Slow Ride

When I write something down here, I keep in mind my intended audience which is a twenty something version of me.  I always ask myself  "What would I tell myself, having known now, what I'd wished I'd known then?"

       Don't we all wish we could take the knowledge we have now, and go back to high school?  WOW I'd be a A student, and join all the extra curricular stuff.  I'd be better prepared to handle bullies, boys and all the awkward moments that happen during high school.  I would really apply myself in English class instead of being grateful the English teacher was lazy and let us watch TV during class time. I'd know exactly how to react to stressful situations, and what it would take to be popular and cool!   Easy Peasy!   Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. 

     I guess the best piece of advise I can offer you is something a former supervisor told me a couple of jobs ago.   The reason he told me this is because every time I'd run into a problem with a client, or some type of dilemma, obstacle, tough situation involving a big decision that had to be made.  I'd literally run around the office like chicken little "the sky is falling... the sky is falling."  Stressing out telling everyone the dilemma and taking bad advice from whoever passed by.  Then I'd run back to my desk, and make the call or email the client almost instantly trying to hurry as quickly as I could to resolve the dilemma.   For some reason, I felt the need to hurry and get it over with like taking off a band-aid the quicker the less pain. 

My boss sat me down, after me going in and out of his office one afternoon like a freaking yo-yo he said: 

 "You don't have to resolve this right away, or get back to the client as fast as you can." 

 "It's okay to sit and think on it for a little while, and wait for the solution to present itself to you before calling the client again." 

This was life changing!  You mean to tell me that it's not a race against time?   I can actually THINK about it and still get the client to buy my product even though it took a while to get back to them?  I think it was all my prior hourly jobs that had unintentionally programmed me to HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!

  Chop Chop!  The Clock's A Ticking! 

 From that moment on, I took his advise, and tried not to jump the gun, flip out, and go all bat shit crazy trying to hurry and solve the problem so it would just disappear.  No more knee jerk reactions, spazzing out, and making a bumbling fool of myself because I'm in my race horse mode.  

     This has worked well for me at my job and in my personal life.  It's too bad I learned how to do this just 6 years ago, could have saved me from looking like a fool all through my 20's and 30's but oh well better late than never!  Hopefully one of you young hip twenty somethings will read this and see yourself doing this too, and maybe try a new approach and see what happens.  If so please comment below, and let me know how it worked for you too.