Newsletter 2: Get a grip.
As I stood at my desk, vaguely aware of colleagues buzzing about in the open plan office around me, I started firing angry questions at myself. ‘Hang on a second, how did this happen? How did I even get here? How is it, that after years of doing a job that by all accounts I am very good at, I am on the verge of tears and a panic attack in the middle of a routine workday? Get a grip, Joy. Get. A. Grip.’
I was in the shiny offices of our company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and had just come out of a meeting with one of our most senior execs. The leadership team of one of our most important clients was coming the next day for a ‘top-to-top’ meeting and this was meant to be our final prep session.
While these kinds of meetings weren’t an everyday occurrence, this was definitely not my first rodeo. I was very familiar with the intensity and visibility that came with getting all the top dogs into a room to do business together. I’d learned from experience that in order to be successful, I just needed to do two things simultaneously:
Keep a firm hold of the big picture goals. (Is everyone clear on our key messages and desired outcomes? How do these align to our strategic objectives?)
Be accountable for ALL the details. (Have the guests been pre-cleared by security? Is the soap in the bathrooms part of the client’s brand portfolio?)
Over the years, I’d subconsciously developed a robust Control All The Things Strategy (let’s call it CATTS) to ensure I could deliver the above results - in all areas of my life, but especially at work. CATTS involved a lot of to-do lists and spreadsheets and triple-checking my (and others’) work. It was a demanding approach, requiring some late nights and weekends, but it had never let me down. However, in the meeting I’d just emerged from, it had become PAINFULLY clear that my grip on quite a few of The Things was, to put it lightly, well below the expectations of the senior executive I was working with.
And she wasn’t wrong. When I took a step back, I could see some gaping holes. ‘How could I have missed that? What is wrong with me?’ I started down a familiar spiral of self-doubt and then stopped myself. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to focus on bringing All The Things back into my grip, and thereby saving my reputation as someone who knows how to do her job and get shit done.
The next 24 hours were a blur of powerpoint slides, calling in last-minute favours, lots of coffee and very little sleep. CATTS on steroids, if you will. Satisfied I’d done everything humanly possible to salvage the situation, I put on the brightest and most-focused game face I could muster. As I greeted the top execs from one of the world’s most recognisable companies, I hoped HARD: Maybe I’ll pull off a miracle.
I didn’t. The presentation had hiccups. The timings were off. The conversation was stilted. The outcomes and next steps were completely unclear. And the kicker - catering served these top execs hot dogs for lunch (?!) … with a competitor brand of mustard (gasp!). That detail did NOT go unnoticed by the client, by the way.
I was utterly defeated. There was nothing left to do except board a flight home, plop into my seat and curl up into a ball of embarrassment and exhaustion.
The next day, I had booked a small videoconference room for my one-to-one with my manager. I knew the news of my epic fail had already travelled and that he’d had an earful from his boss, so I braced myself for impact. However, when he appeared on screen, I let out a sigh of relief. I could immediately see it on his face - he knew he couldn’t make me feel any worse than I already did.
‘Okay, so not your best showing, Poole. But we can’t win them all. What did you learn for next time?’
Just barely holding back the tears, I blurted out what I thought was obvious. ‘I just need to… remind myself to NEVER get complacent. And to ALWAYS sweat the small stuff.’ The way I saw it, All The Things were within my control and I needed to…just control them better!
He nodded, shared some heartfelt encouragement and urged me to get some rest. It felt a LITTLE bit better to draw at least a faint line under this experience. I would just tighten my grip going forward. I would double down on CATTS.
But months and months later, memories of that meeting still flickered in my mind often. Each time, my stomach would flip and I would wince. I lost plenty of sleep replaying the events. Nearly a year later, it still made me deeply uncomfortable to think about it. I assumed this was down to the embarrassment I’d felt and just tried to put it out of my mind as often as I could.
One day I found a junior member of the team in a puddle of anxiety and tears due to a pretty high-visibility mistake. I mean, her fuck up wasn’t of MUSTARD proportions, but it felt big to her all the same. I found myself telling her the whole story - adding flairs of humour and hyperbole in an effort to lighten the mood and make her feel less alone. And I finished the story with the wise and caring words of my manager - ‘You can’t win them all. What did you learn for next time?’ Instead of attempting to answer, she looked at me wide-eyed, as if anticipating the plot twist in a gripping suspense-thriller, and asked, ‘Wait…so what did you do differently from then on?!’
I shared the lesson I’d come away with so many months before, that I simply tightened my grip. Her face dropped and I realised that this was NOT the ending she was hoping for. I feebly added something about not being so hard on myself anymore and then quickly changed the topic. And there it was again, that flip of my stomach, that internal wince.
And finally, it clicked. What REALLY bothered me so much wasn’t that I failed - albeit spectacularly, in front of a bunch of people I really wanted to impress. What was making it so incredibly uncomfortable was the fact that my go-to ‘biggest fail’ story didn’t have a proper ending. Every great story has a beginning, middle and end. But this one looped me right back to the beginning, trying even harder to Control All The Things.
The sick-to-my-stomach feeling I had at this point was reminiscent of the moment you realise that you need to break up with someone. CATTS and I had run our course, and THAT was why I was so uncomfortable. I was terrified because I had no clue as to any other way to do it. And if I wasn’t a master practitioner of CATTS, who was I? Okay, now we’ve hit a nerve.
And for all those reasons - the discomfort, uncertainty and plain old muscle memory - my ‘conscious uncoupling’ with CATTS was far from a clean break. In fact, those closest to me will happily tell you that I still flirt with the old strategy from time to time. 😬 But on the whole, I did find a new way of doing things - actually, a whole new way of being me. One that has me focused on how I show up rather than how many details I can control. (This is a topic for a whole other newsletter, my friends!)
The point for now though, is that the journey to finding the new strategy couldn’t even start until I was willing to take a close look at what was really making me so uncomfortable in the first place.
CURIOSITY PROMPTS:
My pilates instructor likes to tell our class that ‘Sitting with discomfort creates space.’ Turns out this doesn’t just apply to bicycle crunches. Next time you feel a niggle (or more) of discomfort, I invite you to bravely ask yourself:
What does it feel like? (emotionally, physically, mentally)
What actions do I tend to take as a result of this discomfort?
What is this discomfort really about?
What might be possible if this discomfort no longer got in the way?
STILL CURIOUS? (Bonus Content)
We've heard all the motivational quotes before. Embrace discomfort! Push yourself out of your comfort zone! Get comfortable being uncomfortable! It would be easy to assume that comfort is always the enemy. I don't buy into that. I think what's important is to be conscious of our comfort/discomfort choices, which is why I love this Squiggly Careers podcast on Comfort vs. Courage Zones. Give it a listen in for a super practical discussion on when you might consider choosing one zone over the other and tips on how to proceed once you decide where you want to be. (Tip: This topic begins at the 7min mark.)
WORK WITH ME
If you've got a pang of discomfort that's standing in between you and an important goal or opportunity, we just might make a good team. Learn more about what it means to partner with me through a coaching engagement. Ready to find out if we are a good fit? Book a Curiosity Call with yours truly.
In all curiousness,
Joy
P.S. If/when the spirit ever moves you - always feel free to hit reply on this newsletter and let me know what’s coming up for you!
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