On being discouraged

Now that I've landed in San Francisco, there's more financial pressure to get a job. While looking around, I stumbled into a opportunity to consult for an early-stage startup that needs help.

For reasons I'll explain below, I found myself almost type "needed help" and I'm noticing how my mind even at the onset of sitting down to write is already releasing this gig. And in calling it a gig, noticing it is just that, a gig.

And somehow such a thing in a matter of weeks can start to feel so much more important.

Details aside, I've put hours into building what I said I would build for them. Today, upon presenting it to the CEO, he soured, and started speaking in a way that communicated disappointment with a tone of frustration... sitting in a role of power with an element of more dominance than curiosity... more escalation that groundedness. I've worked for many different types of leaders and this felt like a red herring.

It's the type of dynamic that some company cultures sweep under the rug of "we're direct here" — though I think on some level we all know "direct" has a calm, clarifying purity to it, and what we stack something on top of that (frustration), it is not longer simply directness. Calling it directness at that point becomes an illusion, and an escape of the responsibility we have to ourselves and each other.

We all have strategies of meeting the moments in front of us, and want to consider this CEO in that way.

What I know I believe is that everyone is doing their best. And still, I continue to learn how important it is to consider our experience deeply and let that guide us. A consideration that moves past blame and takes a moment to ask "what's really going on for me here?" — and for me what was really going on in that moment is I was feeling discouraged. I was feeling discouraged because something I had created was being immediately and only critiqued. On top of that, I sensed the pressure to take on the responsibility of calming the frustrated person in front of me.

There was a gut response to simply say out loud how I was feeling—for that I'm proud of myself. I tried, "hey, I'm happy to explain why this is the recommended solution we agreed upon, but I'm noticing you seem pretty frustrated which is a harder place to work from for me." He seemed pretty surprised. He continued on with his question which seemed to loop in blame on another teammate that was not on the call. We ended the call.

This gig wasn't feeling good. But I had also so quickly become attached to it as a source of financial security.

I decided to go for a walk—knowing sunlight, and a path of remembering my life outside of this gig to be a good next step. I sat on a park in Dolores Park here in San Francisco and just considered the situation.

It started to boil down to the tension between the clarity that I'm not willing to work like that and the resistance of delivering that message.

Despite on the call live asking for deescalation, and communicating it was hard to work like that for me—I still left the call feeling like my work was discouraged and resisting the responsibility of cheering them up. Responding to frustration with compassion is a journey i'll remain on likely all of my days.

As time continues to pass, I'm returning to the clarity that this gig is a gig, and there many other connections and inspirations that have and will animate my life. I'm still saddled with the need to either decide I'm invested enough in this project to do the relational work of talking about my experience of the call or to consider the project as a whole and take a fresh look at whether it's time to release it before it gets too deep.

Releasing things at the right time is another wisdom I hope to continue to cultivate.

TBD on if this becomes a moment to release and open to other possibilities. My gut says yes. Thanks for joining me in this reflection—now onward into this unfolding.