{"id":20269,"date":"2023-11-08T11:39:24","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T11:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/how-comfort-can-ruin-your-career-and-discomfort-can-grow-it\/"},"modified":"2023-11-08T11:39:26","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T11:39:26","slug":"how-comfort-can-ruin-your-career-and-discomfort-can-grow-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=20269","title":{"rendered":"How Comfort Can Ruin Your Career, And Discomfort Can Grow It"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

What is your first impression of employees who ruffle feathers, shake things up, make waves or upset the apple cart? You might think that person needs to be disciplined, maybe even fired. But there\u2019s another way to look at \u201ctroublemakers\u201d in the workplace. The person who can enact the most change isn\u2019t always the worker who follows orders. Sometimes they\u2019re the ones speaking out against the status quo that stands in the way of making things better. They can take us out of the ordinary hum-drum of rigid routines to out-of-the-box thinking that can lead to creative potential and solutions for the company\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n

Breaking The Mold At Work<\/h2>\n

\u201cTo break a mold, defy a norm, or restructure a structure, you need to ruffle a few feathers along the way,\u201d explains Jessica Elefante in her book, <\/em>Raising Hell, Living Well<\/em>. <\/em>\u201cThe most influential people in history were often considered mad because of their grand ideas. It takes humans a while to come around to new ideas. To do good things in the long run means you might be considered an outlier in the present moment.\u201d Elefante says she believes rebels who fight back against oppression, gain respectability as their influence shifts a collective consciousness. \u201cInfluential people are often troublemakers who felt stifled by the system as it was,\u201d she notes, adding, \u201cThroughout history, the artists, innovators, pioneers, intellectuals, leaders and icons who show up with their bad selves as agent provocateurs blaze their own way, and by doing so, open pathways for others. Troublemakers are labeled as such because they speak up when others won\u2019t. Troublemakers are alternate voices. Troublemakers stand up against the people, the structures, and the that\u2019s-just-the-waythings-are mentality when nobody else will. They don\u2019t conform\u2014and by doing so, or not doing so, become influential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growth Only Occurs In A State Of Discomfort<\/h2>\n

Change isn\u2019t easy for the average person. That\u2019s why it takes an extraordinary person to lead. Great leaders and companies are always open to change and to stirring things up. They are resilient, willing to stick their necks out and get out of their comfort zones. I sat down with Bill Eckstrom, founder and CEO of EcSell and author of The Coaching Effect: What Great Leaders Do to Increase Sales, Enhance Performance, and Sustain Growth<\/em>. <\/em>He related the story of how discomfort propelled him into success. He was on a roll\u2014an executive with a nice salary, annual bonuses and stock options\u2014all the perks. On a Monday afternoon at three o\u2019clock, the president of his company summoned him to a small conference room on the top floor of his office building for a quick meeting. \u201cHe fired me,\u201d Bill remembers. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll never forget how his words just sucked the breath right out of me. I left the conference room in a dazed state, and I went home and curled up in my bed in the fetal position for three hours.\u201d While the unsettling event shuddered his self-esteem and finances, he says it was that discomfort\u2014the departure from his ordered life\u2014that forever changed it for the better.<\/p>\n

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Eckstrom, learned that humans have a need for a predictable outcome. But more importantly, he learned that what makes us comfortable can stagnate our careers. And what makes us uncomfortable is the only way to grow. He also acknowledges that if on that day somebody had said, \u201cGee buddy, getting fired is a good thing because now you\u2019re really going to grow!\u201d he probably would have socked them. After a couple years of work with his new team, he had an epiphany on how to apply the science of discomfort and growth through the concept of \u201cGrowth Rings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first Growth Ring represents a low-performing, low-growth environment called stagnation<\/em>\u2014having to follow too many steps, permissions and minutiae,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat stifles creativity, independent thought and action. He notes that the antithesis of stagnation is chaos<\/em>\u2014also low-growth and low-performing\u2014that can result from internal or external conditions. \u201cWe see chaos occur at times in business mergers, natural disasters and horrific events like 9\/11 when we have zero control over inputs and outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming back down the Growth Rings, Eckstrom explains that next to stagnation is order<\/em>\u2014the most desirable environment when you know what you do or what is happening leads to a predictable outcome. \u201cAnd in predictability, we find comfort,\u201d he says. \u201cBut comfort is also what makes order so dangerous. Because science shows that anytime you continually do something or even think about something the same way, you\u2019ll eventually stop growing.\u201d Some people would rather stay in a toxic work culture than take the risk of uncertainty, according to Eckstrom, adding, before order continues to limit the way we think and act, he reminds us that it\u2019s important to remember that our career growth only occurs in a state of discomfort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you feel discomfort hit, that means you\u2019ve entered the complexity<\/em> ring,\u201d he declares. \u201cComplexity is nothing more than changed order, but when your order is changed, outcomes are no longer predictable, and it\u2019s unpredictability that makes you uncomfortable.\u201d He insists that most times our visceral response to discomfort is to avoid it, but we can grow by acknowledging the discomfort, then choosing complexity over order. \u201cI know seeking discomfort sounds odd, and not many people do it,\u201d he admits, \u201cbut you have to learn to embrace it because it\u2019s the only environment where sustained or exponential growth can occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating Discomfort And The \u2018Good Trouble\u2019 Movement<\/h2>\n

Many \u201ctroublemakers\u201d create discomfort by \u201cdisturbing\u201d current workplace conditions to improve them. The traditional business-as-usual-expectations came under fire when the pandemic stirred up Gen Z\u2019s, who refused to adhere to corporate demands and pay the price of burnout as a \u201cnormal\u201d side effect of hard work. Insisting on their own terms imbued the younger generation with greater decision-making power in their careers. You might call that \u201cgood trouble,\u201d a term coined by the late activist and senator John Lewis, referring to nonviolent protests against unjust situations\u2014the kind of trouble you can be proud of. It was the rally cry for civil rights and became a wake up call ushered in by \u201cThe Great Resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer\/songwriter Connie K. Lim, professionally known as MILCK, told me she has a personal investment in the \u201cgood trouble\u201d movement. \u201cI watched my Asian ancestors doing jobs where they couldn\u2019t express themselves and keep their heads down and work,\u201d she remembers, thinking she wanted to be free. \u201cI promised myself that when I became an adult, I would do what I needed to do to build a life where I could express my ideas.\u201d As a result of her soul searching, MILCK took the risk of leaving a major record label to work independently. Atlantic Records wanted her to create songs first, then find philanthropic ties for the music afterwards. With MILCK’s current approach, she’s crafting the music with intent, focusing on the goal first and foremost. When she walked away from her major label deal, she said, although there were moments when it was scary and she questioned what she had done, at the same time, she felt she was taking care of herself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is your first impression of employees who ruffle feathers, shake things up, make waves or upset the apple cart? You might think that person needs to be disciplined, maybe even fired. But there\u2019s another way to look at \u201ctroublemakers\u201d in the workplace. The person who can enact the most change isn\u2019t always the worker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"yoast_head":"\nHow Comfort Can Ruin Your Career, And Discomfort Can Grow It | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is your first impression of employees who ruffle feathers, shake things up, make waves or upset the apple cart? 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