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executive had to deal with her staff in a manner markedly against her nature.
Soon, she began to question whether she really had the skills to survive in business. Certainly, no one in her company seemed to respect her abilities or regard her future. Her crisis of confidence was so strong that she sought professional assistance to determine whether she needed a career change. As we talked, it became clear that she did need to toughen up emotionally and not take criticism of her abilities quite so seriously. She also needed to realize, though, that the respect she shows to subordinates is a strength, not a weakness. Although it’s important to acknowledge and deal with bottom-line concerns, this doesn’t have to mean treating others disrespectfully and unfairly.
Strengthened by our conversation, the account executive approached her boss with ideas for improving the bottom line without firing staff. When her boss didn’t buy in, she decided to look for a more supportive business environment where her values and style would be more compatible with those of her co-workers.
Turning Failures Around
Most failures are symptoms that you need to make some kind of change. Although it’s tempting to see yourself as the victim of bad luck, you’ll be better off if you figure out whether you’re contributing to your own misfortunes.
Have you ever noticed, for example, that while you always end up on the short end of fate, there are others who always seem to end up on the right side of it? Probably, it’s no accident. Find me a person who always seems to be in the “right place at the right time,” and I’ll show you someone who knows how to recognize and convert opportunities to his or her own advantage.
Blaming your bad luck on someone else is worse yet. It moves the locus of control “out there” where you can’t do anything to make it better. What you really need to do is buckle down and figure out how to gain more control.
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When you catch yourself falling into the blaming trap, a neon STOP sign should go on in your head. Instead of falling into “poor-me, rotten-you” thinking, ask yourself how you can turn your defeat into a more positive experience. Perhaps you’ve been unfairly treated. Can you think of ways you could have handled the situation differently? Honestly, were you the stellar, outstanding citizen and employee you’re now claiming to be? Did a competitor beat you, perhaps, because he actually had better skills or better connections?
Sometimes we lose out on things we really want because someone knew someone who knew someone who helped your rival gain the inside advantage. You can call it “rotten luck,” or you can identify it as a need for better networking or more marketable job skills.
It helps if you can find some humor in your situation. Although he had every right to cry “poor me” a hundred times over, actor George Lopez chose to transform his traumatic childhood experiences into a television laugh track. In the process, he learned the power of selfdiscovery, resilience, and forgiveness. Although he is the creator and main character in a successful sitcom, his successful ratings are based on the painful reality of a failed childhood from which he is still recovering.
Regardless of the shape and form they take, failures can—and often do—feel like the end of the world. Most failures, however, are temporary setbacks rather than career enders. The key is to be able to overcome the blow to your ego, which almost always occurs, so that you can learn the lessons failure can teach. Invariably, one of these lessons involves humility. No matter how high you climb, you’ll always make mistakes. Owning up to those mistakes is part of the process of career growth.
Dr. Spock’s Change of Heart
The name “Dr. Spock” was a household word to most baby boomers’ parents, who religiously followed his recommendations when rearing their children. Because of his widespread success, Benjamin Spock
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never anticipated the criticism he’d receive a generation later at the hands of feminists who vehemently disagreed with his advice. After these attacks, Dr. Spock retreated into emotional isolation to determine what had happened. At first he simply nursed his wounds. Once he got past the hurt, though, he began to see his critics’ point. He adapted his viewpoint publicly and acknowledged that fathers were equally capable of good child-rearing practices. It was a sign of Dr. Spock’s wisdom and strength that he was eventually able to hear the criticism and respond to it appropriately. Otherwise, he would have quickly become an anachronism, a man who could not respond to the call of new times.
Criticisms can be painful but important learning experiences. Sometimes, as in Spock’s case, they’re well justified. Other times, they’re mostly professional jealousy, someone else’s sour grapes. In either case, you must learn to find the kernel of truth in what others say about you. More important, you must learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Know what those nagging self-doubts you carry in your head really mean lest you turn them into self-fulfilling prophecy.
Setbacks can show you what not to do again and teach you how to cope with—and grow—from failure. Although you might never embrace failure wholeheartedly, you might find some truth in the cliché that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Having survived your losses, you might discover a newfound power within yourself.
According to Mary Lynn Pulley, the author of Losing Your Job— Reclaiming Your Soul, “Probably the most important thing that people can do to avoid feeling like a victim is to not dwell on why something happened…but instead move forward with a sense of hope and imagination toward their future.”
It’s a Wonderful Life
We all know the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It is a Christmas classic that is etched into our collective psyche. This film is a story about
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a man named George Bailey. Although he’s a good, honest man always struggling to do the right thing, Bailey questions his life and the choices he’s made. Teetering on the brink of despair, he finally concludes that his life has been a failure. Surmising that it might have been better if he had never been born, he contemplates suicide. Thanks to the efforts of a novice angel (determined to get his wings), Bailey discovers that he was not a failure at all—that he did fit into the scheme of life and contributed much to the happiness of other people.
The story behind the story is equally compelling. The original screenplay for this movie grew out of a short story written by Philip Van Doren that, ironically, no one wanted and never got published in that form. Instead, Van Doren published his story as a Christmas card. But director Frank Capra recognized its potential and, in 1946, produced the movie that would become his magnum opus.
Although the movie wasn’t initially a commercial disaster, neither was it a commercial success. Despite opening to generally positive reviews, it lost money on its initial release. Time turned out to be its greatest ally. Capra believes that it’s because “there’s a little George Bailey in all of us.” Perhaps it’s a message we need to hear again and again. That’s why, at least once every year, we thank Jimmy Stewart (and Frank Capra) for reminding us that even if we haven’t achieved all of our career and financial goals, there are myriad ways to measure success and still feel good about our lives.
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Fail(ure) Is Not a Four-Letter Word
Thought-Starter Worksheet
1.What is your experience with failure so far?
2.Are you afraid to fail?
3.Does a fear of failure ever prevent you from trying new things?
4.If you weren’t afraid of failing, what would you do (or try to do)?
5.When you were growing up, how did your parents handle your mistakes?
6.As a youngster, were you overly critical of your own mistakes? If yes, do you know why?
7.Do you have a low opinion of your own abilities?
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8.Do you suffer from low self-esteem?
9.Describe your biggest career failure.
10.How did it make you feel to fail?
11.Do you know why the failure occurred?
12.Is there anything you could have done to prevent yourself from failing?
13.Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?
14.Do you know the difference between a small mistake and a big one?
(continues)
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(continued)
15.Do you have a tendency to take yourself too seriously?
16.Can you think of a time in your life when you learned something important from failure that prevented you from making a similar mistake again?
17.Of all the examples cited in this chapter, whom did you identify with the most? Why?
18.Of all the examples cited in this chapter, whom did you admire the most? Is there anything you can do to be more like that person?
19.If you’re overly fearful of failure, have difficulty accepting your own mistakes, and/or have trouble recovering from career setbacks, have you considered working with a professional therapist to strengthen your resiliency? Why or why not?
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CHAPTER 4
Oh No, 50!: Midlife Career
Transitions
Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow?
—Mark Twain
We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning.
—Carl Jung
After losing two friends on September 11th, New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy decided that it was time for him to
say “Adios” to the sport he loved. Van Gundy wasn’t the only one to speed up his retirement. AOL Time-Warner executive Gerald Levin was also so affected by the attacks that he escalated the timetable for his retirement.
But it wasn’t just high-profile executives and millionaires who saw “9-11” as an opportunity to re-evaluate their goals and priorities. For Dan, a 54-year-old communications technician, the moment of truth came during the funeral of a family friend. Although he was planning to retire in two years, time suddenly seemed more precious to him than building his retirement nest egg, so he accepted a voluntary buyout. Randy had a similar epiphany. Although he had always planned to retire at 55, watching the twin towers fall forced him to rethink his timetable.
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“I always wanted to travel and see the world,” Randy said. “All of a sudden it felt like ‘now or never.’”
Two days later, Randy quit his job as an accountant and bought a ticket to Australia, where he’s learned to appreciate the more leisurely lifestyle. Although he knows he has yet to decide what he wants to do when he gets back from his sabbatical, he is enjoying the time off to regain his composure and perspective.
Although the events of “9-11” might have spawned a number of midlife transitions, they are certainly not new. Such transitions have been around for a while now. When she was 33 years old, Anna Navarro was the director of corporate social responsibility at St. Louis–based Monsanto Company. As the top-ranking female executive in the company, she had a high-profile, high-paying job that would have made many ambitious people drool. But in some fundamental way, it wasn’t fulfilling. “I was at the top,” says Navarro, “but I was spending my time writing reports and crunching numbers, which I hate, and doing the bureaucratic maneuvering that’s essential for a rising executive. I wasn’t having very much fun. What I really wanted was to wear casual clothes and make a real difference in the quality of people’s lives.”
One day during lunch, a male colleague who was about 45 years old started complaining to Navarro about how much he hated his job. He calculated that he had 10 more years to go before he could take early retirement. That conversation really bothered Navarro. Driving home that night, she told herself that if there was a different way to live, she didn’t want to wait until she was 55 to discover it. Realizing that, she did something quite miraculous. Without knowing what she wanted to do next, she resigned so that she could figure it out. It wasn’t a flip decision. She agonized long and hard before making the move. Her friends thought she was crazy. Her husband tried to talk her out of it. So did the people she worked with, as well as the CEO who had recruited and mentored her.
“You can do anything you want here,” he told her. But there was nothing there she wanted to do. Not that she had some perfect vision
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