Jim Bearden on “Happily Ever After(s)”

For most of us, childhood was a time of intense learning, and many of the lessons we learned have served us well as adults.  Without straying in the much-traveled territory of dysfunctional upbringings, I want to touch on one lesson from childhood that continues to create problems.  As you think back on the stories you were read as a child, you’ll probably recall a variety of characters, plots and settings, but only one common ending.  Regardless of the difficulties encountered, most of these mythical characters not only prevailed; they lived “happily ever after”.

Put Aside the Myths

Just as we have outgrown Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and other childhood myths, we would all claim to have outgrown our belief in happily ever after(s). Intellectually we may even scoff at the idea of a happily ever after, but somehow its vestiges still haunt us. We’re still searching —desperately at times— for that ever-elusive state.  Selling and Leadership are two of the disciplines I describe as people skills. Both involve interactions between people (that would be the people part), and those interactions are for the purpose of influencing the choices other people make (that’s the skill part). Like practitioners of other people skills, leaders and salespeople routinely set themselves up as victims by seeking magical techniques that will always yield optimal results.

Recognize the Cycle

The first priority for improving your Leadership or Selling skills is self-mastery.  Before you can realistically expect to influence the choices others make, you must acknowledge and improve the choices you make, starting with your belief in the existence of sure-fire techniques or equally mystical (and mythical) shortcuts to success.  I’ll confess to having been caught up in that frantic search myself, and my experiences attest to its futility.  To illustrate the Happily Ever After Cycle, let’s use an experience all of us have had.

First Day on New Job

Think back to your first day on the best new job you’ve ever had and recall how you felt and behaved. While there may have been some anxiety that first day, I’m betting that your dominant emotion was excitement.  Most of us could have accurately attributed some of that excitement to our belief that we had at last found our “happily ever after” job.   First-day-on-new-job behavior reflects that excitement. We’re immaculately groomed and regally attired (OK, maybe not regally, but we’ll surely be wearing our best “credibility costumes”, right?).  We’ll show up early, stay late and work through lunch. We are fired up!   So how long does that euphoria last?  The answers I get vary, but most people agree on a range—45 minutes to 6 weeks. So much for “ever after”.  The truth is, the “new” always wears off.   Our first line of defense against new wearing off (and with it our initial euphoria) is denial.  This is where otherwise intelligent people say things like, “This can’t be happening”, “They can’t do that” or “Surely they don’t expect me to (fill in the blank)”. In spite of this inspired strategy, the excitement wanes, and we move into more familiar, if not comfortable, territory.

Victim Choices

Our initial excitement is now replaced by fear; we are afraid that this job may not be “happily ever after”, after all.  We become afraid of what the future holds for us in this job. At this stage we could regain our senses and realize that we’ve once again duped ourselves—set ourselves up for a “fall”.

If we held ourselves responsible for our happily ever after fantasies—our unrealistic demands and expectations of “the job”—then we could use the energy our fear generates to rethink the choices we’ve made. The myth would then be exposed for what it is, and we’d be on the road to self-mastery.

“Professional Victim” Choices

But that’s not the way most of us play it. Instead of coming to our senses, we continue to create negative feelings while looking for someone or something to blame.  Remember, we got into this cycle by looking for and finding something out there—in this case, a new job—to make us happy. So when the new begins to wear off we transform our fear into anger. Anger is much more comfortable than fear, because we can focus it “out there”, on the people we hold responsible for our unhappiness. Whom do we blame for this unhappy turn of events?  It’s “them”.  There’s the boss, fellow workers, clients, competitors, vendors and—of course—the government, just to name a few.

Rehearsal for Retirement

At some point most people caught in this cycle seem to just give up. No, they don’t resign; it’s more like “working retirement”.  They still show up most days, but the most strenuous and creative things they do are punch in, punch out and decide what to do for lunch. Think there’s any of that going on where you work? In fact, there must be a lot of it going on, because I’ve never encountered an audience that didn’t readily recognize this “Just Give Up” phenomenon.  There are a lot of people at that step in the cycle, and many of them will spend the better part of their careers there.

Same Song, Next Verse

Finally, some people decide to go looking. What do they look for? They search for that ever elusive, happily ever after job.  And when (not if) they find one, how do they feel their first day on that job?  If you said, “excited”, you’re right.  Where are they? They may be in a different job, but they’re right back to step one of the “Happily Ever After” Cycle.  Where do these people look? Do they look inside themselves, or do they look only “out there”?  It’s out there. And what are these people looking for out there? They’re looking for a happily ever after job.  Would you agree with me that they’re looking in the wrong place for something that just isn’t there? Happiness, like its counterpart, unhappiness, is ultimately the result of choices we make. Happily ever after may be a great way to end a children’s story, but it certainly doesn’t play well in the real world.  That brings us back to the people skills I mentioned at the outset, Leadership and Sales. Even the most gifted salespeople and leaders will concede that their disciplines are inexact—at best.  To suggest that there are activities or techniques that will always work is the height of lunacy.  In Leadership and Sales, when appearances change (and they will), and as the new begins to wear off techniques or initiatives (and it will), you’re ultimately left with what you brought with you.  Make sure that what you bring is more substantial than a belief in shortcuts or quick fixes, since the truth is, Happily Ever After(s) Don’t Just Happen.