What Floor Are You On?

I want to ask you something most people never stop to consider.

What floor are you on?

Not your office. Not your building. Your emotional floor. The one you woke up on this morning. The one you've been operating from all day, making decisions from, leading from, and relating to others from.

Most of us don't know. We just react.

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a room full of leaders. As part of the conversation, I introduced something I call the Emotional Elevator. It is a graduated scale of 20 emotions, ranging from fear and despair at floor 1, all the way up to love at floor 19, and joy at floor 20.

Simple concept. Surprisingly powerful mirror.

Here is what strikes most people when they see it for the first time: fear lives at the bottom, but its influence doesn't stay there. It shows up quietly on almost every floor above it. In our worry. In our doubt. In our need for control. Even, and this is the part that stops people, in our version of love.

Because here is the truth: you cannot fully love from a place of fear. And yet, how often do we worry about the people we love most, and call it love? How often does concern become anxiety, and anxiety become the lens through which we see everything?

Fear masquerades. It dresses up. And most of the time, we don't even notice.

The Emotional Elevator doesn't fix that overnight. But it does something equally valuable. It shows you where you are. And once you know your floor, you can choose to move. One word, one perspective shift, one intentional step at a time.

One of my clients said it best: "The takeaway for me is to Stay on My Own Floor." She even made herself a sign that she placed near her computer. Resist the urge to go hang out with people on lower floors.

She wasn't being unkind. She was being wise. Because here is what she understood: you cannot help anyone from a lower-level floor. Your gift to the world is to stay on higher level floors and operate from there. Every time you visit someone who is hanging out on a lower floor (and stay too long!), your perspective, leadership, and mental health, pays the price.

Know your floor. Move when you need to. And protect the elevation you've worked hard to reach.

After the keynote, a woman reached out with a note. She shared that the Emotional Elevator was her biggest takeaway from the day. She wasn't alone.

Sometimes the most powerful leadership tool isn't a strategy or a framework. Sometimes it is simply a mirror, and the courage to look.