Island in a Sea of Blame

My work chat threads were blowing up.

My project sponsor was asking me who had missed the critical steps that caused us to fail, my supervisor was demanding to know why it wasn’t in the project plan, the customer was asking when it would be fixed - and I was trying not to cry in frustration on my lonely island as the sea of blame came for me.

It was one of those days where I wish everyone had “checked their emotions at the door.”

When we think of emotions at work, all too often it is anger and blame that come to mind.  We see this not only in organizations, but we feel it as founders. We are lonely islands in a sea of blame. That sea of blame is sometimes from clients, but more often it is the caustic water of self-blame.

As founders, we often left the corporate world to avoid all those negative emotions, but now find ourselves drowning under the frustrations of running a successful business. We wanted joy and happiness, but instead found unexpected drama in our daily work life as we deal with a different set of problems than we found in corporate - whether that is wanting to strangle our technology or keeping our cool when an irate client is on the phone. It would be great if we could bottle up all that frustration and deal with only the joy.

But ignoring negative feelings doesn’t make you stronger — it makes you disconnected. Embracing our full set of emotions, our full humanity, allows us to make an even greater impact on our businesses and the world around us.  And that impact is exactly what drives mission-driven leaders and founders.

At Move to Joy Coaching, we work with the whole person - messy emotions and all - to help you move your business and your life back to joy.