deep Underground Credit Knowledge” 9 125 University Avenue/ 100 Palo Alto CA 94301 https://www.duck9.com/ass 650-566-9600 650-566-9696 (direct) 650-283-8008 (cell)

**************** Editor of the BusinessWeek Channel “What They Don’t Teach at Business School” https://whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com/blog CNN Video Channel: https://ireport.cnn.com/people/larrychiang

Read my last 10 tweets at https://www.Twitter.com/LarryChiang

Author, NY Times Bestseller https://whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com/blog/?s=Ny+times+bestseller

“What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School” comes out 11-11-14

https://www.fastcompany.com/embed/c0d4562ea2049

52 Cards. Two Jokers. What They DO Teach You at Stanford Engineering