Weekly Nugget: Done Being Resentful?

Hi friend, 

Want to kill your career at any job, in any role, in any position? Start being resentful.

If you are a CEO, start being resentful about your direct reports and the board. Yep?

If you are an engineer, start being resentful about your manager and about other engineers who think differently from you. Right? No!

What is this way of being that tells us to withhold the best of ourselves from others, really blocks care, and ultimately will block your career and life growth?

This way of being is a little voice that whispers in your head that you have been wronged.

Sometimes it is an outright resentment that says, F*** off, I don’t really like you.

Sometimes it is the little sister called “resentiment” with little i, which says, ‘I don’t like you, but I am just gonna play along.’

Both do a very good job of killing possibilities, joy, relationships, and potential.

What are we mostly resentful about?

Sometimes it is about not being noticed, not being listened to, and not being acknowledged. Other times it is about not having gotten what we feel entitled to have gotten.

It is interesting that so many people at work as independents, leaders, and employees, are in a resentful state, openly or quietly. We need to make a serious and sudden shift about this.

I recently looked at myself and found I was resentful of my choices of moving to the US, divorcing, starting startups, and not already being a billionaire. I have begun to give this up.

I see that I am blessed beyond measure for the wealth of relationships and capacities I have got. My little voice whispers again… “but you know you have not been given a chance to…” I pay no attention to it. I am grateful for the opportunity.

In today's era, if you have a job and are part of a team, count that as your blessing.

If you hold some resentment in your job, begin to explore it, and see what’s that about. Explore where you have not owned your own satisfaction and have not yet created the conditions for it.

See how the assessment of having been wronged helps you. Or doesn’t help you.

Fernando recently scolded me in an open room about my commitment to relationships.

At first, I became resentful at having my identity injured. Then, I had a new assessment that I am being asked to step up my game in each of my relationships.

Your resentment is just a stuck assessment that people are out to get you. Don’t listen to this little voice like it's solid gold. It is just your adaptive child self wanting to be protective and validated. It is holding resentment and holding you back from something new that might be possible.

In any relationship where you have some resentment, see what really matters. (That you are right, or that you have trust and joy?)

Don't wait until you have the whole situation figured out. Get in conversations with others. Complain, apologize, listen, talk, laugh and cry. Be a human together. As my friend Chauncey Bell often says, we need to learn to open our mouths and make messes and then clean up those messes.

Being resentful is being small. Being joyful is being larger than life.

If you are giving up being resentful somewhere, I want to hear your story.

If you have difficulty giving up being resentful, I want to hear more and reflect together with you.

With care,

Saqib