Celebrating two years and 104 episodes, Tammy J. Bond drops a truth bomb: If your communication sounds like chaos, it's because your nervous system is leading the meeting, not your core leadership. This episode breaks down the concept of the "Calm Cascade"—how your internal regulation sets the emotional thermostat for the entire team. Tammy argues that emotional regulation is not a soft skill, but a crucial leadership strategy. When you walk in "hot," your team burns out and tunes out; the best communicators are always the calmest in the room.

• Regulation is Leadership: Emotional regulation is a strategy. If you can't regulate yourself and your emotions, you cannot motivate a team to speak up or succeed.

• The Thermostat Principle: Your energy sets the temperature. Your team needs you to set the thermostat to a regulated, comfortable temperature—not "frigid cold" or "burning hot."

• Dysregulation = Damage Control: When you are dysregulated, your rational brain (prefrontal cortex) takes a vacation. A dysregulated brain cannot do diplomacy; it can only do damage control.

• Actionable Correction: If you "freak out," quickly correct by saying: "I recognize what I did was wrong, here's how it might have impacted us, and here's what I'm doing differently next time."

1. Chaos Short Circuits All Communication: When you are dysregulated, you invite the amygdala hijack—the fear center—leading to regretful blurting, defensiveness, and distractions from team members ("Johnny the Sandthrower").

2. Regulated Leaders Create Psychological Safety: Your people will mirror your tone faster than your words. When they feel calm around you, they are more truthful, collaborative, and focused on innovation, not self-protection.

3. Trust is Earned by Being Calm: You don't earn trust by talking calm; you earn it by being composed in tense situations. When the leader stays composed, it shifts the energy of the entire room.

4. Regulation is Your Lifeline: If you can't regulate, you can't communicate. If you can't communicate, you aren't leading. Regulation is your ultimate responsibility.

• The 90-Second Reset: Before any high-temperature meeting, take 90 seconds to reset your internal thermostat using box breathing (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4).

• The “Grandma Vance” Principle: Be the first one to set your own thermostat every morning to the right temperature for your success.

If you're ready to lead from calm, clarity, and courage, tune in every week. Share this episode with a leader who could benefit from hearing this message.

Tammy brings the hard hitting truth: Chaos might feel like momentum, but it's really just motion without meaning. In this fast-paced episode, she dives into the high cost of allowing stress, drama, and avoidant behaviors to run your workplace. Through personal anecdotes (like the story of "Frank"), Tammy explains why unsustainability is the ultimate price of chaos—affecting everything from turnover rates and sick leave to team productivity. This is a crucial lesson on self-regulation, clarity, and building a workplace where order restores energy and trust.

1. Chaos is Expensive: Chaos lacks sustainability. Leaders who use fear or high-pressure tactics get short-term results, but overall productivity drops, leading to increased turnover, higher sick leave, and loss of revenue.

2. Unregulated Leaders Create Unregulated Teams: You cannot lead people out of stress while you are drowning in it. An unregulated leader models expected chaotic behavior, causing the team to become dysregulated, driving them to spend time job-searching instead of working.

3. Communication in Chaos Becomes Cannibalistic: Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast. When defensiveness (a form of fear-filled communication) becomes the norm, team members focus on self-preservation, eating away at collaboration, trust, and transformation.

4. Regulation is Not Rigidity: Order restores energy, focus, and trust in your team. Regulation is about your "count-on-ability"—what your team can rely on from your reactions and responses. It's the opposite of being stuck; it's the foundation for agility.

• The Problem with Volatility and Vacancy: Both yelling and retreating are equally damaging. Vacancy (silence/shutting down) tells people they can't trust you, while volatility pushes them away. Leaders must find the regulated middle ground.

• The Key to Performance: "Healthy, actionable steps driving performance is a winning plan every single day."

• Your Self-Check: Ask your team: "What is your count-on-ability factor?" Look at your sick leave and turnover rates—these are chaos-driven numbers.

• Final Quote: "Fear-fed communication eats results for breakfast."

Don't drive Q4 momentum with chaos. Drive it with curiosity and clarity.

I unapologetically ask bold questions and challenge assumptions to help leaders rethink what they thought was true!

DM me the word CHAOS on Instagram @TheTammyBond to get a resource that will help you ask the right questions to solve for the chaos and finish the year strong.

Tammy drops a truth bomb right from the start: Our emotions, not our thoughts, motivate us. This episode is a quick, hard-hitting guide on how your emotions can either drive you forward or keep you and your team stuck in a pattern of limiting beliefs. Tammy provides a four-point framework to help you master self-awareness, manage your emotional triggers, and turn your emotional intelligence into the "entry ticket" for every successful conversation.

• Emotions Win: We move in the direction of the dominant emotion. If you don't own your emotions, they own you and will hijack your team's success.

• The Power Pause: When emotions start to rise, push the pause button, take a breath, and ask the next best question to slow down the spin.

• The Real Raw Material: Emotions are not the enemy; they are the raw material of trust, connection, and performance.

• Words Create Pictures: The language you use creates a visual in your mind, and you attach emotions to that picture, which directly creates your performance. Change the words, change the outcome.

1. Awareness is Your Entry Ticket: Your self-awareness is the entry ticket to every conversation and problem-solving at every level. If you are dysregulated, you cannot be situationally aware of others.

2. Vacancy is as Dangerous as Volatility: Retreating, sitting silent, and vacating a difficult moment is just as damaging to trust as blowing up. It communicates a "No Vacancy" sign that pushes people away.

3. Self-Efficacy Fuels Collective Efficacy: If key players on your team lose the belief that they can succeed (self-efficacy), it bleeds into the whole team's belief (collective efficacy).

4. Words Create Pictures, Pictures Create Performance: Be intentional about the words you and your team use, as the visualizations attached to them pre-determine your results.

• Quote: "Your emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings will actually determine your success and happiness." — John Gottman

• Quote: "If you don't own your emotions, they own you."

• The 24/72 Rule: When hijacked by emotions, utilize the 24-hour push-pause option (or 24/24/24) to process, go back to the conversation, and check in again.

• Your Challenge: Master self-awareness by tuning into your physical and mental triggers (heart rate, gut feeling) before you engage.

Leadership is not a solo sport—it requires self-awareness and emotional awareness. Head on over and subscribe to the Leadership Sandbox channel on YouTube, drop your emoji in the comments, and share this episode with someone who needs an emotional regulator right now.