Leadership lessons from the snake(s) in my home!

Greetings all. I missed penning an article in April. April was a busy month compounded by a throat infection. Left me with little energy to write!

Note: a slightly longer article today – thanks to my visitors.

April was also busy because I had uninvited guests in my home. One, then two snakes and maybe more!

I have learned so much about myself from the presence of the snakes in my home.

Let me tell you the story.

March 30 – As I went down to run my washing machine on this Sunday morning, I noticed something slithering past me in the corridor to my kitchen. As it was dark, I didn’t immediately recognise it. It took my brain a few extra seconds to identify it as a snake.

I called out to my husband, Markus, saying, ‘we have a snake in the house’!

By this time, the snake had disappeared into a room in the corridor, and attempts by Markus to move things around in the room to look for the snake failed. I was at the door with a broom in case it came racing out. Hypervigilant all the time, as I am not fond of snakes. Thankfully, Markus, on the other hand, is quite ‘open’ to them.

After Markus exited the room, I closed the door to the room and placed a towel to close the gap between the door and the floor.

Looking at my ‘state’, Markus asked me, ‘what are you afraid of, that the snake will bite you, then eat you?’

This made me laugh and see the reality of the matter. Yes, we all grow up thinking snakes are the enemy, but context matters. I saw the snake as it passed me, and I realised it wasn’t a big snake and that it seemed more afraid of me than I was of it.

So, Markus’s question zoomed me out to see the bigger picture. But to feel ‘protected’, I walked around the house with a broom from that moment. My ‘weapon’.

Over the next couple of days, Markus went into the room to look for the snake but couldn’t find it.

Three days later, as we were going up the stairs after breakfast, we spotted a snake coming down the stairs! Yikes! It went past us and slipped into a gap between the stairs and the wall. Underneath my stairs is the storeroom. The storeroom has a window, and we decided to leave it open, hoping the snake would go out.

My first question to Markus was, ‘do we have one or two snakes?’

Days passed, and we did not see a snake. Our instinct was to think that it had left through the window. We lived in ignorant bliss.

My hypervigilance had subsided, and I was quite relaxed around the house.

From April 27 to May 2, we were away in Singapore. On Sunday, May 4, as Markus climbed the stairs mid-morning, he spotted a snake on the stairs! By the time I got a cloth to him, it had moved and disappeared through the same gap between the wall and the stairs.

It seemed to move slower, he said. We deduced that it may be getting weaker living in our concrete jungle home. I left a cloth on the stairs in case it came out again.

The next morning, as I was going down the stairs, I heard a thud and saw a snake slithering along the corridor (the exact spot where I originally saw it). I promptly called Markus, and he managed to secure it in the same room in the corridor!

Something struck me, though; I realised the snake we caught was much longer than the one I first saw on the corridor or stairs. I wondered if it had grown over the one month it was ‘living’ with us, or was it a new visitor. (I still can’t get the sight of it slithering, out of my head.)

We were pleased with the joint effort of catching it. I say joint, but Markus did the heavy lifting, and I managed the logistics to ensure that Markus could get out and release the snake (in an empty plot next to us). We even named it Sally! 😉

Sally about to have her freedom!

Our happiness lasted three days only! Whilst coming up the stairs after breakfast 3 days later, Markus said, ‘you won’t believe this?!’  I knew immediately that he saw a snake. I was getting ready to go to a function and ran to him with a cloth. Alas, it was too late. It slid away through the gap between the wall and the stairs. We have named it Simon! 😉

As I write this now on a Saturday morning, I am making intermittent trips to the stairs to see if it has come out again so we can give it its freedom. However, Markus is out, and I am not sure I will have the courage to ‘catch and release’ solo.

I have several questions in my head:

1.       Do we have more snakes?

2.       Was our home the snake's nest? Did a female snake lay her eggs in our home?

3.       Where did it come from? One of our doors has a small gap between the door and the floor, and I have plugged it with a towel. However, seeing the gaps they can slide through, I don’t believe the towel does much.

I am slightly more vigilant again. It’s not doing my chemistry any good. My adrenaline and cortisol levels are higher. I am actively practising calming techniques.

Here are the leadership lessons I learned:

1.       We don’t know what we don’t know

It struck Markus and me that we may have had the snakes in our home for a while and were oblivious to it. 

In leadership too, we don’t know what we don’t know!

2.       We assume a lot

Friends and family had many different reactions to the snakes.

We assume all snakes are threatening, deadly, and out to get us (and are big). We researched snakes and realised that not all snakes are poisonous (in South East Asia), and some never grow to be more than a longer, thicker shoelace.

Clarity and context are key in life and leadership.

3.       Differing perspectives are important

I am glad that Markus balanced my viewpoint. If we were both caught in the fight/flight/freeze mode, we would have been ineffective. His perspective helped me look at the bigger picture.

In leadership, this is key. To surround ourselves with people who DO NOT think, act, feel like us, so that we have multiple perspectives on a situation.

So, there you have it, my leadership lessons from the snakes in my home. And though I am a little anxious about the snake or snakes in my home, I reframe and tell myself, ‘I would rather have an uninvited snake than an uninvited human in my home’!

I shall update you on our snake situation in my next article!

As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com