What Kind of Colleague Are You?

And what kind of colleague do you wish to be?

Perhaps the first question is, what kind of artist are you and do you strive to become?

How you approach your artistry and your authenticity, and how you approach your work reveals so much about you, the person. How does that extend outward with colleagues and more?

Whether you are a singer, a teacher, a coach, a designer, a director: there is room for you!

We can all be on our own journey and acknowledge those that surround us as they are on theirs.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good petty once in awhile - but I am not taking it seriously or dwelling on it, nor am I using it to hurt someone.

I want others to succeed. I want to support and lift others up. If I can lift myself up, I can lift others too.

What is revealed in behavior toward a colleague? It isn’t about that colleague that’s for sure - positive or negative. It reveals so much about YOU and honestly, how you feel about yourself.

So, start examining what kind of colleague you are, and what kind of colleague you COULD be, simply by changing some mindsets, working on some behaviors, and seeing how it reflects back on you and back to you.

It costs NOTHING to be generous. Generosity doesn’t need to be grandiose either. It can be an encouraging word, or even a smile, or a quick text or email. If someone did that for YOU how would it make YOU feel?

It’s okay to acknowledge to yourself that you feel a little jealous, or A LOT jealous. It’s okay to acknowledge you feel insecure and that insecurity lashes out in gossip or rudeness or mean girls behavior. It’s okay to acknowledge you are fearful or scared or lost. All these feelings are legitimate. It’s what you DO with them that matters.

So what are your feelings right now? Can you look in the mirror and admit to yourself what you feel?

None of this is easy, and in our business, there are many who can be nasty, hateful, rude, vindictive, narcissistic, ridiculing, and the list goes on. What does that reveal? Everything about them!! It has NOTHING to do with you (unless you are one of those people, and in that case, time to do some internal work).

In our business, there are also those who are generous, kind, attentive, open, empathic, compassionate. This doesn’t mean you have no backbone to stand up for yourself in the face of the negative behavior. It means you truly are recognizing what you do and who you are has purpose and reason, and that each colleague around you has their purpose and reason.

We can ALL exist at the same time! We can all explore simultaneously! We can also release the scarcity mindset that many of us have had to come to terms with, and begin to find an abundant mindset for ourselves.

When we find that abundance in ourselves, it’s so much easier to open up and share it with others.

So, take a minute to write down what kind of colleague you would want to be. Just a few words that come to your mind immediately. Now, what kind of colleague ARE you?

Do you feel supported by those you wish to trust? In turn, do you allow trust and support?

Do you feel gratitude for your work from others? And again, do you share gratitude with others?

Do you feel a pull to build others up so they can do their best work? And then, do others build you up, or in order to build yourself up, do you feel the need to dismiss or pull down others?

A negative never becomes a positive, nor does this mean you have to be a one dimensional fake Pollyanna!

It’s okay to acknowledge the emotional responses like jealousy, envy, frustration, disappointment. If we don’t, we internalize it and it will eventually implode.

What if you acknowledged to yourself that yes, dammit, I am disappointed I didn’t get that job, or I wish I had so-and-so’s XYZ, or I am envious of this person or this missed opportunity.

Claim that. YES, AND. YES I feel (insert emotion here), AND I am going to pivot (insert direction or action here).

Sometimes we have to DO in order to FEEL when we are trying to change our focus. What do you need to DO to release any negativity, some negativity in order to be a more abundant artist to yourself? What needs to be acknowledged BY you? And then, how does that influence your ability to be the kind of colleague you would want to be, and honestly, want to have?

It’s a process and it’s a learning curve. Some of us have been so empathic and supportive that it opens us up to the negativity and the crazy. Some of us have been so insecure, or hurt, that we close down everything and become paranoid and needy.

It all begins with you. Your choices, your decisions, your self-talk, your self-honesty, your self-trust.

So now, in. a “perfect” world, if you were to walk into a room of your colleagues, how would you want to feel? How would you want them to respond to you?

This is who YOU need to be. To yourself first, and then to others.

In the meantime, keep your chin up, keep exhaling, keep your petty to the minimum, find a minute to giggle a little at yourself, and know you have choices that reflect back to you and on you, and you can always change those! (how’s that for a run-on sentence?)

with fondness & fierceness,