Be Curious, Not Furious
There’s a story that stayed with me this week.
A parent hears a crash from downstairs. The sound of broken pots.
They’re mid-way through trying to have five minutes peace , and now this.
They come running down, heart racing, mouth open, ready to yell:
"Why would you….!"
But they stop.
They move the child away from the broken pieces and ask, calmly:
"What happened here?"
And the child says:
"I wanted to surprise you."
That line.
That moment.
That breath between fury and curiosity.
It’s everything.
That sentence alone holds more power than most leadership books. Why?
Because it reveals a truth we forget too often: the intention behind the action matters.
The Default Reaction
We’ve all done it.
Reacted. Snapped. Got furious before we got curious.
I’ve done it with Dave. In the middle of life and noise and deadlines, I've chosen fury over pause.
And in those moments, the real story, the human underneath the mistake, gets missed.
The intention , often good, kind, loving, never sees the light of day.
And the reality, most of the time it’s not even about the other person It’s internal.
That’s the root of all of this.
We don’t need to fix others first. We need to work on what’s going on inside us.
And there it is.
A moment that could have been about blame becomes something entirely different.
A moment that could have ended with shouting ends with insight.
Connection. Humanity. Love.
It’s Never About the Pots
If you’ve ever worked with people, parented, led a team, managed a household, or lived with a partner… you know what this story really represents.
It’s not about the pots. It’s not about the mess. It’s about the moment between stimulus and response.
That razor-thin slice of time where everything hangs in the balance.
That’s where the real work lives.
Dave and I have lived in that space more times than we can count.
In our home. In our business. In our conversations with each other.
In the hard moments with clients. In the long days when everything’s piled up and the smallest thing tips the scale.
There have been times I’ve snapped before I even knew what I was reacting to.
Times I’ve looked at Dave and wanted to scream because he’s the nearest thing to how I’m feeling.
It’s not fair. But it’s real.
We’ve had to learn, relearn, unlearn that the stories we make up in those moments aren’t the truth.
They’re the stress talking. The pressure. The pattern. The stuff we’ve carried for too long.
Why This Matters to Coaching (And Life)
At and., we coach this all the time:
Change doesn’t start in your systems. It starts in you.
When we get furious at our team, our partner, our kids, our lives, it’s not the pots that are the problem.
It’s the pressure, the fear, the tiredness we haven’t spoken out loud.
And when we coach, we don’t go fixing surface problems.
We get under them.
We ask:
What’s really going on?
What’s the intention?
What’s been left unsaid?
Because when you pause long enough to be curious,
you start to see the truth.
The Space Before the Shout
We’ve all stood in that space.
It might not be pots. It might be a team member missing a deadline.
A partner saying the wrong thing.
A colleague doing it their way again, not yours.
Or your own self, caught in another repeat pattern you promised you were done with.
And the instinct?
It’s to go in hard. Defend. Blame. Fix. Explain.
Remembering beneath every broken pot is something else. A moment of effort. A need. An intention.
What would happen if you paused?
Just for one second.
Long enough to ask:
"What happened here?"
Instead of:
"What’s wrong with you?"
This Is The Real Work
This isn’t just a parenting trick. It’s not about being calm for calm’s sake. This is the internal work we talk about all the time.
At and., we don’t believe in adding more layers of control.
We look at what’s already happening inside you.
Are you reacting from exhaustion?
Is it fear?
Is it pressure to be perfect?
Is it the same pattern you’ve been repeating quietly for years?
We start there.
That parent didn’t change the world.
They changed one moment.
But it was enough.
Because the child didn’t learn fear.
They learned they could be seen. Heard. Understood.
Imagine if our team members felt that.
If we did.
If we let ourselves feel it.
This is what our and. approach is
You’ve heard us say it a hundred times:
Stuck → Solve → Simplify → Thrive.
That’s not a tagline. That’s what this moment is.
You’re stuck in a habit. A reaction. A story you’ve told yourself 1,000 times.
You solve it not by pretending to be calm, but by asking the right question.
You simplify it when you realise you don’t need 17 steps to fix it—just one pause, one breath, one better sentence.
And you thrive when these small choices add up to a different way of leading, living, and loving.
This is what Dave teaches in Leadership or Leadershit.
It’s what I coach in real conversations with clients who feel like they’re one mistake away from unravelling.
It’s what we’ve both had to walk ourselves through on the days when we feel like slamming the cupboard and storming out.
Stuck → Solve → Simplify → Thrive
Here’s where this fits into how we work.
You’re stuck in a loop. Maybe it’s anger. Maybe it’s reaction. Maybe it’s shame after the blow-up.
You solve it not by doing more, but by getting curious. Pausing. Asking.
You simplify by learning what triggers you and what actually matters.
And you start to thrive when your first response becomes human, not habitual.
This isn’t about being perfect.
It’s about noticing. Choosing curiosity more often than not.
The Everyday Choice: Reaction or Curiosity
How many times have you lost it with someone – a team member, partner, child – only to realise later… they were trying their best?
This isn’t just a parenting story. It’s a leadership moment. A life moment. A you moment.
What we miss in these situations isn’t just control.
We miss intention.
We don’t ask what’s really happening underneath. We just react.
Because being furious is easy.
Being curious is a choice.
Why we Lead like this (and why it’s costing us.)
We say it often, but I’ll say it again here:
Leadership isn’t your job title. It’s your response.
It’s what you do in the moment when things don’t go to plan.
When someone disappoints you.
When your kid knocks over your day.
When your colleague sends the wrong file.
When your partner forgets the thing you’ve reminded them of ten times.
You get to choose:
Do I respond from the surface?
Or do I respond from intention?
And that’s the work we do at and.
Not adding more stuff to your plate.
But helping you notice your own default settings, and showing you how to update them from the inside out.
Most of us never learned how to slow down and check what’s happening internally.
We lead from pressure. We live from autopilot.
We parent, manage, and perform from default settings.
Until we stop. And ask.
And that’s exactly why Leadership or Leadershit exists.
That moment in the kitchen? That is leadership.
Choosing your response.
Modelling what’s needed now, regardless of the consequence.
Page 67, Chapter One of the book?
“Authentic or Fake?”
It literally teaches this moment:
Notice what’s happening.
Experience it.
Acknowledge the real emotion.
Then act.
This is the leadership we teach:
Simple. Internal. Real.
Tools You Already Have to Practice This
This isn’t about adding more tools. You already have everything you need inside the and. method.
Here’s how we tie it back:
Use the “Primary Aim” to reflect: What’s your intention when you lead or speak? (Not your role. Your real reason.)
(See your Primary Aim guide, page 2 — ‘What do I want? Really want?’)Grab your Values Workbook. Most people react from violated values. But if you don’t know your values, how can you tell what’s been triggered?
(Use the “3 Core Values” filter to decode your own reactions.)Apply “Be Curious, Not Furious” using the FireStarter ‘MindChangers’:
When you feel anger, pause. Breathe. Ask internally:
What’s really going on here?
What would I do if I wasn’t afraid/tired/frustrated?
we link this directly back to our 7 Daily Leadership Principles:
Principle One: Model the behaviour you want to see in others, yourself first today.
Principle Four: Remove the obstacles in the way of your people... including emotional ones.
These are not just exercises. These are choices.
You already have the tools to lead differently. To live differently.
This Is Not About Being Perfect
Let me be clear.
This is not about becoming the “better person” who never raises their voice. This is not about smiling through smashed plates or pretending you’re fine when you’re not.
This is about giving yourself the space to choose differently.
About making room for the truth behind the mess.
And sometimes, that means circling back after the snap, after the sigh, after the silence and saying:
“I was reacting. I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.”
Final Thought
Be Curious, Not Furious
Simple, Not Easy
Being curious sounds simple.
In real life? It’s a decision.
It takes practice.
It means catching yourself before the shout.
It means breathing, even when you want to scream.
It means giving people, including yourself, the chance to explain.
That parent in the kitchen did the bravest thing possible. They got curious. And that child didn’t learn fear. They learned trust.
A Real Reminder
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yeah, but it’s hard.”
Good.
You’re honest.
It is hard.
But it’s also the path to something better.
Better relationships.
Better leadership.
Better self-talk.
Better living.
If all you do this week is catch one moment.
One trigger.
One tiny moment of almost, yelling.
And you turn it into a question instead of a reaction.
That’s it.
That’s leadership.
That’s the work.
That’s how it starts.
Be curious. Not furious.
And see what changes.
Final Thought
That parent in the kitchen? They changed everything by asking a better question.
Not what have you done but what happened here?
Be curious. Not furious.
This is leadership. This is love. This is you at your best.
Pause.
Ask.
And see what happens when you lead with intention, not instinct.
PS. This is exactly the kind of real-life moment we unpack at and. Also in the Leadership or Leadershit book. No fluff. Just real tools for real people. Which is now available as eBook
Join us as we challenge the leadership deficit that’s affecting us all. We are calling in Leadership and calling out Leadershit (not a spelling mistake!)
We are creating a movement, a motion of inspira(c)tion to make change happen, how we chose to lead, limiting beliefs, paradigms and the overuse of old models frameworks and BS of more.
The and. word for inspiring through action
