Tread Gently
For the Emotionally Clumsy
Ten steps to navigate emotionally charged situations
**Most people aren’t bad at their job.
They’re bad at handling emotion. Not intentionally.
But in the moments that matter:
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They react instead of respond
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They avoid instead of address
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They say something… and regret it
And that’s where conversations break down. Relationships strain. Performance suffers.
This book is for those moments
Tread Gently For the Emotionally Clumsy
A practical guide to handling emotionally charged situations — at work and in life.
Why I wrote it
I wasn’t naturally good at this. Like most people, I had to learn:
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How to manage my reactions
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How to stay calm under pressure
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How to handle difficult conversations without making them worse
So I built a set of tools — over years of working with people, teams, and leaders. This book is those tools.
What you’ll get
👉 10 practical steps to navigate emotionally charged situations
👉 How to:
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Stay composed when emotions rise
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Understand what’s really driving your reactions
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Respond deliberately — not instinctively
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Handle conversations you’d normally avoid
👉 Simple, clear approaches you can use immediately
Who this is for
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Managers who want to handle conversations better
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Leaders under pressure who need to stay composed
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Anyone who has ever thought:
“I didn’t handle that well…”
(So… most of us.)
How this connects to my work
This book underpins much of what I teach in workshops and coaching.
If you’ve attended a session on:
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Emotional Intelligence
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Tough conversations
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Managing behaviour and performance
You’ve already seen these principles in action.
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Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QLNRK6L?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
If you want to handle these moments better…
This is a good place to start.
👉 Buy the book
Or go further
Reading is one thing. Applying it — in the moment — is something else.
👉 Bring this into your team
Explore workshops based on these principles
👉 Or get support directly
Coaching to work through real situations you’re facing
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👉 You don’t rise to the level of your intentions.
👉 You fall to the level of how you handle pressure.
Testimonials for the EI workshop
that is based on the book!
"As part of my organization’s training and development program, I engaged Sharon to lead her Emotional Intelligence for Leaders workshop several times specifically for people managers. I consistently received positive feedback from employees who attended Sharon’s session – participants cited her valuable insights, humour, and experience in our industry as reasons to recommend the workshop to their colleagues.
News of Sharon’s impactful content travelled quickly throughout our company, and her sessions were consistently in high demand with long waiting lists! I would recommend her not only as an engaging facilitator, but as a seasoned professional who can translate her experiences into concrete takeaways for attendees."
Colleen Olsen, former Senior HR Specialist,
Vision7 Communications Inc, Toronto
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“Our agency has worked with Sharon and Be A Better You since early 2016. We’ve had many workshops with her, and in 2018 I commissioned Be A Better You to deliver 10 Tackling Tough Conversations for our Toronto and Montreal offices. The workshops were very well received – evidence since suggests people are taking on board what they learned in the workshops and having better conversations.
We continue to work with Sharon to deliver more training to our agency ”
Sunil Sekhar
VP HR FCB Canada
“As head of training and development at BBDO Canada I frequently engaged Sharon Jones of Be A Better You to deliver training workshops for our people. Our participants tended to be smart, impatient, sceptical people with a ' prove this is a good use of my time' mindset. Sharon's workshops on topics like Emotional Intelligence, Motivating Teams, Professionalism and Business Writing were always lively, fast paced, packed with strong content, deeply relevant and useful. Our people appreciated the concrete tools they could implement right away. Her combination of intelligent information , challenging assumptions and down to earth style had me bringing her back over and over again.”
Siobhan McCarthy Farrer
Former SVP HR, BBDO