Episode 128: Gains, Losses, and Trade-Offs
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We open today’s show talking about the daily life trade-off between eating at the kitchen table and eating over the sink — the classic etiquette vs. efficiency debate. (This includes that Kung Fu Panda, “Don’t Tell Monkey” moment when someone catches us!) Then, we move on to address a listener question that gets to the heart of the tradeoffs we make in our work and our lives. From The Good Place to Almost Famous, we share touchpoints that help us examine these gains or losses more deeply.
Whether it’s a shift in our position, responsibilities, or compensation, we may find ourselves feeling like we’re giving up something meaningful in our careers in exchange for something else. When we do, we often wonder what others, especially those we might work for in the future, will think of our decision. And because of our innate negativity bias, we can be prone to hyper-focusing on potential losses and to staying in familiarity even when it’s not serving us.
The inside job here is to pay attention to what can be gained as much as what can be lost, to acknowledge the complexity of the things we believe are important, to examine the stories we may be telling ourselves, and to be honest about whether “the market” will truly care either way. When we do, we’ll be able to craft a career narrative that serves us, discover whether a situation is truly so black and white, and recognize other potential outcomes that we can pursue to better align ourselves with what we truly want.
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In Our Conversation Today, We’re Exploring:
What Kung Fu Panda has to do with our personal mealtime trade-offs
How to explore tradeoffs more comprehensively, to capture the gains as much as the losses.
How to address the stories we tell ourselves when it comes to what we “need” to do or how we “need” our careers need to evolve
Why “I feel like” is really an indication that we’re telling a story or operating under a particular belief
How a coach can help you explore the “yeah-buts” of potential gains or losses
What negativity bias has to do with our decisions around trade-offs
How to navigate the feeling that we need to give up something meaningful in our careers
What it means to honor the seasons of our lives and give ourselves permission to make a change
Resources
Dr. Rick Hansen: https://www.rickhanson.net/be-mind-full-good/
“Meanwhile, your brain is rapidly and efficiently turning unpleasant, negative experiences – feeling frazzled, stressed, worried, frustrated, irritated, inadequate, hurt, etc. – into the neural structure. To help our ancestors survive in harsh conditions, the brain evolved a negativity bias that makes it good at learning from bad experiences but relatively bad at learning from good ones – even though learning from good experiences is the main way to grow the inner strengths we all need.”
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