Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:42 — 5.6MB) | Embed
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I often mix the sounds of waves, fire, and birds at Sounddrown.com when I need to focus on a project, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about letting things go.
Kitchen Chat is hosted by Margaret McSweeney. Each week Margaret invites world renowned culinary masters into her kitchen to share their culinary secrets, swap stories, and talk about food. Margaret’s kitchen is frequently visited by James Beard award winners, award winning authors, and top restaurateurs. You can savor the day and check out Kitchen Chat at kitchenchat.info, Facebook.com/kitchenchat, or on Twitter @mcsweeney.
Friday Forum
I want you to be a part of the Friday Forum! Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278.
What I Learned Yesterday:
A couple of weeks ago my family had dinner with a friend and his family. This is a friend that I worked with at my previous job. I hadn’t spoken with him since I’d left nearly 15 months prior. It was great to see him again. We talked about some of the current geeky movies, our thoughts on the upcoming FOX series, Gotham, and some of the creative projects he was working on on his own time.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the conversation turned to the stuff happening at my former job.
Since the time that left, the company hired a new president. They were without a president when I left. When the previous president left, I started reporting to the director of operations. He was and is a great guy, but he didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what my department did. Remember what I told you about my last review back in episode 64? Here’s a recap:
At one point I was asked to make a list of ideas [by the previous president]. The ideas could be anything. They wanted ideas on how we could increase sales, improve efficiencies, serve our in-store customers better, serve our on-line customer better, improve the functionality of our website, do a better job with our marketing, you name it.
I was heading out on a business trip about that time so I spent that trip coming up with idea after idea. I wrote them all down in a notebook that I kept with me. By the time I returned I had over 100 ideas. I presented the ideas to the leadership of the company. The next year I was asked the same question. I thought it was odd because nearly none of my ideas had even been explored. I came up with a few more ideas, refined the first list of ideas, and presented another list of over 100 ideas.
A few months later I was given my annual review. One area that was specifically addressed was an area called creativity and ideas. On a scale of 0 to 5, I was given a score of 1. I was told that I had very few creative ideas and almost never shared ideas.
At one point in the conversation, my friend asked me if I remembered the list of ideas. He was one of about half a dozen people that had been given a copy of the list.
He told me that since the new president has come along, he’s brought a lot of new ideas that a lot of people think are great. He also said that many of them are ideas that I had on my list. Apparently the ideas didn’t seem very good when they were coming from me, but now that this new guy has presented them, they are fresh and exciting, and insightful.
Put yourself in my position. How would you feel about this news?
I’ve shared this story with a few people now, and their reaction has each been the same that my friend had when he told me about the news. Their response has been that they thought I would be upset. The truth is, I’m not upset at all.
Now, before I continue, I want you to know that I’m not sharing this story so that I can be braggadocious in any way. In fact, I almost didn’t share this story just so I could avoid that possibility. However, it’s an important story so I’ve decided to tell the story and hope that I can do it in a way that doesn’t come across as smug or pretentious.
Here’s the thing. I don’t know if any of the ideas on my list were original ideas. Some were ideas that I observed other companies doing, some were ideas that I read about in various publications, some were ideas that I had brainstormed with other people, and some were ideas that were related to my experience in blogging and podcasting.
I also look at it this way. When I presented those ideas to the company, I did so believing that implementing the ideas would benefit the company. When I left the company, I did so with the hope that I would not only benefit from my departure, but they would too. Then and now I want nothing but the best for them.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
It is easy to get upset with a situation like this. It is easy to become frustrated because the ideas were scoffed at or passed over when I had them and now they are being embraced. It’s easy to take that sort of thing personally. And maybe I should take it personally.
I mean, I do believe that part of the reason that the ideas were discounted was that they came from me. I don’t know how or when or why, but at some point I got on the bad list of some of the folks that called the shots. After that happened, I don’t think my voice made any impact at all.
However, that type of thinking will get me nowhere. It won’t get me a promotion, a pat on the back, or an attaboy from my old boss. It won’t change the outcome of my final evaluation. It won’t even make me want to go work there again.
If I dwell on it or allow it to upset me, it will only cause me anger, bitterness, and other negative things. Those are not the feelings I’m looking for. I’m going to go about my business and move along.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and Facebook.com/GoldenSpiralMedia. To subscribe to Stuff I Learned yesterday, visit GoldenSpiralMedia.com/subscribe. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
[sc:stuff]