The Creative Mentor Part 8: Being Hirable // Career Jealousy // Connecting // Conflict
Part 8 is all about managing our inner and outer conflict.
Those nasty voices in our head have got to go. Let’s face them head on and better understand where they come from so that we can gain self awareness to them and be better collaborators and creatives for ourselves.
You don’t get to decide how hirable you are
The most common emails I receive from the listeners of this podcast is their worry that they don’t have enough schooling to get jobs. Or they’re not practiced enough to get jobs. So they class and workshop themselves to death instead of just applying for the job they want. Leave the judging to the person who is hiring you. If it were up to you, you’d never be ready, educated enough, skilled enough, perfect enough, etc.
Don’t count yourself out before they can count you in.
Career jealousy isn’t fun to talk about. Because it’s ugly either way.
But it’s important to pay attention to how you feel or to take other’s comments about your progress. I’ve definitely been jealous of other creative’s career progress over my own and guess what, it never served me. After thinking more about it I realized i was taught to be that way. Break the cycle and root for everyone.
Consider this:
You may have been taught to be jealous of other’s success because it was harder for you to get where you are than it appears for this other person.
You may not be as happy as you thought you were in your current position.
You may feel like someone new came in and stole your thunder by having fresh new ideas and you blame them for your self doubt You may be the young gun that showed up for work making old timers feel unimportant. [which is their problem not yours]
You may be entering into a workflow that’s recently changed for the first time in 10 years and you are starting out operating differently than everyone else by design.
You may have been hired from the outside during a time an internal candidate was expecting to get your position.
If you’re vocal about your salary, you may be making more than the people around you and they feel some kind of way about it.
Empathy
Do your best to be an empathetic co-worker. Try not to take things personally and evaluate what your own boundaries are. Understand where your co-worker is coming from, how you feel about it, if the problem is them or if it is you, and try to find a healthy solution for your own happiness. Sometimes it’s hard to face that we are not as great as we think we are sometimes. Having jealous feelings toward someone, or having them put on us is a great time to pause and reflect on your position and what behavior you will accept from others and what behavior you want.
Creative Connection
When you hear the word "networking" you always think of that weird business card scene from American Psycho. I'm here to tell you that it can be more sincere than that. I walk you through some framework on how to connect with the creatives around you and yes, make friends as an adult. Which is hard.
Consider this:
When you work with people every day all the time you can guess what they’re going to give you feedback on. This is how you grow at your skill and your job. You can kind of read their mind.
When you’re active and participating at work, because you like it, people see you and you see them. You will be missed if your gone.
You get to know people at work naturally over time. How many kids they have, what their hobbies are, their silly stories through their own career, etc.
You may become accidentally trauma bonded through an event at work specifically, or a global event everyone is going through together.
You naturally find people you click with at work, have lunch and coffee with them, gossip a little, etc.
You will draw off of each others creative resources and inspiration to build out project at work and celebrate success together.
This is the secret to making friends as an adult
Before you know it, you’re friends with the people you work with, and when you eventually move on to better career opportunities you find yourself sticking around some of these co-workers, getting lunch, checking in, asking questions etc. Boom, you’re friends now my guy. Don’t shy away from that! Embrace it. This is how you build your network to help yourself find new jobs or even better, ALL your friends.
Conflict Resolution
One thing will always be true with working, you will run into conflict. Because systems are not smart, and people get wrapped up with work, it's tough to know how to deal with conflict resolutions at work. I walk you through some context, tips, and tricks on asserting yourself and what boundaries are appropriate for you.
Stay focused and don’t take the bait.
People have histories with each other, people are territorial of their work, people say off color jokes. People will gossip and try to sway your bias. People are weird man. The best move when dealing with conflict is to address everything as directly as possible. People behave better when you do that, and you’re likely to run into less conflict this way. Unless you’re a manager. Managers deal with conflict every day. Always stick to the facts, don’t make assumptions, and be direct.