success – Page 3 – Workplace Resilience

What’s Important

A friend recently connected me with a woman that was in town to film a documentary. The film team asked me if I was willing to be interviewed the very next day. Since it fit into my calendar, I said yes and didn’t give it much more thought.

We had all made our introductions when I finally got around to inquiring of the documentary topic. I just assumed that I had been singled out to discuss women and leadership. I was mentally prepared to discuss the challenges that women face today in the workplace. However, I was way off base. Ashley was a Child Psychologist at the University of Hawaii and taught a class on culture across lifespans. As the interview started, she informed me that I didn’t have to answer any question if I felt uncomfortable. I smiled and said that I was an open book and didn’t mind talking.

We talked for about an hour and she didn’t leave many stones unturned. She was curious about the transitions in my life and how it led me to where I am today. We discussed careers and kids and my view on how to manage work/life balance. She wanted to know about each of my children and how and why they were different. She was very curious about my 33-year marriage and what I believed was the secret to staying married such a long time.

Since this interview was truly about culture, we spent some time discussing my childhood and how I raised my own children. Before I knew it, an hour had passed and our time was over. The event had truly been a wonderful experience.

As I walked out, I gave thought to why I had enjoyed myself so much. I realized that it had given me the opportunity to take a good look at my life. It enabled me to objectively talk about my children, my husband, and my career and make the realization that I had a lot to be grateful for in life. The pointed questions that she asked had encouraged me to talk about many things that don’t usually come up in conversation. It was a good feeling to reminisce.

The whole experience made me consider that we spend too many days focusing on what’s wrong in our life and not enough on what’s going right. We can become obsessed with the people that disappoint us, or the things that we wish would be different. We lust for the things that we don’t possess or worry about things that, chances are, won’t happen. In our minds, we assume that if we had this different life, then everything would be better. Then, we would have the life that we always wanted.

The interview actually made me realize my contentment. No— things aren’t perfect. My back still hurts and I still have this annoying sinus problem that won’t go away. However, things could be much worse, so I work around the stuff that’s not perfect. The point is that I’m very clear on what’s important in my life. I refuse to waste time on the things that truly don’t matter.

Mistakes

“A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress” –Bryant McGill

When I was in grade school, the teachers would keep a poster board with each child’s name and the results of the weekly spelling test. If you received 100% on the test, you were gifted with a gold star. I remember studying the poster board with intensity to make sure that I had gold stars for every week of the year. Did you really do poorly if you received a 95% on the test? Of course not, it was graded as an A.

But still, it certainly wasn’t gold star material. The reality was that the 95% didn’t display perfection— you had made a mistake.

The need for perfection is ingrained in each one of you during your formative years. You learn at a very young age that the goal is to not make any errors. Completing each task perfectly will be rewarded, while making mistakes will not. If you don’t believe me, just look at the attention a young adult receives for acing their College ACT exam. I admit, it is quite a feat; however, if the same young adult makes a few mistakes on the exam, they don’t receive near the same fanfare for such an extraordinary accomplishment.

I tend to think that making mistakes can be a healthy and much needed experience in life.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new” –Albert Einstein

Being fearful of making mistakes in life can hold you back from trying new experiences.

I learned how to ski when I was 40 years old. I would rate my skiing skills as intermediate. I’m not a phenomenal skier but I can hold my own and I don’t embarrass myself too much. I’ve been told that I look pretty good coming down the mountain— that’s enough for me. However, I certainly do my fair share of falling. In fact, the first time I fall during each ski trip is always a relief. I think to myself, “glad I got that out of the way”. Frankly, I think that my willingness to make a mistake (and take my share of falls) is the reason that I can enjoy the sport. I might not be the best, but I still can have a great time.

Making mistakes can be an opportunity for growth.

Life is about taking risks and sometimes failing at your endeavors. Although none of us enjoy the experience of “messing up”, it often teaches you much more than one where you succeed. While you’re going through the process, it can seem like it’s the end of the world. However, as crazy as it sounds, you need those opportunities in life to make a mistake and then be forced to make things right. As painful as the experience can be, they help you grow and develop into your absolute best self.

We all make mistakes now and then but it’s important to remember:

Making a mistake can lead you to an even better place in life.

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Empathy

While doing some research for an upcoming workshop, I suddenly remembered a work incident from many years ago. Picture this: I’m sitting at a meeting with my managers and discussing some drastic changes that were about to majorly impact each one of them. A few of the changes would be positive but the majority of them would be negative. Frankly, these changes were hard to swallow and I was facing an uphill battle in this room.

At the time, I was young and I was managing on pure instinct. I hadn’t read any books and I certainly didn’t have the experiences and knowledge about implementing change that I have today. However, I did have one skill that served me well in this situation— empathy.

I listened patiently to their whining and complaining. Did I agree with their complaints? Sometimes. However, I knew that wasn’t the point. I sensed that they needed to voice their feelings, fears and doubts before they could move on. I had a strategy to get them on board and I knew that forcing them to move forward without listening to their concerns would never work.

How did I know? Because I asked myself— would it work with me? How would I feel? What would I need to move on from that place and accept the changes?

First, I would need someone to validate my concerns and show understanding.

In business, we don’t all see eye to eye on developing soft skills, such as empathy. The concept just seems way too abstract to be taken seriously in the workplace. But the ability to relate to people, to understand and sense how they’re feeling, is pivotal to every leader’s influence. The ability to put yourself in other’s shoes and imagine what they’re thinking and feeling is crucial to your success as a leader.

That doesn’t mean you need to agree with everything that’s being said because…you wont. It does mean, however, that you need to be able to nonjudgmentally listen, with appropriate non-verbal communication that displays an acceptance of their feelings and needs. This is how respect and trust is earned, and believe me—

Influence will follow.

It doesn’t matter if you spend your days managing a team/company or trying to close deals for your growing business. Empathy, a necessary ingredient to having resilience, is key to you paving your way to your goals.

Your workdays are busy and you have a lot to accomplish. Sometimes, you can become too self-focused and stuck inside your own head, busy considering the many things that YOU need to complete. You can spend a lot of time looking inward and focusing on your own goals instead of looking outward. However, having empathy enables you, a leader, to sense the temperature of your surroundings— a necessary skill in your arsenal. Your ability to put aside your own goals for a few minutes, reach out with empathy and listen to what others need to succeed in their jobs can ultimately decide your path in life.

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Mental Filters

I recently gave a motivational presentation to a large organization. The energy in the room was strong and I was quite confident when I finished the speaking engagement. Feeling a strong adrenalin rush, I quickly found my seat and encountered a number of individuals who congratulated me on a job well done.

Later, while I was networking with different people, a man approached me to talk. He shared with me that my presentation would have been much better if I had gone into more detail on a specific topic. I handled the interaction diplomatically and went to sit down.

I was devastated.

I became obsessed with the comment the man had shared. Over and over, my mind swirled with this bit of negative information. If only I had realized that I needed to go into more detail! Then, the presentation would have been great. How could I have not known that the key to success was to go into more depth!? I believed that my speech was sub par because I neglected this one aspect. I bounced this perceived error around in my mind until the error had become mammoth sized.

Does this faulty thinking sound familiar at all? I’m sure at one point in your life, you have also succumbed to this dysfunctional thought pattern.

This specific cognitive distortion that affects so many of us is called filtering. It happens when you focus on the most negative and upsetting features of a situation, filtering out the more positive aspects. In my case, I had numerous individuals that shared positive feedback on my presentation. I felt excited and energized when I stepped down from the stage. However, none of the positive praise seemed to matter. Apparently, all it took was one person’s negative opinion to change my perspective on the whole speaking engagement.

Looking back on this experience, I can definitely see the error of my ways. Due to my resilience training, I was able to readjust my thinking and look at the situation more realistically. I studied the situation in a pragmatic manner and asked myself why I was discounting all the positive feedback. The question was, why did I give this one man such power? This just didn’t seem reasonable.

Obviously, this experience didn’t stop me from taking part in future presentations. I was able to realistically look at the facts and reason it out. However, not everyone goes through this process and your filtered experience can be a great time waster—

Stopping you from moving forward in life.

Make sure the lens that you view the world through is not clouded with some faulty thinking.

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Eliminating Stress

Is anyone out there feeling some stress today? I’ll make an educated guess that most of you are feeling some level of stress. It has become the norm in our everyday lives. However, you don’t have to live your life this way. There are strategies that you can utilize and decisions that you can make to lower or eliminate the stress that you feel on a daily basis. Here are some tactics that might help you lower your level of stress and enable you to enjoy your life more.

Get an objective view of the situation

I understand that you lead a busy life. You have a lot of different responsibilities on your daily priority list. However, you can become so overwhelmed with your commitments and responsibilities and so hyper focused on your own experience that you can no longer see things clearly. In order for you to get a more realistic view of your life, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What impact would this have on my life or others if I don’t follow through with this responsibility?

2. Is the impact worth my level of stress and anxiety?

By asking these questions, you could force yourself to see that it isn’t the end of the world if you drop this commitment. It’s so easy to get lost in the endless loop of stress or anxiety that you can lose sight of whether it even truly matters.

Watch your extreme thinking when you start getting stressed

Think about someone you would deem as stressed or anxious. Chances are they talk in extremes and their extreme thinking fuels their anxiety. They pepper their communication with words like “have to”, “always”, “never”, “must” and “should”. They speak in hyperbole, setting themselves up for more stress. This communication style is simply fuel to the fire. The running dialogue is always swirling in their head, and it’s the perfect storm for a life filled with stress and anxiety. Until they address what they’re telling themselves and make an effort to manage it, the stress and anxiety will only get worse. We all fall into this pattern now and then, so make an effort to acknowledge it and take action.

Stay away from stressful people

Do you know any people in your life that are stress mongers? These are the ones that just resonate with anxiety. Every time you’re around them, stress just seeps out of their pores. The problem is that it usually then seeps into your pores. Their goal is for you to understand the level of stress that they are feeling. However, what actually happens is that they successfully transfer that stress to you. Often, you leave the conversation feeling stressed and anxious while they go on to their next victim. I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that they probably don’t follow through on any advice you give them. My suggestion to you is to minimize your time with these individuals. If it’s impossible, just don’t engage in the anxiety talk and change the subject in the conversation.

Steve Maraboli said the following,

“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.”

Please keep this in mind the next time you’re tempted to fall into this unhealthy pattern.

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Dream Snatcher

I was terrified when I contemplated going back to school to complete my Masters degree. To be truthful, I wasn’t a terrific student, although I had always excelled in the workplace. My fears about school were so strong that every now and then, the subject turned up in my nightmares. Usually, I was running to get to my class and would realize that I had not studied for the final. (Which, of course, was happening right at that moment.) In the nightmare, I could feel the anxiety coursing through my body as I asked myself why I hadn’t attended the classes or prepared appropriately for the exam. This scenario played itself out over and over— whenever I was feeling anxious in my life.

Yes, I had fears about school and succeeding. So, when I made the decision to go back to school, you can imagine what an obstacle that represented to me. I began to tell people my plan, with the hope that every time I shared my news, I would become a little more self-confident about the path I had chosen. This was my dream and the only thing that was stopping me from going after it was my fear.

As you know, every time you share your life plans with someone, you run the risk of receiving a negative reaction. I remember vividly sharing the news with a good friend who reacted in a way that I couldn’t have expected. As I excitedly laid out my plans for the future, she questioned my decision.

“Why would you do that? How can you possibly be successful when you still have two kids at home? That’s not going to work”.

This cut straight to my heart. I needed a friend that supported and encouraged me to move forward. I didn’t need help with feeling any more vulnerable or unsure about my decision. I was more than capable of handling that one.

This person was a DREAM SNATCHER.

You know the type. They could be loving members of your family or long-time friends. The bottom line is that they discourage you from wanting more and believing that you are entitled to receive more. They go out of their way to share all the reasons why your decision is a bad idea and it’s not going to work.

But why do they do this? There are many possible reasons but these two are the most common.

They don’t want you to get hurt.

It’s possible that they have lived their own life following the rules and doing what’s safe. They love you and they can’t bear to see you get hurt, stumble or take the wrong path. Therefore, they will convince you to keep things predictable. They will encourage you to stay where you’re familiar and comfortable. Their pain while watching you risk this fall is so great that they feel compelled to convince you to stay “status quo”. They just can’t take the risk of having to see you struggle.

Your plans make them feel vulnerable and insecure.

Nothing is more threatening to the Dream Snatcher than watching others move forward and go after their dreams. The Dream Snatcher doesn’t have the courage to take this leap; therefore, they feel relieved if they can discourage you from taking it. Your ability to move forward is uncomfortable for them— they might have to face some decisions in their own life. When my friend asked me how I could go back to school, she really was talking about herself. This was really about her, not me.

There will always be plenty of people in life who want to give you reasons why your dream is NOT valid. Dream snatchers are everywhere and they’re more than happy to go into detail as to why your dream will fail. Be sure to surround yourself with individuals that encourage, empower and support your efforts to go after your dreams and live life to the fullest.

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In the Wind

I was driving down the highway the other day when I noticed something up in the sky. As I drove closer to the object, I was able to assess what was up there. The object appeared to be a plastic bag, the kind that you get at the grocery store. The bag was flying up and down and around with such energy. It followed no pattern or course, simply depending on the next big gust of wind to decide its fate.

The whole experience reminded me of a number of people that I’ve come across in my life.

I had a conversation with a young man a couple years ago. The talk turned to his part-time job, so I asked him how it was going. He lamented that his hours had been cut and felt angry about the whole situation. He told me exactly how he was going to be affected by this unfortunate turn of events. He definitely did his fair share of complaining.

I listened to him for a while before I spoke. I asked him the obvious question— had he had discussed the cutbacks with his supervisor? He looked at me incredulously and said no. When I asked him why he hadn’t had a discussion with this boss, he really didn’t have an answer.

I explained to him that he needed to ask WHY his hours had been cut. Then, with his boss, he needed to outline the reasons why allowing him to keep those hours would be the right decision. Frankly, none of this had ever occurred to him. He didn’t feel that he had a choice in the situation. I believe he was just waiting for that next big gust of wind to decide his fate.

I talked to a young woman on the phone today. Earlier this year, she had lost her job to an unfortunate turn of events. She spent hours researching, networking and pounding the pavement to find another job. It didn’t surprise me that she found the perfect match fairly quick in her journey. Today she shared that, again, her new employer is taking drastic measures to cut back and a whole team has been laid off.

This is devastating news considering she just got back on her feet. However, I was impressed by the strength in her voice. She refused to waste time whining about what couldn’t change and she was already busy networking and researching how she could take charge in her situation. She was adamant that she would control her destiny. She would not accept that the next big gust of wind would decide her fate.

I hate to say this, but I know individuals that have spent their whole lives in this pattern. They float and bob from one job or relationship to the next, letting others decide their fate. When the wind stops, they land. Usually, they blame their misfortune on others, never accepting the fact that the whole time, they had the ability to control their own path in life.

This is your reminder that you don’t have to be that plastic bag taking flight in the wind, unsure of where you’re going or when you will land.

You have the power to control your own destiny.

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Risky Business

At 4:00 AM, I woke up to the sound of heavy rain hitting the roof. It was a raging downpour. I sat up for a moment and said to my husband, “It’s raining hard.” The alarm was set to go off at 4:30 so we could make it downtown for Ride Cincinnati—

a bike ride to raise funds for Breast Cancer Research. We had plans to ride 63 miles, but didn’t want to ride in the rain.

The next time that I woke up was 7:00 AM. I couldn’t figure out how I had slept in. I discovered that my husband had turned off the alarm when he heard me say that it was raining. He had assumed that it would rain all morning and he didn’t want to take a chance in the ride. I was willing to take that risk, but it was too late for that.

Disappointed in the turn of events, I suggested that we go out for our own ride. I checked the weather for the morning and the forecast predicted that there was a 0% chance of rain, continuing into the afternoon. When we left the house, the sun was actually out. That didn’t last long as we biked further and further out. I trusted the forecast, so we continued on our ride until I began to feel the sprinkles on my helmet. “It will pass,” I said, trying to convince myself. It didn’t pass— the sprinkles turned into a steady rain.

At first, it really didn’t bother me until the steady rain turned into a much heavier, cold rain. We stopped under a bridge and waited, hoping that the rain would let up. It didn’t. Finally, we decided to just ride the two miles to the restaurant and eat lunch. As soon as we got there, the rain stopped and the sun came out. With my clothes dried and my stomach full, I felt much, much better.

The moment we got on our bikes after lunch, the sun went in. We were 10 minutes into our ride back home when it began to rain again. Yes, even with a 0% chance, the rain became steady, miserable and cold. I was unhappy, soaked to the skin and freezing cold. And then it happened.

My husband asked me to look at his tire because it felt “strange” to him. I said that I was sure it was nothing— wishful thinking. He stopped and assessed his bike tire, which was flat. On cue, the sky opened up with a torrential downpour. I accepted the fact that there was nowhere to take cover on the bike trail. There I was, trying to read him instructions on my phone while attempting to keep the device dry in the pouring-down rain. My hands were numb from the cold and my clothing was soaked. Fun was not being had by either one of us.

Now, here’s the irony of the whole situation: I found out that it never rained during the morning event. If we had taken part in this, we would have enjoyed beautiful weather. However, we made our decision because we didn’t want to take the risk.

Risk. Everyday, you make decisions while weighing your risks buy generic propecia. Often, this measure of risk holds you back from experiences that you would enjoy and benefit from in life. Sometimes, the risk appears much bigger in your head than it is in reality.

I’m not saying to ignore the risk, but be sure to take some chances. Don’t allow yourself to miss out on life.

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