The bravery and determination we use when advising others should always be kept in check by the fact that when we are in a similar situation we tend to act much more cautiously and pragmatically.
A great advisor is one that helps you walk through the different options and choose the one that is the best fit for yourself.
Rejection calls for reflection.
Was it the right opportunity, the right time, the right audience? What could be improved in the way my ideas, my plan, my experience is introduced? What will I do next to make sure next time I can progress towards the goal?
What rejection does not need is forcefulness – I will do it my way – and surrender – I will give up.
Rejection is a second chance.
If today you have spent more time checking news sites and social media rather than doing your work, that’s ok. If you have been distracted, if you have struggled to focus, if you now feel you have achieved nothing, that’s ok. If the last minute meeting felt like just too much to take, that’s ok.
If your boss or somebody else has not extended their full support, empathy, and understanding, that is not ok.
Take your time. Breathe.
We’ve got this.
Some people will like you, some people will not like you, and most people will be somewhere in the middle.
Your responsibility is not to change where people stand.
Your responsibility is to spend more time with people that, for the most part, like you and less time with people that, for the most part, do not like you.
You’ll feel better. And they will feel better too.
You get out of a three-hour meeting where you have discussed important topics for the future of your team, your department, your company.
The first instinct is to share the bits and pieces of information you have collected with your peers – impressions, thoughts, gossips, directions, changes, tasks. If you are leader, you’d probably call right away an extraordinary meeting with people reporting into you, just to make sure that everybody can share in your own frustration, excitement, or whatever it is that you are feeling.
It would probably be a lot better, though, if you would take a moment to actually think about what just happened. Go for a walk. Call it a day. Take a piece of paper and write down what you have heard. Sleep on it. Go on for one or two days before talking to anybody that was not in that meeting about what comes next.
Your confusion does not have to be other people’s confusion.
Sure, sharing is fantastic and it makes you feel a little less lonely. But when you do not yet have a clear idea of what you should share, is it really worth it?
You've got this 