Hello Friends,

Happy Mid-January!

Script Your Life is now a fortnightly newsletter, so you'll receive the Analysis of 2 Founder Communication Issues a month.

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Have you ever met someone you admired and then went away... sorely disappointed? This issue addresses just that.

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The Situation:

Mary left her 5 year old finance job due to burn out to run her own consulting business. Content on mindfulness, new age and spirituality has been giving her relief. Following her interest, she enrolled in a Mindfulness course. Mary enjoyed it thoroughly and admired her instructor, Linda.

Post course completion, Mary approached Linda with the intention to work with her and to help scale her organization. As Mary is a solopreneur, she offered her services as a freelance consultant.

Impressed with Mary's credentials, Linda said yes except she offered to hire Mary as a full time employee as that was the requirement from her Board of Directors. She assured Mary that such an arrangement was a necessary formality and despite that, Mary will have the flexibility and ability to work remotely. In return, Mary assured Linda that she is task orientated and focused on deliverables - no matter where she is located.

Once formally hired, Mary was exposed to Linda's Boss Persona. Linda was ambitious in a haphazard manner, disorganised and a micro-manager. She constantly changed her mind post meetings. She even forgot the hybrid work arrangement she promised Mary. When Linda sensed Mary's resistance, she would stress that she has gone through hoops to get Mary hired with the intention to make Mary feel grateful.

Mary feels stuck and blind-sighted. This situation has been taking a toll on her, affecting her enthusiasm for work and also affecting her ability to service her other clients.

The thought of quitting a new job so soon is not appealing to her, leaving Mary to struggle with thoughts on how to extricate herself from this situation.

THE HOLLYWOOD TAKE

Between Jurassic Park and Big Little Lies / Marriage Story, actress Laura Dern was in a HBO show called Enlightened, created and written by Mike White (yes, he also created White Lotus). Laura played a self-destructive, stressed out executive who checked into rehab and came out "enlightened". It was interesting to see how Laura's character navigated being her best new self, while still being triggered by her loved ones, her environment etc.

Her enthusiasm to make a complete change post her rehab experience manifested in holding people in her life to higher standards and expectations. Naturally, that resulted in disappointment and resistance.

Laura's character herself had not completely evolved from her old patterns and habits making her assimilation into the post-rehab world a more idealistic rather than realistic one.

SOCIAL SCRIPT:

Culture glorifies change makers and personalities who have forsaken the material path for the path of service. That was part of Linda's appeal to Mary.

Mary was drawn to Linda's mission because of her backstory, her instruction and natural charisma. Linda was placed on Mary's mental pedestal.

Messaging like "some things gotta give", "you can't have your cake and eat it too" have also made Mary question whether she is asking for too much in this new job opportunity.

From a personality point of view, Linda's haphazard, mercurial moods and passive aggression can also be seen as traits common to creative people whom Mary was not accustomed to working with.

INNER SCRIPT:

Mary is between two minds. While she is grateful for the opportunity to work in a more meaningful field, she feels uneasy about working in such an environment.

Internally, she has tried to keep an open mind about a few colleagues who were outgoing and handing over work to her. They had less than pleasant things to say about Linda's working and management style.

Despite that, Mary has decided to assess Linda through her own lens.

On the work front, Mary stayed focused on completing some of the deliverables that were discussed. She has decided to have an in-person conversation with Linda.

Prior to the in-person conversation, Mary came up with a few non-negotiables in her work environment.

She came up with the words - respect, credibility, honour, honesty, clarity, consideration, direct and open.

From that exercise, Mary realised she pushed aside her natural intuition to unwittingly make excuses for all the boundaries Linda violated.

Her discomfort and enthusiasm wane were not only caused by the ever changing direction of Linda but mostly from Linda's lack of credibility.

Mary was disappointed in herself for entering a "bait and switch" situation.

She realises that she was seduced by the wrong things. Instead of focusing on Linda's public image, she should have focused on understanding Linda's personality and character better. That would have helped her understand whether Linda would be someone good to work with and for.

Mary also realises that she jumped into the opportunity without doing her necessary due diligence as she was so grateful for an opportunity since starting her own consulting business .

All that glitters may not be gold. It's easy to understand but hard to remember.

ACTUAL SCRIPT:

This is how it could go:

Mary initiates an in-person meeting with Linda.

She starts the conversation with how she decided to work with Linda because of how much she enjoyed the course.

Mary brought out a list of the areas of improvement for Linda's organization and presented the deliverables that were specific to those areas.

She then stated the list of arrangements that Linda promised Mary before formal employment and indicated that none of them have been realized.

Mary stresses that working with someone who keeps their word is very important to her.

Mary maintains that while she is grateful for someone who sees her talent and values, the current working environment and culture is not right for her.

Mary tenders her resignation and despite Linda's push back, she maintains her stance.