When you realize that you’ve tried everything, and it didn’t work, not even the Hail Mary, accepting defeat becomes the only thing you can do.
Twenty years. It’s a long time, but not really, for I’d imagined all of them until death do us part. But when you are done with denial, when deadlines have come and gone, the world-class problem solver admits that there are problems she cannot solve, no matter how simple they seem. Accepting defeat is the only thing she can do.
Other people got picked. They got married. They faced life decisions together, in one boat, sometimes knowing that their sacrifice was better for the whole, sometimes going farther because of the support of someone under their wings.
But I did not get married. I did not even have the opportunity to say no, despite being in long-term relationships. However, when I told one that I would not have children, I might as well have said no.
Fool me once, and this is the second time I am moving out. The first was because my job location had changed, and the commute necessitated a move or a life decision. As it was, I was in it on my own, and logic dictated following the money.
I moved back in when it was no longer a matter of money. However, five years of waiting to invest in the house, in the business, in any way forward with the circumstances that create my life, I can no longer wait – I no longer believe that it’s only a matter of time. Turning setbacks into opportunity is a matter of moving on.
When Core Beliefs Must Change
It’s simply not a future ideal that we share. Occupied lower than my threshold, I’ve noticed quite a few things that I’d missed, or maybe they are new developments? People change, but not really, and not for the better – not without a heck of a lot of effort.
The best you can do is combat the downward slide of age and do it gracefully, but do recognize the slope and inevitable future.
For all the things that need to align for a solid relationship, turning setbacks into opportunity, I am cured of my need to be picked. Maybe I always realized that the picking could be a trap.
Instead, I accept the reality that I trapped myself, when really what I was seeking was a way to hide from life, to not have to deal with mean, rude, or intimidating people, to be able to remain in the background without ever taking center stage.
Fear of what people are capable of doing.
And I no longer see a job description that needs to be filled. I don’t need my job description to be picked; I don’t need to go back to work trying to manage someone else’s ego, emotions, and external world.
Menopause. Men on pause. Such a liberating thing to realize that you are enough all on your own, and you’ve learned, grown, and gained some skills along the way. All those years and energy focused on trying to get one, have one, hold on to one, plan with one, check with one, think for one.
It’s enough to think for one. Maybe like he did – with a singular focus on what he wants and needs, and immediate detachment from anyone who aren’t committed to helping achieve that goal.
Attachment Styles Must Heal
Kind of like a manager in the corporate world who pretends to care about your future, and interests, and health, until the day you resign, and suddenly you are erased. Maybe psychopathically toward anyone encountered along the way. Maybe use my charming smile to suck them in, suck them dry, and kick them out.
Wouldn’t that be a completely different way of being? It’s when we forget that such people exist, and we think everyone is exactly like ourselves that we get into problems. Oh, everyone is exactly like you – just not in the ways anyone admits.
Twenty years ago, I allowed someone to suggest that he be invited inside. I invited him across my threshold, and he proceeded to suck my life out of me. My life was slowly and systematically replaced with his – his family, his house, his hobbies, his business.
Yes, I aided and abetted and allowed. And with this second wind, the second time moving out, turning setbacks into opportunity, I know it is no more.
This time, I am not doing it with tears clouding my vision, and anger misdirecting my focus. This time, I’m not bargaining with finances; I’ve accepted my losses, for at least it wasn’t until the end of my days. I did it with seven secrets to building everlasting motivation.
I have new life, and I have breathed new life into myself. Resuscitated with a new dream – a dream of accepting survival as a given until it isn’t – that is, not something to dedicate my time to ensuring. No more weekends chopping wood for the long cold winter, no more spent working to fill the freezer. I’ll always have survival skills, but I don’t need to rely on them.
Survival Mode Must Upgrade
What is it to thrive? Turning setbacks into opportunity, I can’t wait to find out, as I suspect that time will be spent on creation. Using my hands and heart to add, not simply sustain what is there. To grow, instead of merely to maintain.
Life is not a museum, meant to be preserved and observed, but not touched. It’s a stadium, meant to provide the protection of a perimeter, and to draw in only those who are with you or against you, while everyone else who doesn’t care about that fight is in a different one. You pick what side you are on, and what role you want to play.
As for sides, there is the team of what you can get away with, and the opposite of knowing that at the end of the day, it’s your internal judgement that you can’t escape.
As for roles, turning setbacks into opportunity, you can create your own, or choose one of many well-established options. Waterboy, captain, coach, spectator, announcer…you can do anything, but also, you know that there’s one thing that you can add that you do well and easily and enjoy.
Energetic Vibes Must Increase
I used to criticize, well, easily and enjoyably. I’d be the one that they sent in to figure out where all the problems were – opportunities for improvement. In business, turning setbacks into opportunity was my role, a role for which I had a lot of training.
When you build, you realize how easy it is to criticize. I painted, and everyone – every single one – pointed out something they would have done differently. I thought, okay, you go do it then. Help yourself to happiness, because if that’s what would make you happy, don’t let me rob you of it.
I wrote, and everyone picked apart the words and the sentences and had nothing to say about the major overall point. So tuned into nitpicking, the message was lost in the words, like forests and trees.
Criticism is easy. Creation is where challenge lives, and even in that, inspiration is nothing, perspiration is everything. To apply yourself, fully and completely, because it’s such a risk. Because if you give it your all and fail, what do you blame?
I ask as I no longer hide behind a name. Sure helped me heal while it lasted though.
The Perseverance of Peace
Everything was going great until I had an opinion that was different. From my family to my career and every relationship in between, this could be said.
When you have a difference of opinion and a conflict arises, what do you do?
“What conflict?” says the leader, who confidently sets the direction and deals with stragglers and rebels until everyone is in line.
“What conflict?” says the follower, who doesn’t notice any internal disagreement with the status quo.
“That conflict,” I seem to be the one always pointing it out. To the follower, whose team was mispronouncing her name for years, and she had not bothered to correct them. To the leader, whose team was only following when he was looking, and actively sabotaging the rest of the time.
“I don’t think you can deal with conflict,” said one of my managers as she was laying me off. “Intrapreneurial,” her boss described the culture, which is a positive way of describing everyone doing their own thing and watching their own backs.
Chaos and disorganization are two things I absolutely cannot deal with, as I built my career on transforming that mess into a productive organization. But some prefer chaos and disorganization, as I learned when she invited me to work from home after my first success, “because you’ll just find problems to solve.”
Duh, like I was hired to? Taking her up on her offer meant resigning, and I wondered how much longer until anyone noticed. Turning setbacks into opportunity, I found out that more than three years is the answer.
Walking Out on Drama
To me, the heightened awareness that is required in such an environment is unnecessary. It’s the survival mode instinct of the deer when she smells me, and she’s attuned with every cell to catch the next whiff or sound that might be danger.
To some people, living in survival mode is their version of fun. It’s the drama, the never-ending contest for their attention. They feel important, alive, and entertained.
We can all feel the exact same things and label them differently.
When that manager offered me a shot of her liquor, I struggled to swallow it, but couldn’t keep the retched look off my face. She snatched it back like I’d physically slapped her, and it was clear that there was no room in her world for a difference of opinion. Especially not diametrically opposed ones, like organization versus chaos.
Early in my career, someone else commented about me, “If it doesn’t matter to her, she’ll just drop it.” Yeah, like why fight and negotiate if it doesn’t matter? Because I learned, if you give in or walk away, people think you are an easy target, not that you simply don’t care about that battle.
Doing things to manage other people’s perceptions of me is something I’ve wasted a lot of time doing. You can’t pull it off. You might be able to spin it a little, but people think diabolical things that have nothing to do with you, so you might as well surrender external judgment instead of trying to manage it.
That external judgment effort only works in the corporate world because they design entire systems around it. Your raise, your promotions, your everything is based on what key people think of you – and your opinion doesn’t matter to anyone. Not to anyone.
Fighting for Truth
It’s not a democracy. It’s a system of power designed to keep it out of your hands.
Instead of conflict, find the current of like-minded people who are going in your direction. Instead of fighting, create. Rather than managing other people’s comments or impressions about you, get to know your values and stick to them.
The perseverance of peace is to fight the battles that define your war and to avoid getting drawn into the ones that are mere distractions.
The ones that are mere distractions? Characterized by ego, entertainment, and external forces, for battles that are brought to you are not yours. Your battles result from a kernel of truth within you that disagrees. You are presented with the option to create a battle, to recognize a conflict and deal with it.
You may stand alone and there is peace in solitude, but truth is never wrong. If you are caught in a world that disagrees with you as I was, know that alternative worlds exist. Seek, and persevere until you find it, for nothing feels better than knowing you can lay your weapons down.
In the Name of Progress
With a robust and reliable process, progress becomes simply a matter of time.
I know that going slowly can be painful. With a Skidoo, I learned that the best way through the moguls is with my thumb heavy on the throttle. I’ve got the suspension that kicks in to smooth it out, if there’s room to allow for the pace, as sometimes there isn’t.
The point is to only go slow when you need to. When the scenery isn’t changing much, go faster. Match your pace to the amount of feedback you can absorb and the room you need to act on it.
Engineers have long relied on certain tools to help them go as fast as they can while also doing it safely. With progress in mind, all failures are responded to as an opportunity to learn, and all new attempts are evaluated against a pre-evaluation of what could go wrong.
One such tool is the Failure Modes Effects Analysis, or FMEA. It’s a tool to provide the structure to help divide and subdivide the task at hand, while providing catalysts for memory, creativity, and non-judgemental contribution.
Completed, they are works of art. Like art, they run the gamut.
There are ones I recall from early in my career, focused on machines and how they wear out. These resemble photo-realistic art, like the frozen animals of Robert Bateman.
Others resemble modern art. They are clearly documenting something important, but I lack the insider training, appreciation or language to figure it out.
Still others resemble finger painting, boldly and clearly describing only one perspective or reference point. But we all start somewhere, and learn from the masters how to do it better next time.
With the Best Intentions
The best result is always a result of the best intentions – to learn, to improve, to expose information we didn’t know we needed to know, to share across silos and see what might be slipping through the cracks, to create more organization in the organization so we can all thrive – individual employee, team manager, top executive, external shareholder, and finally, loyal and potential customers.
But like any tool, it can be used to further the intentions of whoever picks it up. I pick up a gun to feed myself and my community, in honour and reverence of things so much bigger than myself and so much more important than life, but I know there are many other and very different reasons to pick up a gun.
A tool is only a tool.
It sure is a wonderful tool, though, to expose the bullies in the room who try to force a certain focus, and the imbalance becomes obvious in the unfilled template.
As an introvert, I could contribute without having to navigate the flow of conversation, or worse, have to remain silent, because the window of opportunity passed and slammed shut. Whose loss was that?
Time’s going to pass anyway; you might as well spend it on progress. Ensuring that you land on the right side of history, no matter who is crafting the tale, requires taking a little time to think things through and leveraging whatever history, insight, and experience you can.
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