Improv Your Weenies

I’m writing this from Terminal 3 at Heathrow, waiting for an American Airlines flight to Dallas. From there, I will catch a connecting flight to Midland so I can speak at the conference on Thursday.

I’m so excited.

I want to give you a sneak preview of what I will tell the HR professionals at this conference. Here it is:

You can take control of your life.

Oh, I know there are lots of things you can’t control.

You can’t control the weather, your boss, the traffic, the price of eggs, and the fact that some people are just world-class weenies.

You might want to complain

• The rain is ruining your blue suede shoes

• Your boss constantly interrupts you, gives you crappy assignments, and contacts you on weekends

• The traffic is ridiculous

• Eggs have doubled in price since you were 16!

• You’re surrounded by world-class weenies

This is the path most people take. They complain and complain. Complaining is fun. Everyone joins in and you bond with each other. (“Can you BELIEVE what those weenies in marketing did today? I never!”)

It doesn’t fix anything, though, and it makes you feel like you truly don’t have control. Instead, you can do something else

But you can choose how to act

Every day, you can make choices. You can choose

• To match your outfit to the weather

• How you interact with your boss and whether you stay working for them

• To learn traffic patterns and plan your commute with those in mind

• To get your own backyard chickens, which will then make grocery store eggs look cheap

• To limit your unnecessary contact with the world-class weenies.

Complaining is infinitely more fun in the short run because it doesn’t require you to do anything other than run your mouth. Woo-hoo!

It also leaves you stuck. You don’t have to be stuck. You can do things.

But what if you don’t want to act?

Now, there are some things you may not want to do. You may prefer complaining about your boss to finding a new job.

You may prefer eating than being unemployed (those backyard chickens ain’t gonna buy their own chicken coop). Most of us do. So we stay with bosses who are less than perfect. That’s okay, because you’re less than perfect yourself.

But acknowledge that you could leave if you wanted to. And start looking for a new job if you can’t stand the situation.

You may adore your blue suede shoes and want to wear them every day. The rain is ruining your fashion sense!

That is part of life. You have a choice: fabulous, soggy footwear or less fabulous, dry footwear. You don’t get to choose to make it not rain.

And, of course, there are many other choices you can make: wear rain boots and bring your shoes. Invest in a garage and only park in covered parking so your toes never get wet. Ask for an AFSA (Americans with Fashion Sense Act) accommodation to work from home. The interactive process must be held at a TJ Maxx or Marshall’s.

Accept your reality

The first step of Improv is accepting whatever is thrown at you. You can build amazing things from that! Accept you can’t change the weather and then move forward. Accept you can’t change your boss and move forward.

It is life changing. It is you taking control of the uncontrollable.

What’s coming up?

Join Victoria Purser, SPHR, SHRM-SCP and I as HRLearns welcomes Brenda Neckvatal who will teach you how to manage the heck out of your difficult employees. These are skills you must have.

Join us on September 26 at 1:00 PM Eastern for How to Lead and Manage a Narcissistic Employee

Then on October 9 at 12:00 PM Eastern, you can join us again as I give you the nitty gritty on The Pregnant Worker’s Fairness Act. There is so much more than pregnancy covered by this act!