Flight Attendant

Here is one that happened once on a plane. One day I am flying on a particularly long flight, I don’t remember where I was going fro or too but it was a 3½ or 4 hour flight. And I had been sitting in my seat on this flight attendant is going back and forth. And it’s one of the older ones you know, that is probably been on the job 15 or 20 years and you could tell from looking at her that she was having a particularly rough day. There were several times when people asked for something and she would try to be pleasant to their face but then she would turn and walk back and kind of, coming in my direction and she would be muttering under her breath and just snarling.

And just didn’t look like she was having any fun at all. So at one point I get up to go to the restroom and there is a little bit of a line for the restroom, I am standing at the back and she’s shuffling things around. Doing whatever it is that they do and I think, “I wonder if I could turn this woman around a little bit. And get her out of this incredibly negative mental state that she is in.” So there is a little bit of a bump, a kind of turbulence on the airplane, kind of knocks me back and nearly knocked me into her. So I figure here is my chance. So she looks up kind of startled, I grabbed a counter and the wall and got pretty close to her. I didn’t bump into her though, she looks up at me a little snarling you know, kind of, but I put this gigantic oversized smile on my face and say, “hi, wow that was close.”

And you know that a little bit of a mismatch but actually at that point is what I’m trying to do is break her mental state. Just a little bit by doing something that is a little bit shocking and out of the ordinary. So I chitchat with her a little bit about the bumps and the turbulence and say: “I guess I really need to go running back to my seat. Can I stay and go to the bathroom?” And she is like “yeah, no problem” and we talk about the clouds and we talk about how busy it is, pacing her ongoing reality. And I say, “I guess there is probably some days doing this that could be kind of tough.” And I said “really overall this seems like it would be a really interesting career. Can I ask you what is the best part about being a flight attendant?”

Now initially she is a little bit resistance but I am the kind of being playful enough that she seems to be opening up a little bit. But she just looked at me and she goes, “Honey, some days there are none.” And I just started laughing I did my, my little thing again that very often serves as a good pattern interrupt or a break of somebody’s mental state. And the kind of just chuckle a little bit and I said, “well I’m sure that’s true but that also presupposes that there are some days that are really good.” And I just wait a little bit, too kind of let her fill in. And she says, “you know? Yes there are some days that are really great.”

And kind of have to repeats it some days are really great. And as she says that she is the kind of looking off into the distance a little bit, and I don’t know what she’s thinking about but it seemed like there was a pretty high likelihood that she was remembering a decent, pleasant experience. So I use that, utilization I have got my sensory acuity working, I am watching her and I just kind of smile again and I say, “Ummmm. I can see there are” now at this point her state is pretty much completely broken, she is looking up at me and is kind of, half thinking. What are you talking about? What can you see? But she is sort of along with me but looking at me with this wonder. So I don’t want to give her too much time to think about it so I said, “let me ask you this. Are there certain parts on certain days that make this job so rewarding that you would do this for free? Or let me say it in a different way. Or you’re just being able to do it is enough reward on its own?” And she thinks about that a second and she goes, “well not have a free. But there certainly are some rewards.” So I say, “tell me one of those?”

And she said, “Just recently I had this older lady that just recently had had a great granddaughter and was making her first flight. First one in her life and she was scared to death. And she was in my section so I was in charge of looking after her.” Now it this point that she is telling the story that kind of scowl or what later became a weird sort of look, with all of the stuff that I was doing with her it started to get a very pleasant look. She wasn’t beaming quite yet but definitely all over their anger type wrinkles had been completely removed from her face and I want anchor that in. So I literally at this point as she is telling the story interrupted her. And I reached out and touched her on the elbow and said, “wow when you started to think about that there was his complete change of look on your face. What was it about that trip that had such an impact to you?”

Okay so now, here is a couple of things going on all at once. Number one I have interrupted her usually not a very good strategy. But in this case what it was going to cause was confusion and something that was completely outside the norm. Second I am invading her personal space a little bit, touching her in a very nonsexual way, but touching her nonetheless but begins letting an anchor in there but then I asked her for more specifics. Driving her towards the direction that I want her to go. And the strategy worked because she went right to very specific moment and she said, “It was the smile on her face when she saw her granddaughter. The one the mother obviously, of the great granddaughter, the granddaughter met her at the gate to pick her up. And it was the fact that she told her granddaughter but I was her other granddaughter on the plane and that she could have never made this trip without me.”

And so now here we are sitting in the back of the plane and you know, you have been in the back of those planes between the restrooms there is not a whole lot of space to move around out there. And I say; “Now those other moments aren’t they?” Phew! Reach out and touch on the elbow again and setting that trigger that if I was in a sales situation I could turn round and fire back off. But remember we don’t want her to just stand by the pool and think about it; we want her to dive straight in. So as I am anchoring her elbow I also say to her, “now in that moment what are you experiencing?”

And now she is getting a little bit dreamy she says, “Oh it was really wonderful. I was able to do something to her that helped to make it easier for her to do something that she really wanted to do but didn’t think that she could.” Now when she said there I had a word that popped into my mind, I didn’t know if it would be the same word that she would think about that I came back to her and said, “oh man that is really beautiful. Help her to do something that she wanted to do but didn’t think that she could. Ummm, What would you call that?” And I just waited for a second and watched and she said, “Well I guess I empowered her.” Now that was the word that I was thinking.

Now during this time that we have been having this little chat I have been totally mirroring her posture. And attempting to with some success, lead her into a more empowering state and a more fun state. And I don’t know if it was due to the fact that we were in a deep level of rapport if we were thinking the same thought or not, or maybe it was just very likely that you were thinking the same sort as well. But regardless of which it was it was a very powerful experience for her when she started to say empowerment and I am staying in power meant that have the exact same time. And when we said that she is just looking at me with this kind of astonished to look on her face, and she blushed somewhat and sort of, what we are staring at each other for a second and for the slightest moment there I didn’t know if she was going to break down and cry or reach up and kiss me. It was a very, very weird moment.

And I wanted to anchor that in for her so I said, ” what an unbelievable gift to be able to give that woman.” And touched her elbow again. And I suspect that part of you is realizing that giving her that gift was really a lot more rewarding for you and the even was for her.  And isn’t it wonderful to realize now that you can give and receive that gift any time you want. I fired off the anchor one more time and she looks up at me and goes, “who are you?” And I said, ” I am Cobewan!” and dove into the bathroom. So in this case it was kind of struggle because she was coming from a very negative place so I had to break has staked a couple of times and get her out of that negative frame of mind that she was sitting in but using these same skills that we have been talking about for the last four or five discs. Right now within just a matter of minutes, just out of the goodness of my heart, because I am a citizen of the world and my job is to spread joy wherever it is that I go. I was able to take this woman who was having a crappy day and for the rest of that day, man, she was floating up and down that aisles. And as you know, and she was standing up at the front of the line giving everybody the, ” goodbye, goodbye. Thanks for flying with us. Bye, Bye” I got a pretty nice smile it was a wonderful gift to be or to give her as well.