What We're Getting Wrong. (And how to get it right.)

Time to read: Less than 1 minute

Vermont in the fall

If you pay attention to the news, even if you don't, you can't escape the level of vitriol and meanness that seems to pervade our national and international conversations. I'd share examples but the list is long, depressing, and you already know it.

Baked into the vitriol and meanness is a sense of "us" and "them," an insistence on winning for my side while their side must lose. We are all too familiar with win-lose, and it's exhausting and anxiety producing.

Here's the thing: There is no such thing as win-lose. There's no such thing as "us" and "them."

There's only us.

Our only options are win-win or lose-lose.

Working toward win-win requires reflection and willingness to embrace complexity, paradox, uncertainty, and things you don't understand. The desire to cling to simple solutions, universal "truth," and certainty leads to choices and attitudes that cause everyone to lose.

Years ago, when I taught college, I used a game with my Group Communication class. The goal was to get the most points. Teams would sabotage each other and scrape out a point only to lose it later until the play ended with no points for either team (lose-lose). The trick to the game was collaboration. If the teams worked together, both teams won unlimited points (win-win).

Before you despair that human nature is fundamentally flawed, here's the good news. You make a difference. You can move through your day looking for and creating win-win in big and small ways, and when you do that, you feed the collective attitude. Those choices matter. Here are a few ideas then please, run with your exploration of win-win:

• Tip generously.
• Let drivers merge in traffic (and wave at the drivers who let you in).
• At the office find ways to create or offer opportunities for others to shine.
• Acknowledge good work and kindness publicly and frequently.

It's never about the details of who got what or who deserves more. It's always about the energy, the 10,000 foot view, and the choices you make to nourish win-win rather than lose-lose.

That's how powerful you are.

This Is What Easy Looks Like!

Time to read: 53.57 seconds on my stopwatch

A client, we'll call her Susie,* came to me frustrated and sad. It had been 9 months since she left her job during Covid. She needed a break. One month, became two which became nine. She started to worry that she wouldn't find the right fit or that she'd have to go back to the unsatisfying work she was doing before. She was apathetic and filled with self-doubt.

Job searching is brutal, especially if you are changing fields or changing careers. Uncertainty does a number on your self-confidence.

In years of experience as a coach, I know that the path to finding a job is a magical combination of working on yourself and taking strategic steps that bring positive energy to the search. Susie and I worked on her self-doubt and motivation. She resolved some tired old stories that were not serving her.

Susie called me excited last week. She landed a thrilling new job that starts right away. The role is a perfect fit. Susie loves the industry, sees a future for herself and said, "My confidence is back!"

How did she get this job? Did it come from struggle and worry and hard work?

Nope. She sent an email. One email to someone she had spoken to a few years ago. He was happy to hear from her, told her of an opening in the company, she applied and was hired. The whole process was easy.

When I asked her what she learned from this experience she said, "I can trust easy things. Ease is real."

There it is. Ease is real. I see it all the time. Clients struggle and worry and wring their hands until a magical moment happens when the perfect job and the perfect candidate find each other. When that happens, everyone wins.

Ease is real, and it's not just for job hunting. Ponder that concept.

If you have a friend who is job hunting, contemplating a career change or simply needs some ease in their life, please forward this artcile to them. They can sign up for my newsletter here.