When life throws you curve balls

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0:46 Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining today. I am doing the show myself. I do not have a guest today. And part of the reason is that I think, you know, when life throws you a curveballs, you need to know how to handle them and what to do with them, particularly if you're a leader. And let's face it, anybody that's led any group, large, small, children, seniors, business, you know that you have to pivot and you know that life will throw you curveballs. And that's a big part of leadership, how to pivot when times are tough and when there's a curveball in place. So a delicious irony today is I got thrown a curveball. I had someone scheduled to speak and last minute they couldn't make it.

1:44 This was the second time this same person could not make it. So you have a choice. You could scramble. Well, you have to scramble. You can panic or you can pivot. And the best choice for a leader is to pivot and calm down and spend a few minutes thinking about what it is that you're going to do. So from here, we're going to have a very natural 30-minute or so show on what you do when you have to pivot as a leader. I think it's around three main leadership muscles. Don't confuse a plan with a goal. The guest was a plan. The plan fell through. The guest couldn't come.

2:32 A good show is a goal. And in this particular case, I want the goal to be where we started out. How do you deal with next? How do you actually really pivot into something else and not lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish? Also, I think there's another key point here, which is the pause between disruption and response. It really matters. Um, when something goes wrong, you really have to, um, pause and reflect. And we have lots of choices when something goes wrong and we've all used those choices. I certainly have at some times. What do I do? I could blame the speaker, make it terrible, but what, what good is that going to do? Uh, not, I still don't have a show that achieves the goal that I'm looking for. Um, I could panic. That's not great either. Or I could hide the problem. And many of us do hide the problem, actually. And if you think about it, many of us exhort to blame. It wasn't my fault. I didn't do it. Someone else did it, and now I have to put up with it. So you have to really pause and say, okay, what do I do now? My plan fell apart. My goal is still the same. I've got a ton of shows that

4:05 help people think about or show people doing their next. And that's what we can do here. And sometimes I've found out that plan B can be better than the original plan. And, you know, some of the best career moves, innovations, relationships, life chapters begin with something that did not. And I can think of many instances where something didn't work out and I took a different path. I think that really fits beautifully with the whole concept of next. You know, I was pursuing my career and I was actually getting a PhD and I was working full time at the time.

4:55 And I hit a brick wall. And what did I do? I panicked. I didn't think I could get through it. I was going to drop out. All sorts of things. Didn't know how I was going to write a dissertation. And all of a sudden, my advisor came up with a plan B. And the plan B was great. I did a different route. I thought about my dissertation entirely differently. Frankly, I'm sort of proud of this. I graduated number one in my class, and I got the award for the best doctoral dissertation. Now, I'm not any brilliant person, but it was because of that change from plan A to plan B that I really was able to succeed, and it paid off very well for me. And it kind of fits beautifully into that next, um, that next phase of anybody's life. Cause we all have next phases. And sometimes we try to force fit things in, you know, think about it. You probably have. I have, I have had careers situations that haven't been comfortable. I haven't liked, and I was trying to force fit, um, the situation into my original plan because that's what I thought I had to do. Well, the fact of the matter is I had a job I hated. I actually liked the job, but I didn't get along well with my boss. I

6:25 think a number of anybody could identify with that. And I had to take a big gulp. I could stay. It was a good job. I was making a fair amount of money. I had a great title, but I was miserable. And so I took a sabbatical, scary. I was lucky that I could. And I went out on my own in consulting practice. And think about it, for those of you who've had corporate jobs or steady jobs where you get a regular paycheck, that's pretty scary because you don't really know what your next paycheck is going to be. Consulting is a on again, off again kind of thing. Well, as it turns out, It worked out great.

7:11 And I spent the next eight or so years in a consulting practice. And I went all over the world. I loved it. It was a great next for me. And had I held on to the previous position, I would never, ever have had that experience. And I would never, ever have shaped into the person that I am today. It was really kind of amazing. And then I know if you follow this show, you've heard of Marshall Goldsmith. Most of the people that are on the show, I've run into through Marshall Goldsmith. And that again was not plan A. That was plan B. I really hadn't planned on being a coach. But in reality, I've been coaching lots of people all the years. And Marshall had a methodology, which I loved. which he was willing to share. And he included me in his group of 100 coaches. And that was a major, major shift and change for me.

8:24 I built through Marshall a whole consulting practice, which was really great. And I greatly appreciated that. Now I'm going to have to get back to my... So As I think about it, maybe leadership isn't figuring out how to save plan A, because if it ain't working, it's probably not going to work. But maybe leadership is having the courage to create what's next. And I'm not saying that's easy. I'm saying it's hard, and I'm saying it's scary. And when I was giving up a pretty good paycheck, it turned out that I made more money as a consultant I had more fun. I went more places in the world and I didn't work as hard. I didn't have to work 10, 12 hours a day and be on call on Saturdays or Sundays. And I don't know how many of you have jobs like that, but there's a lot of jobs like that. So when life throws you a curve ball, it's conventional, broad enough to cover both leadership and life. You have to think about your life and you have to think about your leadership. You know, it is true. People may let us down. And I'd just like you to stop for a minute here and think about people who have let you down. Husbands, wives, friends, significant others, they've let you down. And then what do

9:57 you do about that? You can wallow in self-pity. Well, I guess there's a little time for that, and maybe that's not such a bad idea for a little bit. But you have to be resilient, and you have to be able to reinvent yourself and explore and be resilient. and face the unexpected with courage. And believe me, I am not saying that's easy. You know, Marshall Goldsmith, who I spoke about before, says a lot of interesting things about behavior change. And it all sounds easy. But he always ends it by saying, this is not easy. This is hard. And reinventing yourself is very, very important. It's hard to walk away from a tough marriage. It's hard to walk away from a toxic friend. It's hard to put yourself in different situations and try to make that work.

10:56 It's hard to move. But when you do it, it feels so much better. So I would propose to you that next is really about reinventing yourself and thinking about what your real purpose is. And that's, again, not easy. Discover what plan B may be and have it fit. See, this show today was a plan, but it was not the goal. So thinking about what plan B was and is and thinking about how to open that door to plan B and come up with something better. Has life ever thrown you a curveball? I'm sure it has. And I'm going to let you think about some of those for the time being. So what I would say is the biggest part of the curveball is to accept it.

11:52 Articulate it. Understand what happened. Understand was it really a shakeup of your plan or do you have to go an entirely different direction? And I'll tell you something. I always had the plan of getting a PhD. Always. I always had a plan of being a senior doctor. leader in the human resource field in companies. That's always what I wanted to do. Did I have to pivot lots of times to get from one place to the other? Yeah. I was in the public sector. Very hard to move from the public sector to the private sector. But I did.

12:33 And it was such a different learning curve. But once I was there, I loved it. Being in the The company was going to merge with another company. And any of you that have been through some of that know that your job is most likely in some kind of jeopardy or is going to change a lot. So I had to pivot. I had to say, I still want to pursue that goal, that direction. And you know what I did? I did pivot. And I went to another company that was looking for someone like me. And I put out there, if you'll pay for my PhD and give me the time to go, I went on weekends every other weekend. Frankly, that was a little tough, but I went every other weekend and, um, had it not been for that pivot and it had it not been for the, I'm not saying I'm a courageous person, but the courage that I had to look at other opportunities and put on the table what I was personally was looking for. I never would have gotten that PhD. And then another curveball came along. All of a sudden, I get a job offer from GE. And if anybody follows any companies, you know that GE at the time, and I guess still is, one of the premier companies, Jack Welsh was the CEO of the company. And I'm like, ooh,

14:06 I'm halfway through this doctorate, This company is paying for it that I was working for. Ooh, I really want that other job. How am I going to have to pivot? Am I going to let this go and go to GE because it's a great credential? So what did I do? I went for the job interview. They liked me. I told them that they would need to support my continuing education. And they did. And therefore, you're speaking to Dr. Sharkey today, which I'm proud of. But you have to be clear-headed. You have to be thinking about what opportunities do you really have? How do you pivot to those opportunities? How resilient can you be? How much courage do you have to make that step? And how much fear are you willing to endure? Because it will be a fearful journey.

15:06 No two ways about it. You have no guarantee. that what decision you're going to make is going to work out well for you. It did for me. I will say that. And I personally have had a very great career, which is one of the reasons why I started this show. Because I've run into lots of people who are older, younger, who thought that maybe they didn't have a next generation. Maybe they were done, they were suffering through bad circumstances until their kids got through college or their mortgage was paid or whatever it was. And every one of them that could envision a next that fit with their broader purpose, and I want to reinforce purpose. Purpose is very, very important, figuring what that is. Every one of those people who were able to do that and able to have the courage to step out from a difficult or unrewarding, unfulfilling situation did really well. You know, I think about divorces.

16:16 That's scary. You know, you marry somebody, you think it's going to work out, you know, you have kids, and now all of a sudden you see yourself stuck, and you're afraid to walk out of that situation. There's financial questions, there's where you're going to live, there's all sorts of things like that. But everybody I know, and you think about it for yourself, everybody I know that had the courage to walk away from a toxic or difficult situation ended up being way better in the future. Maybe they didn't have as much money, maybe they didn't have a big beautiful car or whatever, but they had peace of mind they had love, they had strength, and most of all, they had a purpose that they felt good about. Now I'm just going to spend a little time talking about purpose.

17:14 You know, I was doing a program, I forget where it was, and I did ask this group of very senior executives, frankly, that had very good jobs, what is your purpose? And it was like deer in the headlights staring at me. Purpose? Purpose? What's my purpose? You know what a lot of them said? Making money. And I have a philosophy, and I think it's true, and the research holds it true. If that is your only purpose, you're probably not going to make the money that you could. If you have a clear purpose, and that takes time to think that through. What is meaningful to you? What do you feel is going to make you feel great?

18:02 What is your contribution to life and society? What is your contribution to yourself and your family? And what strengths do you bring to the table? And I have found people that think that way and are really able to tap into their purpose tend to take, have make much better jobs because they're jobs that they want to do, that they love, and manage at one way or another to either make more money or make very satisfying money and are able to live very good lives. So if you don't have a clear purpose and your only purpose is really money, I would suggest that you should take some time and think about that. So We're getting close to the close of this show. And what I'd like to ask, and I was going to do this before, but I didn't. But now I have the courage to do it, and it may actually change the direction of this show going forward. But if life has thrown you a curveball, and I'm sure there isn't anybody that's listening to this show that has not had curveball at some point or another, if not several, if not lots. I'd love to hear, we'd love to hear your story. What happened?

19:33 What was the curveball? How did you respond? And what did you do to move forward? And how hard was it? What did you actually do that others could learn from or that you could learn from yourself? You did it once. You can do it again. I'd like for you to share your experience and the steps you took to embrace that, what came next. You can email me and I will respond. And actually, I will collect some of these ideas and thoughts and share them back with you, assuming it is okay to do that. Maybe I'll even ask you on the show to share your curveball and the steps that you went through to get back on track and get back to your goal and get back to your purpose.

20:27 So you can get a hold of me and send these to me at sharky, S-H-A-R-K-E-Y-L-D at gmail.com. It can all be lowercase. Your story, and I would encourage you to share it, your story may inspire someone else navigating an unexpected change and may help them think through what they could do next and how they could do it with grace and success. So that's it for today. This is something near and dear to my heart. I do think from my experience, from my research, a lot of people stick in situations that they really should let go of.

21:18 I know I have. I've stuck with the man that I never should have. It is what it is. When I finally let go, I found the man of my dreams, and I never thought that that would happen. Sadly, he passed away. But without the experience that I had, I would never have had the love of my life that I did. And everybody has something like that. So I'd like for you to share it. Send it to my email at sharkyld at gmail.com. And I'll get back a hold of you. And maybe there's something you'd be willing to share on this show. Thanks again for being with me today and with us. And next week we will have another speaker. And maybe I'll have some information on who has contacted me with their next, with their curveball and what they did. And I hope so. Have a great week. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I look forward to more conversations. Bye.