Ep 143: The Art of Acceptance: Managing Disappointments in our Relationships

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends . I hope you had an amazing week .

Today I want to talk about something that I think we're all going to be able to relate to in one way or another , because it is something that involves other people and our expectations of them .

Now , I think some people have more of a tendency to kind of have a playbook that they want other people to follow , which , of course , is only going to lead you to disappointment and frustration , because people do not tend to follow the playbooks that other people have for them .

But it also , I think , is something that sometimes and I know this has kind of been a thing for me there will be people in my life who've had an influence on my life in some way and I tend to , at times , attach a lot of expectations to that person , kind of elevate them a bit , put them on a pedestal , and I've got these very high expectations and when

that happens , there's really only one way to go from there , and that is crashing down , because no one is going to live up to our expectations all of the time . We don't even live up to our own expectations all of the time .

But I wanted to talk about this today because I've had a situation in my life that's been going on for several years , I would say , and this is not in my personal life and it's not in my corporate life . So I'm still in corporate and I've got this business . So it's neither personal nor my corporate life .

It , honestly , is 100% centered in this coaching business and it's related to an important figure to me in that world , the coaching world and someone who I considered to be a mentor and that I really looked up to and all of that .

And there's just been a series of things that have happened steadily , I would say , over three or four , five years , and it's impacted me and I would say , not just me I don't know if this is helpful or not , but many of the people in that world .

There's a growing feeling of angst and discontent and disappointment and I only wanted to talk about this today because , as I've been dealing with the latest of those things , it didn't affect me personally . It just was painful to watch so many other people be impacted by the decisions , the very poor decisions , this person made . It was almost I don't know .

It really really really impacted me so much that I took a major step and just didn't attend a very large event I was supposed to attend recently . And I'm starting to make some decisions about how closely aligned I even want to be to this business , this entity , and really it's about a person .

So I only wanted to talk about it today because I have had to do . It was so upsetting and so distracting to me that I have had to do a ton of self coaching to kind of think okay , what is this Like ? It didn't happen to you personally . Why is this upsetting you so much ? And , by the way , it really really did .

I won't say all the things in detail . I'll give you some general ideas as we kind of go through it .

But why I wanted to talk about this today is that , as I've stepped back and done some self coaching , it stopped focusing on what the person did and how terrible it was and how it impacted all these people and all the five or six things they did over the three or five previous years .

Just a set of just really bad business decisions and people related decisions . I thought , why am I so distracted by this ? This person really has nothing to do with me Like they were important .

They were an important figure in my life and important influence in my life and , I think , a good one for the things that I took from it and the impact that it's had on my life .

But at the end of the day , like you know , I've had to come to some very pragmatic conclusions and , as I thought about it over the past week , it was kind of at the forefront because this big event that I was supposed to attend was really just a couple of days ago and I didn't .

I didn't not only did not attend , I didn't watch it , even virtually , and I don't intend to do so , and that felt like a really good decision , felt very freeing and I started to think about it and think about other people around me that I've observed that in my life that might have struggled at times with the same thing , and I've known people who tend to

put people on pedestals . You know , if people have a lot of good qualities , they'll sort of build them up in their mind and put them up on this pedestal and they expect them to be perfect and that everything they do is perfect , only to have it all come crashing down at some point . Right , because people are just not perfect . That's the truth .

We're not perfect and neither is anyone else , right , and I would imagine parents probably feel this way with their children , right , where at times they do something perplexing and it's just incredibly disappointing and maybe at times , depending on what it is , it really shakes you to your core of what you think about your child or their ability to navigate their

future , or whatever it is . I also think it happens with people putting leaders at work in the corporate setting on a pedestal , expecting them to be perfect and that everything they execute is perfect and the way they treat everybody is perfect , and it's only gonna lead to disappointment , right , Because people aren't perfect .

And same thing with friends or a spouse or a parent or a family member or whatever .

So I wanted to talk about it today through the lens of my experience and the realizations that I've had , and these may or may not be earth-shattering to you like when I talk through them , but I want you to really think about them and think about your own life , about how often or have you ever had someone in your life that you thought was one thing and

you're just kind of sort of above reproach and always doing the amazing stuff and always doing something honorable and amazing and whatever .

And then something happened or they did something and it just in your mind it crashed and everything about your opinion of them sort of shattered right into a ton of little slivers , you know , and you were left wondering why did I ever admire this person ?

And that's kind of where I was about a month and a half ago and I'm gonna be honest with you , probably until a couple of days ago .

So I was really pissed and I'm not gonna just I'm not gonna say who it is , I'm not gonna say a ton about it and I'm not even gonna talk about the four or five other ginormous missteps , professionally speaking , that the person's just bad judgment that the person has made leading up to this .

I'm just gonna give you a little bit of color on this and then I'm gonna talk mostly about what the real problem is here . So , because I'm hoping it might help you . So this person has a thriving business .

There are many big names in the industry . It's one of the moderate to bigger names and for me they were very important . I have many people that I follow in the industry , but this is one of the ones that I just think is really smart and the teachings and the insights and the trainings and stuff like that have made a huge difference in my life .

Many people that I follow have , but this one in particular was super important to me . And yet , like I've said , over the past four or five years it's just been a series of steady things that have happened that it's like what in the world ?

Like it has been so blatantly bad or wrong or a misstep , I think , by anyone's definition that it's gonna make me question my own judgment and why was I ever even associated with this person ? And kind of what happened recently was they've got a huge business and they decided to do a mass layoff .

Now this happens listen , this happens in corporate , as we all know .

So like I don't think it's great , but I do think that sometimes businesses change and business needs change and the marketplace changes , and or you just change your mind about the direction you're heading , you gotta go somewhere else and I think sometimes when that happens , businesses whether they're the corporate type or the smaller entrepreneurial type they have to make

some tough decisions and that is clearly what happened here . It did not impact me , but I will say it impacted many of my friends in the coaching world and they did this mass layoff very especially for a coaching company very impersonally handled .

I mean just a , I think , a very brief Slack message or something , and they asked the people to acknowledge receipt of it on Slack . I'm not going to say anymore about exactly how they wanted people to acknowledge it , but I'm just gonna say it was just impersonal and bad .

Not a phone call , not even a mass zoom to have a 15 minute heartfelt conversation around the changing expectations of the business and where it's headed , and we're sorry but we don't , none of that . So it was just handled in a very , very impersonal way for a personal development company . So you know , and , like I said , I was not personally impacted .

However , here's how I felt and I really struggle with this . So I'm in a handful of communities in the industry just so I can stay in touch with some of my coaching friends and I just follow some of the thought leadership and even some of the newer training opportunities and things like that .

So you know , I heard about it through one of those forums and you know it was all the buzz over the past , I don't know , month or two , whatever it was and I thought I instantly was super angry .

And I was angry because of the , for me , the cognitive dissonance of okay , this is what they teach , but this is what they did , involving humans in their employee . Like there's no way , if I told you all of it , there's no way that most nine people out of 10 would be like what in the world ? Like just terribly , terribly handled .

And I just decided I was supposed to go to a big event and it's one that I hadn't been to before , but I really had scheduled it onto my calendar as soon as I found out about it , which was probably six months ago , bought the ticket , took the time off of my corporate job and I was gonna fully dedicate my time to really networking and enjoying it and all

that kind of stuff . But it entailed , you know , couple full days , lots of people on stage most notably this person because it's their business and I just after all that happened , it was like five strikes . You're out like to me . I was just like you know what .

It's just been a steady thunder of disappointment for at least three to five years and life is too short . I don't have to put up with this .

It's kind of like what I was talking about last week and my thing is the same decision I made to like just turn off the news , like I used to be a news junkie and I used to watch all the time , and now I just think life is too short , I don't need to be triggered all the time , and that's kind of how I felt .

I did not want to go to this event If this still unresolved on how I feel about it and for me , I don't know of a good way to resolve it .

I think it's just terrible business judgment is what was a demonstrated there , and I thought to myself maybe I've learned everything that I can possibly learn from this person and I don't need to spend two full days God knows what else they'll do on that stage , and I don't need to spend the next three months coaching myself to not be distracted by whatever this

person is doing . So notice here I'm gonna point out my own thinking here Cause it might help you . I don't know whatever's going on for you with being disappointed in others . I just want to point out what I've realized and I do hope it's helpful .

First and foremost , all of the things that I've just said and the ways that it impacted me and my opinions of the person and how they conduct themselves and their judgment , and even you know how I felt about going to the event and you know avoiding that , because I just didn't want to have to coach myself afterwards on all of the fill-in-the-blank crazy stuff

that maybe they would say or do . I just didn't want to deal with all of the crap , right ? And that whole stream of thought , as I've realized in the past couple of days , is really 100% about me and I think in these cases it always is about us . We think it's about the other person and what they did and how they conducted themselves and whatever cause .

At the end of the day , there was a mass layoff and it was done via Slack and I won't tell you the rest of it , but it was pretty dumb , right , how they handled it . Very . I don't even know of a corporation that really does it that way .

I think even Twitter might have done it better , right , and I don't think a whole lot of Elon Musk in the way he's handled that whole debacle . So , you know , I just expect a more personal approach , a more human-centered approach , especially from a coach , you know , especially from a coach Like you can forgive maybe , a corporation for misstepping cause .

I think it's easy in bigger organizations to , you know , have a miscarriage of a strategy or something like that , but it's like this wasn't that . This was a personal decision and that's what they thought was right . And what I wanna talk about , though , is that the problem really wasn't this person ever over this whole five year period .

The problem was me and what I wanted the person to be , which is clearly not what or who they are . That is the truth . That doesn't mean they're bad .

It just mean I came up with this persona because of all the things I learned and all of the good stuff for me that came from my following them , learning from them , setting with them , like all the stuff I decided on my own . They never said this , that they were these things .

I thought they were just amazing across the board in every way , including an amazing business person , and really that's my rule for them . That was my made up expectation for them and this was a very helpful thing for me to come to the conclusion is that people don't follow our rulebook for them .

People are people and they don't know about your rules , like she didn't know my rules for her and , by the way , wouldn't care , nor should she . She's who she is and she gets to be who she is , and that doesn't have anything to do with me , and that's kind of what I wanna talk about .

I want to talk to you about six things that I realized that I think I always knew , but , for whatever reason , because of the expectations I decided to put on this figure in my life , this person . I was now experiencing all of this angst and frustration and anger , and I was offended , right , even though it didn't directly happen to me .

I just felt like a personal violation , you know .

So here are the six things and as I walk through these and kind of just give you a couple of perspectives to think about , what I'd love for you to do is think about in your life times when you might've had a set of expectations or a playbook that you wanted other people or expected other people to do , and times when , of course they're not gonna follow

that that you've maybe been left feeling disappointed , and I want you to kind of have that in your mind , as I share these six things , as I think we probably all sort of know , but I think it's easy to forget .

If putting people on a pedestal or having high expectations of others or wanting others to follow a playbook is a pattern with you , and I would say it's not necessarily a pattern with me . I don't do this at all incorporate , but for me , for whatever reason in my business , I did so and that's 100% my responsibility and it's about me .

So , number one , if you observe a person that you hold in high regard mistreating others which is what I observed you have to know that this is 100% about them , right , and that that is an area of their life where they're either tone deaf or 100% disconnected , or whatever .

They don't , either don't care or they don't have the same value around treatment of other people as you do , right , and it's unfortunate . But we all get to make our own decisions , and so that was one thing that , as I started to do myself coaching on this and really saying why am I so frustrated by this person ? I just realized you know what .

Yeah , that was 100% a violation of how I think a personal development guru should handle . A mass layoff . Wasn't cool , wasn't human , wasn't evolved , wasn't next level way to do it right , and I think most people fight . Laid it all out , for you probably agree with that . However , here's the important thing it is 100% that person's business .

It's literally the business they own and it was their business decision and they get to decide how they want to handle it and then , like we all do , however we handle it , we have to deal with the aftermath of those decisions . So when I realized that that was kind of one layer , I thought , okay , well , this is about them .

You know they didn't show the level of respect or humanness that I would expect a personal development person to do when doing something like that , like laying people off of their livelihood . But that was their decision and it's 100% about them and they get to make that decision . I don't get to tell them what to do .

They don't have to live up to my expectations about things like that to be handled and , by the way , they probably don't have the number of years of business experience that I do . They may have a very successful business , but that doesn't make them a very seasoned business owner , right ? So that's number one .

If people are mistreating others , it's 100% about them , not the people they're mistreating and not you observing it , right ? So detach and give them their decision back and don't let it impact you . So that's number one .

Number two and this was a good reminder for me and it might be for you too when you're disappointed in someone that you put up on a pedestal , that you expect to follow your playbook for how perfectly things should be done , that's 100% about your expectations . Person doesn't have to do it . They don't even know what your playbook is , nor do they care .

It's their life and in this instance , it's their business and they get to run it the way they want and the rest of us get to decide if we want to be associated with it or not . That's the way it works .

So me placing all of this disappointment , energy and frustration , energy and anger about the way she handled it , all of the stuff , all of the judgments I had of her who cares ? Like ? Give her her decision back . It's her decision and I don't think she cares . So it's fine , right ?

And the people that she did it to can go off and find other employment and don't have to associate themselves with her anymore , right , which is probably a good thing . So that's number two . Remember , when you're disappointed , that is 100% on you . That was your expectation that you put on them .

Other people don't do what we want them to do , and we have to be okay with that , right ? Number three , and this is important to remember , people are neither all good or all bad . So no matter how amazing I thought this person was and I'm sure they are right In many areas that doesn't mean they're amazing in every area .

People are a mix of strengths and weaknesses , amazing virtues and terrible flaws . We all are . I am , she is , you are , everyone is right . It's easy to forget , though , when someone is in our life , that's more of a mentor .

It's easy to think of them through one filter only that we think they're all good , they're all amazingness and everything they do is perfect and whatever . And so , really , there's only one area to go from . There You're just gonna fall right . You're just gonna come crashing down , because guess what ?

No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes , and everyone can at times , be tone deaf and a little selfish or narcissistic or uncaring or whatever , and that's the truth , none of us are perfect , right ? So being disappointed because someone fell down from your high course you put them on is kind of . The only person that's hurting is you .

That person doesn't even know , and even if you tell them , they don't really care because they're living their life in the way they want to . And I think the important thing to remember is that as humans we are a mix and no one is on our potter's wheel .

We can try and put all of our energy into trying to control them , into trying to mold them and shape them into who we think they should be or the way we think they should run their business , or the way we think , in my case , they should lay people off , but guess what ? They're not going to follow our rulebook .

You can't mold people into the image of who you think they are or who you think they should be . People get to be who they are , with all of the good and all of the bad that comes with it . Because if you spend all of your time like expecting someone to be perfect all the time , you're going to be disappointed all of the time . It's just not worth it .

It's better to see people , even the ones who greatly contribute and who really have transformed our life in some way . It's important to remember , I guess , even for our parents . That's probably a good analogy here .

It's like if you had amazing parents and stuff like that , even as amazing as they were , they were not perfect , and I think some people forget that and that parents have flaws too and that they made mistakes when raising us and they did amazing things when raising us .

Everyone is a mix , and so give it a break and stop having such high expectations of people that really are just a mix of good and bad . Number five you are responsible for the boundaries you set and the expectations that you set for others .

So I was the one that decided that , because this person contributed so much to me in terms of thought , leadership and direction and insights that really helped the early parts of my business , I was the person who decided , well , that therefore , that means they are , you know , fill in the blank . That means they're an amazing business owner .

That means they're always run their business in a perfect way or whatever . And guess what ? It wasn't true . That was my expectation and so I don't have to ever do that again . Like I can just say , this person contributed in my life greatly in this way , but have no other expectations of them .

And if that had been the case for me , if I hadn't foisted all of this expectation energy onto this person who I thought they should be and who I thought they were and then you know , it's like , when they did this , I would have still been like , wow , that was unfortunate , right .

But I probably would have just moved on because I wouldn't have had all of this attachment to my vision for who they were . It was on me . I decided all of this . I decided who I thought they were and what I thought all of that meant and what their rulebook for them conducting themselves in the appropriate way and business meant .

And the truth of the matter is I don't even know , I don't know much about the person's background before I came in touch with them . They probably never worked in corporate , they probably never been in a business of any size , probably have no idea and have never even handled a layoff before .

So to them , they may have just been so caught up in what they had to do they didn't think about the human impact . It's probably that simple , right .

And until I just saw those words , I didn't even really think about that possibility Because for me , having been through any corporate situations or many layoffs , I understand the impact it can have on people and I would have handled it way differently , because what she never has probably been through , that how would she know ? Right ?

And to me it's like common sense , but it probably isn't in some ways , because if it's the first time you've ever had a lay people off , she's probably so stuck on that decision , whatever is happening in the business . I don't really know . It's like she wasn't thinking about the human impacts of what she was about to do . It's probably the truth , right ?

So I'm responsible . If I want to avoid this distraction and all these negative emotions in the future , I need to stop putting all these expectations on other people . They're not going to live up to it . Right , number see , that was . I said that was number five . It was actually number four , number five .

You've got to allow yourself to stop judging them right and realize that , like I said , we all have flaws and strengths and , like in this instance , for me , like the frustration and irritation that I've been feeling for the past , like month and a half , was really about myself and my expectations of her and nothing to do with her right .

And I also noticed and you may do the same thing , because I was so incredibly disappointed I then had all of these judgmental thoughts about who she really must be and how she really must be this terrible person . I'm like why did I ever align with this person in any way ? Why did I ever listen to anything that they had to say ?

And if I extrapolated all of these meanings from how terribly she bungled the layoff and then I attached all of this meaning to what I thought that meant about her as a human being , and so you know , it's kind of part of realizing like everyone has towering strengths and terrible weaknesses .

A person can be both amazing and clueless , and I think that's the case in this situation . She was clueless on how to handle the layoff in what I would consider to be a evolved sort of way . Right , but that doesn't mean she's evil .

And for a while I kind of have been telling myself that maybe she was right and that maybe nothing I learned was worthwhile and that I don't know that I want to be associated with her anymore and I may not , but I don't want it to be from the perspective of me being so judgmental . I don't know who she is really .

She's not one of my personal friends and I really don't know anything about her . And what I have decided is that I'm only going to take the little snippets that I've learned from her . I'm just going to leave the rest of it and give it all back to her , like all of her other decisions don't have anything to do with me , right ?

I get to take the good and leave her with everything else , and I think that's the best way to do it . So just remember that you set your boundaries , meaning don't attach all of these things to other people .

And then , when they fall down on the job , like start , you know judging them and making it mean all of these things about them , that it probably doesn't mean Everyone's a mix usually of good and bad , and just because they do bad doesn't mean they're not capable of amazing things too . So that's that .

And then number six and this isn't really relevant in this particular situation , but I think it is in a personal relationship , like if it was a family member or a child or a friend or something like that you need to clearly communicate your needs in a relationship and so you know if they continue , if there's just this dynamic between you and another person that

you're very close to , where there's just always disappointment and always , you know , missed expectations and stuff like that .

I just want you to know that the other person is not a mind reader and it's up to us In any relationship we have , that's you know more close that we're clearly communicating our needs and expectations and the other , and also to remember that just because we communicate , that doesn't mean the other person wants to live up to that .

You know you're not going to be living up to that . You know we get to communicate it and they get to decide if they want to live up to that or not . And if they don't , then a decision has to be made . Either you accept the way they are or you just decide .

I guess the relationship you know has come to an end , right , that's the decision we all have to make at different times . So clearly communicate your needs .

So those are kind of the six things that , for me , helped me to kind of move past this thing that I was really stuck on and it was really meaningful , right .

So I just want to run through those really quickly again because I think if you have that person in your mind and you think about times when you've been disappointed or you know that someone's really fallen down for you on expectation . I just want you to remember these things and keep them top of mind , because it really does give you your power back .

It helps you , it helped me to recenter and to , I think , see the situation with clarity instead of cloudiness and it was pretty cloudy in my mind on this for the past , you know , month and a half . So , number one just remember if there's mistreatment of other people involved , it is 100% about the person who's doing the mistreating . Right .

It has nothing to do with the people they're mistreating . It's always to do with the person doling it out . So it says something about who they are . Either they're disconnected from the impact of their actions on others or they just don't care . So it's one of those two things . Number two when you are disappointed in someone , it's about your expectations .

It's on you . You don't really have the right to place all these expectations on other people . The only person you can control is yourself . So don't even waste your time or energy trying to , you know , make people follow your rulebook , because they just won't do it . People don't cooperate in that way .

Number three remember when they fall down in your estimation , people are neither all good or all bad . They're mixable .

And so , no matter how good you may think they are at some things , building them up to be this amazing , perfect personification of everything someone should be is only going to set you up for major disappointment because no one can possibly live up to that expectation .

Number four do not judge them for falling down or falling short of your expectations , which is what I was really doing . You can't . Just because they may have done something bad , it doesn't mean they're a bad or evil person . It just means they're a mixed bag , like all of us are .

And even if it was a travesty or a terrible injustice or a terrible mistreatment of someone else , as unfortunate and as much as we wish that wouldn't happen , doesn't mean they're all bad . It doesn't mean they're evil , right ? So judging them , it's only going to make you angry , disappointed , pissed off . It's not worth it , right ? It's just got to kind of .

Let people have their pluses and minuses and just not spend time thinking about how they've fallen down on the job in your mind . Number five you have to set your own boundaries . No one asked you , no one asked me , in a sense , to put that person up on a pedestal . I decided to do it . That was on me .

That person never said they were all those wonderful things I thought they were , I wanted them to be , and me wanting them to be did not make it so . So it's a good reminder Don't put anyone up there on the pedestal . As good as someone can be , they're not perfect .

So don't set people up for that kind of a crashing down , because we will all crash down because we're all going to fall short of perfection . That's number five . Number six if it's someone that's close to you and you are in , you know , sort of a close relationship , you have to clearly communicate your needs and expectations from them and from the relationship .

And but remember , just because you communicate , it doesn't mean they have to live up to it , right ? So you've got to remember that it's okay to communicate it , but you're not the puppet master .

They're the person responsible for their own life and their own actions and they can decide whether or not they want to live up to your expectation or not , or the things that you've communicated as being important to you . They may or may not want to abide by that .

So those were the six things and they were very helpful to me because this had been a major trigger for me and because there was just a lot of buzz in my communities of choice in the coaching world over the past month and a half and I was just really stuck on it and I probably missed some great networking and learning opportunities .

But I did make for me what was the right decision to stay out of that environment , to stay away from the person's sphere of influence , and I may make that decision permanent . I get to decide that . It's just been a lot of things and I think it's possible that I'll leave you with this thought , and I think it's an empowering thought .

It doesn't mean the person's bad If I don't want to continue to associate with them . What it means to me is that that had a season to it .

I learned and was inspired for a while by some of the things that this person had to give to the world and I was the recipient of all of that good and I think that might have come to completion for me and it's perfectly fine . Doesn't mean anything good or bad about the person , doesn't mean anything good or bad about me .

It just means we've run our course , probably . So that can be a very empowering decision , and so I hope that this discussion about expectations and disappointment was helpful to you . I think it's a very human thing to forget that we all have flaws , especially when there are people that have such towering strengths and wisdom to impart in some areas .

It's hard to remember that they're human too and they make mistakes too , but it was for me anyway , so I hope this is helpful to you in some way , and with that I will leave you till next time .

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