The Curious Case of the Success Sads

 
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In October 2018, I did not leave my bed. I did not do any dishes. I did not clean my apartment. I did not hang out with friends. By all measures of the word, I was severely depressed.

Why?

Well, in September 2018, I found out I was going to be promoted to CEO of the company I had worked for for the past 3 years. I was 29. I was #killingit. I was achieving and proving and bossing and all the things. And don’t get me wrong, for about 3 days I was on cloud nine. 

Then, the adrenaline crash that inevitably follows a huge moment of excitement, success, or happiness hit me like a ton of bricks. As they say, “What goes up, must come down.” And if there’s something I’ve come to understand over the years, it’s that this theory applies exponentially to adrenaline spikes.

I bet that adrenaline crash, or the Success Sads as I like to call them, has happened to you. 

  • You nail that job interview and then can barely function the next day at work.

  • You crush that audition and need a full weekend to recover.

  • You are ecstatic about moving until one day that ecstasy turns into dread.

It’s okay. It’s actually quite normal. Adrenaline is a legitimately addictive drug (surely you’ve heard the term “adrenaline junkie”) and the sudden absence of a drug typically causes a withdrawal. 

Even though there is a certain level of scientific inevitability to the post-success adrenaline crash, there are also other non-chemical factors that can heavily influence whether you will just need a day of extra TLC to recover or launch into a full blown episode of inconsolable depression.

The most important thing to do is to talk about it.

So simple, yet so hard.

I didn’t speak to anyone about my post-promotion depression because I was ashamed and keenly aware of how annoyingly privileged my complaints sounded. I felt petulant, ungrateful, and as though I was “failing” at being successful. 

Finally, I told a friend what was going on. She had also experienced a major career achievement months before, and admitted that she too had launched into an inconsolable depression for the month after hearing her good news. She also felt ashamed, but just hearing that we had both gone through this helped to remind me that I wasn’t crazy.

And remember that your sadness isn’t about your achievements or success. Your sadness is about the sudden absence of the adrenaline in your system. You aren’t ungrateful - you’re just experiencing withdrawal. So talk to someone - a friend, a family member, a therapist, a coach - just start talking.

Once it’s over, address the demons that came up.

While the Success Sads are sparked by an adrenaline crash, other fears, negative beliefs, and destructive thoughts we have will happily latch onto our downward spiral and come along for the ride. 

These concrete thoughts are entirely ours and within our control to work on. So, once you feel energetically balanced again it is important to address these fears and beliefs. It may not be easy, but the more you work on these while feeling totally healthy, the less severely they will pop up when you are in the midst of a post-achievement slump.

And most importantly…

Know that you aren’t alone. Almost everyone I’ve spoken with experiences something like this at least once in their lives, if not regularly. You are allowed to be excited, and proud, and sad, and scared all at the same time. It doesn’t make you ungrateful - it just makes you human.

If you feel you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It is a free, 24-hour hotline, at 1.800.273.TALK (8255)

If you feel like you or a loved one are in immediate danger, please call 911.

What even is coaching? Part One

 
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“I have a lot of thoughts about coaching … and none of them are good.”

This statement has been tentatively said to me more times than I can count. Every time, the person speaking these words looks as though they are about to break my heart. And every time, I laugh and respond…

“Yeah, I know. I’ve probably had them too.”

What most people don’t know is that I spent the vast majority of my life thinking the entire coaching industry was a wackadoo concept. In one of my not-so-fine moments as an early 20-something, I even straight up ghosted a guy I had been talking to because he mentioned that he had a coach. Seriously. I told you it wasn’t my finest moment.

So yeah, I totally get why as coaching continues to assume a sort of “fad” status and new coaches are popping up everywhere - people have questions, concerns, and preconceived notions they want addressed. And in my opinion, the answers that most people are seeking just aren’t super available in a straightforward no bullshit format. 

So here I am - natural skeptic, former critic of coaching, and current full time coach - to answer the questions I hear most often. Today, I’m going to start with the basics.

WTF is coaching? 

The best way I have to describe coaching is to compare it alongside the other activities that tend to get lumped in with it: consulting and mentoring.

  • Consulting is when a person uses their expertise to understand a problem a person or organization is facing and executes the solution to that problem. (Key phrase: This is my plan for helping you.)

  • Mentoring is when a person uses their expertise to understand a problem that a person or organization is facing and tells them how to solve that problem. (Key phrase: Just do this, this, and this.)

  • Coaching is when a person uses their listening, pattern recognition, and questioning skills to help a person see their own blindspots which are creating, furthering, or allowing the problematic situations in their life. (Key phrase: Are you aware that you keep saying or doing this?)

Or to put it even more simply. Let’s say you have a piece of IKEA furniture that you purchased two months ago and have yet to assemble.

  • You would hire a consultant to assemble the furniture for you.

  • You would hire a mentor to give you the instruction manual on how to assemble the furniture.

  • You would hire a coach because this isn’t the first time you’ve done this, and not only do you want to assemble the piece of furniture, you want to finally figure out why you never finish the things you start and do something about it.

That makes sense but I’m still confused.

Yes. I get it. That’s probably because most “coaches” and “coaching products” are in fact a combination of coaching and mentoring - or even of coaching and consulting. 

  • That health and fitness coach who you are hiring to give you a food and movement plan and schedule based on your goals? Probably 90% mentor, 10% coach.

  • That social media coach who is going to give you a posting schedule AND write the first few weeks of copy for your posts? Sounds more like 70% mentor, 20% consultant, 10% coach.

  • That career coach who is going to help you figure out what job you want next, and help you take the steps to land interviews and negotiate your employment package? Now we are talking more up the alley of 50% mentor, 50% coach.

  • That executive coach who you speak with a few times a month, and you’re not exactly sure why, but suddenly your team is listening to you and your work-life balance feels good for once? You’ve got yourself a 100% coach-y coach. 

The term “coaching” is a sort of umbrella term that people use to describe all types of services - including actual coaching. Personally, I’ve found that the more clarification I have around what a service actually contains - whether it be consulting, mentorship, coaching, or something else entirely - the less confusing and unwieldy it all feels. 

Next time I’ll talk more about some more succinct questions about coaching I hear - and if you have any of your own, please let me know!

Audio Bonus!
Looking to hire a coach, but don't know what you should be asking for to feel more comfortable with your decision? In this audio, I speak about the best ways to measure the "street cred" of the person in front of you - whether they are a coach, mentor, consultant, or combination of the three - and also touch on the criteria you might want to ask for, but actually won't be so helpful to your decision.

Self-Awareness isn’t Self-Actualization (and why we try to convince ourselves it is)

 
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Hey there fellow human! Are you trying to improve yourself, improve your business, improve your relationships, improve your life, improve YOU?

Well, I have news for you! 

The path to improving you is EASY…..

….to underestimate, can hurt like hell, is painful as all get out, will make you question whether you actually want to improve, is a field of daisies if all the daisies were actually pieces of coal, and above all else is really very much worth it if you are willing to endure the discomfort necessary to grow.

Yes. If there is one thing that I’m certain of, it’s that growth is painful!  After all, “Growing Pains” isn’t just a TV show from the 80s - it’s a real-life term applicable to all of us. I see evidence of this over and over again in my own life, in the organizations I’ve worked for, and in the clients I’ve worked with over the years.

If that weren’t enough good news for one day, I’ve found that we humans are true masters at making growth more painful. How do we do this?

We mistake the work it takes to become self-aware with the work it takes to self-actualize. 

In reality, self-awareness is the first (and easiest) step towards self-actualization. And trust me - if you want to throw the device you are reading this on across the room, I totally understand. (Just make sure you bookmark or like the post first, please!)

But this is not all bad news. As I said before, believing that becoming self-aware is the hard part of the journey or the whole journey is what keeps us stuck. 

Bringing it into some tangible examples - have you ever thought to yourself:

  • “But I’ve learned this lesson before, why am I back here again?”

  • “I know this is an unhealthy behavior, but I don’t know why I can’t stop.”

  • “I know I’m looking for abc in a job/collaborator/relationship, but for some reason I keep ending up in situations where I’m surrounded by xyz.”

If you have, you are probably stuck at self-awareness - and it might be time to pause, regroup, and get ready for the next part of the journey.

Just to be clear - I’m not trying to knock self-awareness. Self-awareness is also hard, and some of us may have just reached a new level of self-awareness in our own lives. And if that’s you - bravo! While it’s not the end of the journey, it’s a huge achievement and take some time to enjoy that.

But if you’re feeling routinely stuck in your work, in your relationships, or in your life - and you don’t know why because you are also keenly aware of what behaviors are keeping you there - it might be time to get back on that self-actualization path and choose one or both of the next steps: routine implementation and external support.

More on those two steps later. For now, I’ll be wishing you all happy growing pains - because hey - at least it means you’re growing!

Haven’t you heard? If you want to grow your network - gossip more.

 
 

Humans love gossip. Whether we admit it or not, acquiring information that is exclusive, privileged, or hot off the presses makes us feel relevant and special.

Having juicy gossip also means holding social currency that can be used to pull others in towards us. Plus, exchanging hard-to-access information with someone momentarily increases their trust in you - making everyone involved feel more included. 

The real down side is that most gossip out there focuses on celebrating the downfalls of others. Schadenfreude is quickly added into the mix and people feel tempted to spread and take joy in the insecurities and failures of others. 

This negative type of gossip quickly becomes sensationalized (think celebrity tabloids) and is ultimately destructive. And that momentary trust that gossip can build? It quickly disappears once the other person realizes that it’s only a matter of time until you are saying similar things about them.

When we don’t give in to the dark side of gossip, it can actually be an incredibly powerful tool in building and fortifying our networks.

Most everyone I know finds networking to be uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing. Yet, a strong network is crucial in building a thriving career, and it can be a valuable resource in all areas of our lives.

While many of us see the importance of having a healthy network, many of us struggle in finding ways to grow our network without being too awkward or forceful.

This is where gossip comes in. 

One of my favorite networking tools is utilizing “good gossip” in conversation. It is incredibly simple and also produces incredible results - both in the immediate and in the long term. Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: Find common ground with the person you’re speaking with such as a mutual contact or shared experience.

Step 2: Think of something exciting or positive about that mutual connection. It could be time-bound (like a recent performance) or a general statement (like a positive characteristic or attribute). This is the gossip content.

Step 3: Bring up the mutual connection in conversation and share the gossip content - but be sure to introduce it with the same level of intrigue and excitement that you might with more mainstream gossip.

That’s it! See, I told you this was simple. 

In action, this might sound like, “Hey! I think we both know Sally. Actually, she just released a recording - have you heard it? Oh you didn’t, well let me tell you, honestly…. it was SO fantastic.”

Aside from the trust and belonging that comes from establishing a mutual connection, purposefully spreading this type of positivity significantly increases the other person’s expectation that you might say positive things about them in the future. And who doesn’t want that?!

Despite popular belief, not all gossip is bad. And when we make “good gossip” our go to gossip, we can build strong and healthy networks without much effort at all.  

Struggling to care less about what other people think? Care more instead.

 
 

My whole life, and especially my whole career, I have been given the well-intentioned but horribly unhelpful advice to just care less.

Maybe you have received this advice. Perhaps you’ve even said it to yourself. “Care less about what other people do and care less about what other people think. Stop worrying so much about others and just don’t let any of it get to you.”

If you are like me, you have wanted to scream back at the person delivering this advice, “Don’t you think that if it was that easy I would be doing that already?! Don’t you think that if I could just shut it off, I would, rather than remain in this miserable state?”

Instead of screaming back, I spent years of my life feeling guilty for not being able to “just let it go,” and carried around the growing belief that I was too emotional, too insecure, too intense, and too much. 

I even crafted a well-practiced persona of aloofness that I successfully wore in the world most days. However, in the moments that I couldn’t keep up the facade anymore, everything always came tumbling down Humpty-Dumpty style. 

But here’s the thing - for leaders, entrepreneurs, and people working in the creative industry - our work is deeply personal. We CARE. And this is not a bad thing. Passion is powerful. It’s the fuel behind inspirational work and meaningful change in the world. It drives greatness, and for many of us, it drives our careers and our lives forward.

Is it always helpful to care about what other people think? Absolutely not. 

However, addressing the issue by taking away (or more typically, shoving down) the caring is not productive. What is productive is to take that caring and give it a new home. 

If you feel like you care too much about what other people think, say, and do - here are some things to care more about instead…

  • Care more about the company you keep. Surround yourself with people who support you, lift you up, and foster your growth. Seek out people who inspire you, not only with their achievements but with their daily actions and how they show up in the world.

  • Care more about your physical environment. What do you need to give yourself today to have a better tomorrow? Is it more sleep, more food, more movement? Humans are complicated plants - the basics are more important than we like to believe.

  • Care more about your level of integrity. Are your thoughts aligned with your words aligned with your actions? Operating from a place of integrity doesn’t just benefit others, it is a turbo boost for our own self confidence. 

By caring more about the factors that directly contribute to our own happiness, we can slowly and permanently turn down the volume on how much we care about what other people think, do and say.

Please stop leading with “we” in meetings

 
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Have you ever spent an hour (maybe even hours) of your life sitting in a meeting only to leave with less clarity about what the next steps are?  

Have you had multiple meetings, conversations, and email threads about the same project with a ton of repetition and redundancy, yet no apparent progress is being made?

Is nothing specific is ever assigned to you in meetings, but somehow you still end up executing ideas that you didn’t even suggest?  

You, my friend, have got a “we” problem. 

A “we” problem is what happens when a team or organization engages in a pattern of assigning new ideas, projects and endeavors to everyone and nobody at the same time. Suggested responsibility is just clear enough to gain approval while being just vague enough to kill productivity.

The thing is that this problem usually starts as a quest for solutions. The “we” pattern typically forms when an organization decides to begin brainstorming in meetings without an actual process for the communication and implementation of new ideas. 

Maybe it starts when a manager hears the advice that they should be soliciting innovative input from their team. So they do! Until this point, success in meetings was measured by progress updates. Now the staff is not only encouraged to generate new ideas, they are assessed on their ability to do so.

As a result, a tentative energy creeps into the meetings. Does a good idea mean that it will immediately be implemented? What even constitutes a good idea? What if someone suggests an idea that creates more work for their colleagues? What if someone suggests an idea that creates more work for themselves?

Enter the grand “we.”

“We should explore new programming that attracts new audiences.”

“What if we launched an expanded marketing initiative around this event?”

“I think we need to create a process to better onboard people onto the team.”

All of these ideas may be valid, and even exactly what the organization needs. But they all raise the question….

“Who’s we?”

“We” could be anybody or nobody. Usually, the work suggested in “we” land either remains in a suspended limbo, or falls to the person least practiced in shoving work off onto others. So while the work might eventually get done, the credit and acknowledgement is diffused across the group. And the cycle continues on.

The good news? Stopping the “we” cycle is wildly simple. The next time you’re in a meeting and someone makes a “we” suggestion, be sure to ask “who specifically will be responsible for taking lead on this?” 

Seriously, it’s just that easy. It might feel a little awkward at first, but you raising that question a few times will eventually create a cultural shift towards clarity.

The “we” problem is only a problem as long as it remains silent and unseen. As soon as you spot it, you can stop it, and save you and your colleagues hours of confusion, anxiety, and tension.

Integrity - The Magic Key You've Been Searching For

 
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In the quest for better - a better job, a better relationship, a better collaboration, a better friendship - integrity is the primary attribute we want to be looking for in ourselves and in others.

I define integrity as the alignment of thoughts, words, and actions. If one of these aspects is out of alignment or inconsistent, we are out of integrity.

The introduction of integrity as a concept was a huge game changer in my own life. Understanding integrity alleviated a lot of guilt, blame, and anger for myself and for others. It also allowed me to easily identify and eliminate people and situations that were not serving my own growth as well as identify and attract those of a higher quality into my life.

Just to be clear: lack of integrity does not equal lack of likability or appeal. There are plenty of likable people and shiny opportunities that are totally out of integrity. In fact, many people who exist in a non-integritous state will naturally hyper-develop their charisma and social graces to compensate.

So, how do we spot low integrity, and how do we handle it? Let’s break it down:

It starts with the Thought to Words connection

People experiencing disjointedness at this stage forget that the world can not read their mind! They may later attempt to employ actions that reveal their true thoughts, or maybe they just suffer in silence. 

At their worst, they end up blaming others for not possessing mind reading capacities and refuse to take responsibility for using their words to accurately represent their thoughts. 

Usually, it’s just that they are so afraid of sharing their true thoughts in all of their messy, uncertain, undeveloped stages - because then they might not be accepted, respected, and loved.

If this is you - try prefacing a thought share by saying “This is difficult for me, but I want to discuss some not fully developed thoughts I have.” 

Then Words turn into Actions

People whose actions do not match their words usually have forgotten the enormous importance that words carry in today’s society. They may not realize how much of an impact their off-handed comments and promises can have on others. 

At their worst, they end up blaming others for being too sensitive or having unrealistic expectations of them. 

Usually, its just that they have a diminished concept of how much others pay attention to them. They might be “playing small” in many areas of their life due to a fear of failure or a fear of success.

If this is you - take some time to look at your concept of self-love and self-confidence. It may seem woo-woo, but the more you build yourself up internally, the easier it will be for you to follow through on your promises externally.  

Integrity is a practice, and all of us slip out of it from time to time. However, when we decide to seek out integrity - both internally and externally - we are able to take ownership of our own life experience, and ultimately create the experience we want.

Work breakups are the worst breakups

 
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You’re exhausted. You feel unseen, unheard, and under-appreciated. You know you deserve better, but you just can’t leave. It’s like if you can get them to see how wonderful you are, they’ll finally treat you better.

The truth is: your employer is just not that into you.  

Ouch! If you’ve ever been in this position at work, you know just how painful it can feel. And leaving that workplace that is no longer a fit (or never was), whether you are asked to leave or choose to, can feel like a deeply painful breakup. 

Of course it does! Our work takes up between one third to one half of our week. Most of us want to feel useful and appreciated in life, and the workplace is a prime environment to prove ourselves. Plus, most people seek to do work they are passionate about. Passion is an emotional word, we are emotional creatures…and so when we are experiencing difficulty at work? That’s emotional too.  

When it comes to romantic breakups, there is widely accepted advice about how to move onwards and upwards. However, society’s advice regarding the workplace tends to revolve around the sentiment, “Work isn’t emotional. It’s business.”

So when you feel emotional about leaving a job that didn’t even feel that great to be in? You feel wrong for being so emotional and don’t have any mechanism to feel differently. 

Like with romantic breakups, there is a tried and true path to getting over that work breakup. And it revolves around you owning your emotions and taking the steps to process them efficiently and effectively.  

Step 1: Decide on the why.

When your employment ends, whether you chose to leave or they chose to let you go, the reason why it didn’t work is entirely up to you to decide. There may be many things to choose from (e.g. it was their fault, it was my fault) so try to choose a reason that is conducive to the mindset you want to have once you feel resolved (e.g. it wasn’t a good fit from the beginning but it took some time to uncover why). 

Step 2: Create distance.

Seriously. If you are at all triggered by a past employer of yours, if seeing your replacement makes you feel angry, if seeing their press releases makes you feel rejected - you need space. It’s not embarrassing, it’s a temporary need that will bring you the peace and space to heal if you let it. So do what you need to do - and don’t be afraid to tell your ex-coworkers you need them to chill on the workplace gossip updates for a few weeks. 

Step 3: Make it about your future, not your past.

What do you want in your next job? Your ideal career? What types of qualities, what types of employers, what types of colleagues? What are your core values? What are your non-negotiables? Every job we take informs us about what we do and do not want from our next employer. What about this situation worked well? What didn’t? How can you seek out future opportunities that are more aligned with your priorities?

If you are feeling complicated emotions around leaving a job, it’s totally okay! You definitely aren’t alone, and the sooner you accept that your emotions are valid, your experience is yours, and the feelings will pass, the more quickly and easily you will be able to move on towards a more joyful and fulfilling future career.