Overcoming Adversity

Gut Check

Ever find yourself spinning round and round over a decision? You know that if you don’t make the exact right decision, you’ll be some level of screwed from minor inconvenience to total life meltdown. You frantically think it through trying to analyze the decision from every angle. Yet the spinning continues.

My suggestion–do a gut check. Everyone has “gut feelings,” but many people ignore them in favor of trying to think through a problem. This sounds very smart, rational, and adult except for one problem: in the words of Martha Beck, “our minds lie to us like two-bit ladies of the night.” (Er, paraphrased) The reason we spin out when trying to think through a thorny issue is that our mind starts in with the chorus of our greatest fears which go something like this:

“If you go back to school/change careers/take up skateboarding you’ll end up totally broke everyone will think you’re crazy you’ll never be smart enough people will point and laugh no one will love you…blah, blah, blah.”

It’s very hard to make a decision with this kind of mental noise. Our minds try to steer us toward the “safe” decision, which rarely leads to happiness and often isn’t even that safe. That’s where the gut check comes in. The mind tends to be governed by fear and becomes clouded by it. Your essential self, that part of you that isn’t worried about the fear chorus, talks to you through your body. And your body never lies. If this sounds a little woo-woo, it’s actually very practical. Think about a time you had a gut feeling about something, perhaps you felt an immediate connection (aversion) to someone you met , or a sense of rightness (wrongness) about a situation, or walked into an office to interview and knew you’d be working there (or knew you should turn and walk right out the door). That’s your gut talking to you. Was that feeling ever wrong? Was there a time you ignored a gut feeling and were sorry you did? Exactly.

Now, back to that question you’re wrangling with. Submit it to a gut check. When you think about Possible Action A, what’s your gut feeling? How about Possible Action B? If you’re still getting a cloudy reading, try again but preface your gut check by asking yourself the question, “What feels the best if I knew everything would work out perfectly?” You’ll know which action is on the right track because it will give you the sensation of peace, freedom, excitement, generally of rightness. Pick that one.

Pay more attention to the gut check and see where your essential self guides you. Try it on everything from what to have for dinner, to whether you should go on that second date, to your next job. I promise you it will be a fun ride.

Are you destined to live in a van by the river?

I just had to share this awesome post from Martha Beck’s blog. Pam Slim (Martha’s lead blogger and prominent blogger in her own right) breaks down what Martha calls our “lizard” fears. These are the tapes we constantly play in our minds. The greatest hits of our lizard fears go something like this:

“I’ll never fall in love.”
“I’m going to be a bag lady.”
“I’ll never succeed.”
“I never get what I really want.”
“I’m not good enough.”

Any of these sound familiar? Pam does a great job of explaining where these fears come from and how to quiet your own inner lizard. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the post and check out the hilarious vintage Saturday Night Live video of Chris Farley playing Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker. Priceless.

Read the post >

Remember who you ARE

My mom (my original life coach) is, to state it plainly, badass. She taught me what it is to be a strong, loving woman in this world. Even though I’m a “grown-up”, I freely admit that when the chips are down, I call Mom. Here’s a story about one of those times.

I was working for a startup on a shoestring budget and my job was to spend this treasured budget to acquire new customers. I came to dread the Tuesday marketing meetings where I would be relentlessly questioned by the CEO about the latest numbers, strategies and tactics. I would stammer answers and feel incredibly defensive and victimized by his “attacks.” I wanted to quit, but since I didn’t have another job to go to, I felt stuck.

I called Mom. I told her my tale of woe and mistreatment over lunch. I noticed she was looking at me like, “who are you?” She was frankly a little mystified that her strong, talented and extremely capable daughter was allowing herself to feel attacked by anyone. It was then that she looked me right in the eye and from a place of complete love and belief in me, delivered a message from the core of her being right into mine:

Remember who you ARE.

Whoa. I felt like I snapped back into myself. My response was, “Oh YEAH.” I immediately calmed down and was able to see the situation from a completely different perspective.

I hadn’t been speaking up because I was afraid of getting in trouble or getting fired. I realized that by not speaking, I was creating a worse-feeling situation than getting fired. I had nothing to lose by not speaking up and that I certainly was not going to allow someone to bully me in a meeting. I also realized the CEO was stressed because he was on the hook for the company’s success and I just happened to be in charge of one of the major outgoing expenses. His intensity on the topic was a reflection of his level of stress; it had nothing to do with me.

Tuesday rolled around and I was much calmer. The intensity ramped up as the CEO leaned toward me and asked the usual questions. Then, I did something different. I leaned toward him and appropriately but strongly reminded him of the importance of keeping a civil tone in meetings. (The body language of the other meeting attendees would’ve been hilarious if the situation wasn’t so charged—they all looked like they wanted to bail out through a trapdoor in the floor.) An amazing thing happened—he immediately sat back and calmed down. It seemed as if he too had forgotten who he was. Later we met privately and were able to have a very open conversation about how to better communicate.

I still left that job—this was the beginning of my own career transition—but I was able to leave on very amicable terms with the CEO and more importantly, with my self esteem intact.

On this Mother’s Day, I would like to say thanks Mom for making sure that I remember who I am and for providing a loving reminder when I seem to forget.

It’s a Total Cluster!

When I was a corporate citizen one of my favorite and most-used words was cluster&*#$ (rhymes with fustercluck). I, along with many co-workers (with much credit to Justin Foster), developed a colorful vocabulary to describe the escalation of problems and associated emails, meetings and actions one experiences in the corporate world when it all goes bad.

FYI
FYIs usually come in the form of emails and are used to inform a superior or other relevant party that a problem (such as a Minor Cluster) may be brewing. They usually do not require further action, but in some cases the recipient may choose to respond with a Little Sit-Down.

Little Sit-Down
Describes the conversation that happens between two professionals when there are issues to be addressed. It’s not usually an acrimonious meeting, but is a bit stronger than a FYI. You might say something like, “I need to have a Little Sit-Down with Jones in advertising to get on the same page vis-à-vis the Widgets-R-Us account.” (It’s my sincere hope you don’t really talk this way, but you get the idea.)

Minor Cluster
A Minor Cluster may follow on the heels of an FYI or come out of the blue.  Somewhere, someone screwed up enough to cause a ripple of angst within the company. A Minor Cluster may result in a Swirl, various Sit-Downs, another FYI, or all of the above (common).

Swirl
A Swirl is the frenetic-but-unproductive activity that usually follows a Cluster of any type. Swirls may include some or all of the following: executive requests for impossible-to-gather information, 5 p.m. meetings, quickly implementing Cluster fixes only to pull them 30 minutes later, multimedia finger-pointing, crazy idea generation, breathless emails, closed-door office meetings and my favorite, being asked to do something that takes 3 months in less than an hour (i.e. magical thinking).

Total Cluster
A Total Cluster has an especially strong correlation to a Come-to-Jesus (see below). When a Total Cluster happens, the proverbial crapola has hit the fan. A Total Cluster is always followed by a mad flurry of activity to fix the problem, much Swirling and usually more than a little CYA activity as well. There will be some kind of unpleasant fallout from a Total Cluster. You know you’ve hit the cluster hall-of-fame when someone says, “We don’t want this to turn out like another <insert name of cluster event here> again.”

Come-to-Jesus
The conversation that happens with the responsible party after a Total Cluster. If this is a client/vendor relationship, the vendor will be put on notice to not do this again or else. There will be a high degree of mea culpa-ing and talk of “make goods.” If the talk is between internal groups, there will likely be blaming and finger-pointing, which may include evidence presented via Excel or PowerPoint. The ideal outcome of a CTJ is that the parties can get past the anger to have a true meeting of the minds (MOM) to resolve the issue and ensure it doesn’t happen again. Sadly, this does not always happen.

Heart-to-Heart
Smart corporate denizens will arrange to have a Heart-to-Heart (H2H) with one key person from the “other side” after a Come-to-Jesus (or even before). This is where the two individuals privately air any grievances and attempt to repair the relationship in order to move forward. The Heart-to-Heart is not used nearly enough and can be very effective in heading off future Sit-Downs, Clusters and Come-to-Jesus events. The key to the H2H is to be honest and forthright and willing to see the situation from your compatriot’s point of view.

Tips for Staying Sane in the Face of a Cluster

1. Stay Calm
Do not buy into the hysteria around you. A good rule of thumb is the more intense people get, the calmer you should strive to be. If you need to, take a moment to step outside, have a momentary freak out and then take a deep breath and calm yourself. Not only is this just good for your state of mind, but you’ll be much better equipped to come up with viable solutions to the problem at hand. Plus people will think you’re amazing under pressure.

2. You are not the cluster.
Even if you are unfortunate enough to be at the center of the latest tempest, remember that these events do not define you. This is simply a bump in the road, and no matter how big the bump, it will pass. 

3. Fall on your sword.
Mistakes happen, do your best to clean up the mess, fall on your sword as needed, and move on. Taking responsibility is a much better tactic than denial. You might still be in hot water, but people will respect you for taking responsibility. Just don’t overdo it, martyrdom is going too far and makes others uncomfortable.

4. It’s just clothes.
This is what one of my mentors used to say to remind me to have perspective. We worked for an apparel retailer and ultimately no matter how important we thought our work was, we were just selling clothes. This may not work if you’re an emergency room doc, but it does the trick for most gigs.

5. Remember that you’ll have a funny story later.
Clusters are almost always hilarious in hindsight. It could take a couple of years, but at some point this is going to make a great story.

Have your own cluster or vocabulary word to contribute? Comment and share.

Surviving the Cube

This is a classic blog post from one of my coaching mentors and soon-to-be author Pam Slim, who also writes the most aptly named Escape from the Cubicle Nation Blog. This post is filled with great advice on how to take charge of your work life and be responsible for your own happiness. Check it out.