The Biggest Mistake Men Make (and Women Don't)

at the First Taste of Success

When faced with rejection and failure on the path to success, the cardinal rule is: don't take it personally, stay focused and push forward.

One of Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements is literally, "don't take anything personally." You're always taught not to take negativity personally

But what about positive attention you may be receiving? It is equally, and sometimes more, important not to take positive attention personally, especially at work.

Women and men have a different relationship with positive attention including charm, kindness and compliments.

Growing up, women learn that sometimes positive attention coming their way has a string attached to it and have years of practice building a a guard against unwanted attention. Although men may intellectually understand this concept, there are many who do not feel it first hand until they reach success.

When men reach their first successful position, all of a sudden tables turn and the attention is on them with people coming to them for approval, guidance, connection and counsel.

Don't take it personally
If you let yourself take it personally you can gain an artificial sense of importance and may not be seeing what's behind the positive attention. This can lead to poor decisions, lawsuits (sometimes sexual harassment lawsuits), a crossing of boundaries and ultimately destruction of all the hard work it took to get to your position.

Use the cardinal rule again: Don't take it personally. The simple way to not take positive attention personally is to stay focused on your work and your responsibilities in your role. The younger you are, the more at risk you may be to this issue as your emotional development catches up with your level of success.

The first wave of positive attention you may be getting when you taste success can blind side you. Don't let it become a setback. It's not you they are trying to charm, it's your success you worked so hard to get.

A real-life example
A few years back, a friend of mine had just become COO of a manufacturing company. Upon receiving the promotion, a younger, junior sales person started to make an effort to become close to him.

Being in a higher position, he remembered what it felt like to be hungry for success, to yearn for growth and development. He started to help out the junior sales person and they become friendly over time.

Although the interpersonal relationship created a sense of trust, the junior sales guy wasn't pulling his weight. He was always blaming others for his lack of performance and was even beginning to point fingers at the COO for his own poor performance.

The company decided to let him go and offers him severance. The junior salesperson then threatened to come into the office with a gun the next day. He also filed a lawsuit for unlawful termination based on the relationship he had with the COO.

Know your responsibility
The lesson here is that the COO took the kindness from this guy personally, reminiscing on the younger version of himself. This blindsided him to the salesperson's actual performance.

It's important to know your responsibility in each position you are in. It's the junior salesperson's responsibility to help himself grow to success and it's the COO's responsibility to lead the company operations.

The emotional and interpersonal dynamics that result from taking positive attention personally, can often get in the way of the actual work.

These occurrences happen far too often to turn a blind eye and chalk them up to having a "crazy" guy in the company.

It's your responsibility when you first become successful to set boundaries and know your role. The consequences may be easy to brush off earlier in your career when you're not in a position of authority. Success brings a greater responsibility.

Source: inc

Patty Block, President and Founder of The Block Group, established her company to advocate for women-owned businesses, helping them position their companies for strategic growth. Charting the course for impactful, sustainable, profitable businesses, the beacon is control: of your strategic direction, your money, your time, your staffing, and your ability to bring in business. The Block Group brings together the people, resources and ideas that build results.

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