The Peace Index

CHAPTER EIGHTKeeping the Peace

There is no one better than you to keep the Peace inside you.

There is no one else responsible for ensuring that you are at Peace other than you. Keeping the Peace is not your spouse's role, nor is it the role of your boss or best friend. You, and only you, can ensure that you have a peaceful mindset.

Keeping the Peace is a process. You can use systems and techniques to ensure you stay in the right frame of mind. Each person may do things a bit differently based on their personality wiring. I, for one, need a system even though I don't naturally love the monotony of daily rhythms.

I have found that the best leaders intentionally manage themselves and their Peace. They must know themselves to lead themselves well. Ideally, this self‐leadership is a daily exercise.

To keep the Peace, I must be right in certain relationships. I am a feeler by nature, and I need to feel good about my relationship with God, my wife and kids, and business partners. If I am off in any of these, it affects other parts of my work. That is important for you to think about: What must be right for you to be at Peace?

In my past, I tended to store up frustrations and let them build up like a shaken‐up soda bottle. Little emotions would gather and mix with more significant issues until the “straw that broke the camel's back” would explode like a volcano. My patient wife had to deal with my storing up of internal frustrations and not managing my emotions well. This process ...