A good friend of mine reached out to me today asking for help. As always, I was honored to be trusted to help her but was also not surprised about what she was needing help with.

From the moment we enter this world we inherently have survival instincts. To seek food, water, shelter, and even acceptance amongst our peers. When we are children, although the first few may be supplied for us, the last one has always been left to be developed further by our environment. Maybe it’s a battle of the siblings for our parent’s love and affection. Or at school, yearning to be chosen by the “popular” kids’ gym team. Each time, we learn, adapt, and apply new behaviors. Some will use these experiences to grow stronger and become leaders, others may feel intimidated, even end up being the focus of bullying by their peers. Many mistakenly believe that we “grow up” or “grow out” of this stage. But the truth is, this stage, is Life itself. A never ending experience to enable us opportunities to learn, adapt, and apply. It is growth. However, it is what we do with it, that dictates our long lasting journey of either loneliness, jealousy, and anxiety, or Gratefulness, Love, and Success.

That is why, as adults, we will continue to witness jealousy amongst friends, co-workers, or even family. But when you are the person experiencing the negative attention of this; what can you do about it? Anything?

Of course! Although it may not feel like it, it is an exciting opportunity to continue to grow yourself and even help those exuding the negative behavior. Now, I’m not suggesting to focus your energy on “fixing” someone but with just the knowledge of why they may be doing this; gives YOU the upper hand, in turn can help naturally build your own self-esteem and confidence, and even change a negative into a positive.

Lead by Example. Empathize. The person or people that are acting jealous or may be overly competitive are seeking reassurance. It may not be reassurance from you that they need, but themselves. In most cases, you are not in a position to council them, nor would you probably even care to. But understand, even the slightest bit of assurance, acknowledgement, or attention will diffuse the situation and most likely them in the process. For example, if they are making a suggestion, no matter how outlandish or in appropriate their approach is with yourself or others; a simple acknowledgement of their idea, is NOT supporting the behavior. You are not pumping them up or even agreeing with the idea itself. You are only acknowledging that they had an idea and since we have all been in situations where there are NO ideas given; this should be acknowledged. Pointing out to them or drawing attention to their potential insecurity is the LAST thing anyone would want to do; since most times they, themselves, won’t even realize it, as this behavior has become part of their identity, their survival tool; so even if they do realize it, they aren’t about to acknowledge it. There are always going to be people that no matter what you do, will feed off of the littlest of attention and simply seek more of it. Thus, again, do not focus your energy on them. You must always put yourself first and by diffusing the situation or person, you are putting yourself first because you are not allowing them to take your energy or strength away from you. That is to Lead by Example.

To Lead by Example, is a daily practice. In all that we do. It is a set of life skills combined that needs to be exercised regularly to grow its strength.