Today is my father’s birthday and unfortunately he is not here to celebrate it. I wrote about his passing in July of last year in previous postings and today is a very strong reminder of his absence. No singing happy birthday to him, no sending a card or present. Just the memories of the birthdays we did have and the sadness that there are not more.

A brutal day honestly, that is much like an intense weather system out at sea. With modern technology ocean goers can see these storms coming and can try to navigate around it. Much like I did with this day, knowing it was coming, seeing it on the calendar and sensing that it would be a challenging day. All that prep and knowledge only does so much because the now the storm has arrived and I’m in it.

The question then comes of how I and the metaphorical vessel I’m in stand up to the emotional storm’s onslaught that I find myself in today on my late father’s birthday. Navel architects call this a stability curve, which is a graphic presentation of a boats static stability. As the boat heels it develops righting moment which is the force created by the ballast and hull buoyancy that works to resist the heeling. The stability curve shows this righting arm (righting moment divided by displacement) as a function of heel angle. When the righting arm turns negative (at 123 degree for the Stability Curve Visual) the boat will no longer resist the heeling force and will capsize.

As someone that…

  •  loves interesting words, visuals and metaphors
  •  is passionate about boats
  •  has a company name (Gimbal Systems) that emphasizes balance and degrees of freedom
  •  works with individuals and teams on their emotional intelligence (EQ) when under stress

how could I not get all fired up by the concept of a stability curve and applying it to my own life today when honestly I’m struggling to remain upright. Who hasn’t had days like this for whatever the reason? So now you have a new way to think about those days where it seems like you are close to capsizing. Maybe you are just in the midst of testing and defining your own personal stability curve?

Now there is another important measurement on the righting curve and that is the relative areas under the positive and negative parts of the curve. In this curve the positive is 3.96 times greater than the negative. That means it takes 3.96 times as much energy to turn the boat from upright to capsize as from capsize to upright. The point where the curve goes from positive to negative is called the Limit of Positive Stability (LPS) or the Angle of Vanishing Stability (AVS).

In laymen terms, this is the tipping point and speaks to how easy it is for the boat to get back upright as compared to how hard it is to knock it over. The higher the ratio the better and the easier it is to recover from a capsize. In our EQ work this metaphorical concept is critical, because the reality is that we all get knocked down in times of high relational intensity, so we like to help our clients build their skills so they can recover quickly in order to be effective and keep going.

Now it should also be noted that the AVS (angle of vanishing stability) is a static measure of stability for a boat at rest in flat (calm) water. The angle alone is an incomplete assessment. The stability curve (a curve of righting moment vs. angle of heel) will show the relative stability of an upright hull vs. inverted. This can indicate a boats ability to recover from capsize. The dynamics of a boat in motion in a seaway have large effects on stability. Any proper evaluation of a boat’s suitability to offshore sailing in rough ocean conditions must account for more than just AVS.

In other words, life happens and this exercise is not perfect because when at sea in a squall there are all kinds of unpredictable variables that make this mathematical exercise imperfect. I would argue the same is true with us as human beings showing up in the world of business and life. Today is a perfect reminder of that hard truth for me. However, it helps to know I have my own stability curve that I’m putting to the test in real time.