Lessons from an Unexpected Source

Since “Back to the Floor” and “A New Beginning” there’s been a lot of thoughts flying around in my head. I am still very excited at the prospect of a new beginning but at the same time, one of the recurring thoughts has been why? Why did I get myself so stressed out to the point where it affected the quality of my life? Not just at work but at home too and to the point where I wanted out? Will it be much different where I am going?

While every issue in the letter in “Back to the Floor” is a huge frustration in my life, I may have forgotten to look at my own reactions to these issues. I may have forgotten to look in the mirror and ask honestly of myself if there might have been things I could have done better, if there might have been situations I could have reacted to differently! The answer of course is yes, but at the time I was so stuck inside that frame of mind I couldn’t see the beyond that. By saying this I am not suggesting that the system is all of a sudden ok! It definitely is not (at least not in my opinion) and I doubt it ever will be hence the reason i started looking elsewhere.

There is, however, an important issue I think i need to address as unless I do, I fear similar frustrations could resurface no matter where I end up working. That issue is how I deal with conflict, which I guess is linked to a need for approval, which I have written enough about. The purpose of this is to get honest with myself about a few things and maybe I should write this  in my journal rather than here as it may not make a lot of sense to anyone. On the other hand, by writing it here, maybe I will be lucky enough to get a different perspective from anyone who chooses to read this.

I could transcribe countless conversations I have had with clients where things haven’t quite gone the way they had hoped. Because they can’t speak to the decision maker or can’t get any sense out of the staff in the foreign call centre, the call ends up on my phone, to the extent that my default reaction when my phone rings at work these days is; BAD NEWS. I realise that this is something I need to address as well. The conversations usually takes the path of me listening to whoever calls me, I let them vent their frustration at me, sometimes in a calm and respectful manner but more often in an aggressive, loud and threatening manner as if I am the one person to blame for their every problem. On a few occassions I have felt strong enough to give them one warning before terminating the call and not pick up further calls from that particular individual, but most of the time I freeze into a state of paralysis where I have no idea what to say and just listening in hope that the call will end soon. At the end I sometimes wonder if I really was the one at fault, which then leads me down the path of fear that the client will file a complaint and that I may lose my job… you see where this leads!

I am a very laid back person and I try to see the good in every person I meet. I also generally believe that there is good in every person, but I think that I need to find out if this line of work really is for me and if it is I think I need to toughen up and learn how to be a hell of a lot more assertive. I am tired of letting people walk all over me out of fear of what may or may not happen as a consequense of being true to myself.

Last Christmas, one of the presents from my brother was a dvd boxed set of the first 3 seasons of a show called “Entourage”

I generally do not watch a lot of TV and prior to opening the present I was ignorant to the fact that this show existed. My brother also introduced me to LOST which I really do love. Every time we spoke on the phone after Christmas he always asked what I though of it, and I kept telling him I hadn’t had the time to watch it. In truth, I thought it was a show purely geared around celebrities and their lifestyles and I didn’t want to waste my time watching it. Funny how assumptions work!! After a few months I gave in and watched it, mostly because I felt guilty for not showing my gratitude by at least giving it a try before judging it!! Now I absolutely love it. I watched those first 3 seasons so many times and still find new experiences with every viewing.

However, this is not about promoting this show but, for those of you who have not seen it, it is geared around a “movie star” and his socalled entourage, which consists of his brother and 2 childhood friends. Their agent, however, is the link to what I am trying to get at. This character’s name is Ari Gold, who is probably the rudest and least caring person anyone could ever hope to meet (at least on the surface). If you search “Ari Gold” in YouTubeyou may get an idea. However, he does have qualities that I think I could learn from especially the way he never lets anyone walk all over him and the way he enters in to confrontation with complete confidence while staying true to his values or beliefs. Every time I watch the sequences he is in I notice my mind associating it with how a lot of those not so pleasant conversations at my work could have left me feeling less critical and more loving of myself and how a lot of the problems I had to deal which could have been stopped there and then instead of lingering due to me trying to promise to resolve them just to end the conversation, which always resulted in further problems leading to more procrastination and loss of self respect.  I know this may not make a lot of sense to anyone other than myself.

I have a colleague who has been signed off due to what I suspect could be similar to what I am feeling. I don’t know for sure but at the moment I feel like unless something changes (including me) I am not far behind.

Most days I feel like a dart board during a world championship! I constantly feel attacked from every angle! From people above me to do more and do better, from clients to get things through quicker  and cheaper and solve whatever problems arise, to what I refer to as big brother to ensure that I do not make any mistakes. Do I take on too much responsibility and digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole and if the answer to that is yes (which I think it is) will doing the same job for a different company be much different? From what I know of my potential new employer, a lot of the frustrations would diminish but I will not be guarded from conflict and confrontation!

As Gordon Ramsay would say; maybe it’s time to grow some bollocks!!!

The only question remaining is how?

Making a Difference

I have wanted to write this “story” for nearly a year now but what held me back was the fear that by writing it I would be deemed to blow my own trumpet! That feeling is still here to a certain extent and as I am writing this I am still undecided as to whether or not I should post it.

the point of the story  has nothing to do with blowing my own trumpet but instead one of the most important lessons in my life.  A lesson about helping another human being during a time where I could have so easily dismissed her as wasting my time.

In my job I generally have 2 – 5 clients coming to see me every day. Most of them I have never met before, some of them I know and some have become wonderful friends. This particular lady came to me hoping to reduce her payments on her mortgage as 18 months previously she had contracted cancer and as a result had no other option than to take some time off work while going through treatment. My first instinct was that I could probably reduce her payments by a meager £30 per month and I wanted to do better than that because I felt she deserved it (not sure at what point I appointed myself the judge of who deserves what!!)

It may be worth mentioning that my job unfortunately involves having a “sales target” (those 2 words put together always makes me cringe) and that the time spent with her would not get me any closer to it. However, a lesson I learned a long time ago, is that honesty and no bullshit is the only way to develop good relationships and since I learned that lesson I have lived by it.

Another factor (I think) was that I had just finished “Fish Philosophy” (See the post Choose You Attitude) which is why I chose to just “Be There”

Our first meeting lasted no more than 30 minutes or so and throughout I remained focused on finding some way of improving her situation. I decided   to go through all her regular expenses. I felt that if I could only save her such a small amount each month on her mortgage there had to be another way of reducing her outgoings further. During this exercise we discovered that she had an insurance payment going out of her account, which had been active for a long time. She had no idea what it was for and had no paperwork with her. I told her to go home and dig out any kind of paperwork that could shed some light on it and then come back.

She did exactly that! She came back with the biggest carrier back full of all kinds of letters, contracts, financial statements etc and her comment was; “you’ll regret asking me to come back”. We spent (mostly me) a long time sorting through it all and actually ended up getting rid of the majority of it. However, amongst all of this the insurance policy emerged and it became apparent that it covered her for the cancer she had been diagnosed with. The only problem at that point was the fact that you  generally have to claim within the first 12 months of diagnosis and at this point 18 moths had passed. Between us we decided that she had everything to gain and nothing to lose, although she straight away felt it would be a waste of time and I think she did not want to get her hopes up only to feel disappointed when (in her mind) they’d tell her she’d missed the deadline. I phoned the insurance company and explained what she’d been through.

In retrospect it appears that the Universe or God had arranged for people to be extremely helpful that day because the guy I spoke to was (and I am sure still is) wonderful. He kept it simple and arranged for a claim form to be sent out. We arranged to meet a week later as she felt it would be too overwhelming for her to fill it in on her own.

When we met the 3rd time it didn’t feel like a client visiting anymore but more like a friend visiting for a coffee and a chat. We filled in the claim form, sent it off with fingers crossed. She still did not believe it would happen and in all honesty I had my doubts too, but at this point something had happened in me. I was filled with a desire to fight for her to make sure it came through and this time it wasn’t to gain any kind of approval or a pat on the back for a job well done. All I wanted was for this to come through for her.

About a week after we sent of the claim form I went on holiday in Scotland for a week. When I came back to work and checked my diary I noticed she was scheduled to come in to see me. I figured that she’d had some more paperwork through that she wanted help with and didn’t give it another thought.

I was in for a little surprise when she came in. She looked at me and then gave me the biggest hug. Not only did they pay out enough to pay of her mortgage, she was left with £7,500 to spare. While I had been away she been out buying a computer, which she had always wanted but could never afford and was so excited telling me about going on google earth etc. It’s impossible to describe how I felt. I was so incredibly grateful that the Universe or whatever you want to call i came through for us.

She wrote the most wonderful letter to my boss and I did get a lot of recognition as a result. However the recognition was very short lived and it actually did not mean a lot to me.

My real reward was the day she came back and told me that it had paid out. My reward was the look on her face, the face of a person who I had only met 4 times in my life. Most of all, the reward was how I felt in myself for taking the time to give another person my full and undivided attention and knowing that I made a difference in her life!

I will never forget that part of my journey. It was one of the most fulfilling days of my life and to this day I think I helped myself more than I helped her!

Are You Going to Finish Strong?

The following video is just amazing and it will make you laugh and cry. More importantly, it will encourage and inspire you.

I found the clip on http://lostsoul2009.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/are-you-going-to-finish-strong/

With that kind of attitude you can accomplish anything!

J

Personal Strength

I came across the following clip about 5 minutes ago and I really just want to let the clip speak for itself. What I will say, however, is that when I watched it, it certainly put a few things into perspective for me.

I found the clip on a blog called “Triumph of the Spirit” which is well worth a read, especially the post “Choose Love in Every Moment”

Best wishes

J