Mental health, life pivots and thanks
While this blog may not have the big reader numbers of some blogs many of my readers are very loyal – my mail open figures are off the chart! Thank you.
I ignore many of the blogging rules I’ve heard advocated: short posts, tight topic focus, limit topics, keep focus both in the posts and across post. I’ve tried following such rules but it doesn’t last. Its not me.
In my mind you, my dear readers, follow me and my (sometimes) whacky ideas. I like to think we have a “special relationship”. Having said that, I’ll also admit: I write about what interests me, you reads seem to like that!
So I want to share something personal with you. I share it because I’m sure some of you will have had similar experiences. It is important to recognise we are not to blame. Sad to say that no amount of success seems to insulate one from this sort of thing.
About two years ago I got involved with a toxic client. I won’t go into details but in retrospect the client’s manager was a bully. I’d not been working with the client very long when I saw there were problems. I decided to tackle the problems face on and sat down with the manager concerned in an effort to resolve them.
Rather than resolve them I brought them to a head. The manager turned on me. In classic bully fashion it was all about them, how hard they worked, how many problems I created for them, the problems they faced. So I suppose I did resolve them but just not the way I wanted to! There then followed a few weeks where they wanted me to sign an NDA and I refused. That itself is a story but ultimately I called their bluff.
If anyone offers you an NDA to keep quiet remember: they want you to keep quiet for a reason, you have power over them. If they are clever they will realise that offering you a sum of money and then taking it away is probably more likely to make you share your story and it makes them look worse.
Anyway, this was all really bad for my mental health.
I had some counselling at the time and thought I had managed it but actually I hadn’t. It had completely undercut my confidence. I was failing to function properly. It dragged on, weeks and months.
I was slow to realise this but then two things happened. One of you, yes you readers, came to me with an idea. Something which I’d never thought of, it got me back in harness. Thank you.
Once I started working again I quickly realised how I wasn’t over the bullying incident. I was still carrying a lot of baggage. It wasn’t just the recent bullying, I was bullied at school. So I went back into counselling for several months.
In counselling I also came to realise that much of my internal logic stemmed childhood: both the bullying, the way schools treated me and the (now obvious) fact that my neurodiverse dyslexic brain doesn’t see things the way it is “supposed to” – I don’t share the canonical view of, what, some many other.
Take Project Myopia and #NoProjects for example. I’d seen Projects as crazy for years, it was only when Mary Poppendieck said the same thing over dinner in 2011 that I realised I was not alone. Slowly I started to say publicly what I’d only thought privately and ultimately write the book.
At the time my views on projects were career limiting. Not only could I never be a Project Manager but nobody who was doing a “project” (which was everyone back then) who checked out my social media would hire me.
But, I am not the only one who thinks like this – many of you readers do too! It is because I think differently, because I will say these things that I am immensely valuable and I suspect, why you read this blog.
So my dyslexic brain if both a curse and a blessing,
Back to where I am now.
I’m actually in a pretty good place now. My professional life is very different to where it was two years ago and I don’t think its every going to go back. I’m not sure what happens next, I have a couple of ideas but I’m in no rush to change.
Anyway, I wanted to share this with you for two reasons.
In the last year I’ve told several people about my mental health problems and I’m often told in return that they too have had problems. It seems a very common problem for people who have worked as agile coaches to suffer mental health issues as a result of the work. (I might talk about way that could be another time.)
Second, anyone can have mental health problems, and they are nothing to be ashamed off. In truth I’ve had mental health problems on and off my entire life. It is not because I am weak, it is because of things that happened during my childhood I had no control over – like being dyslexic.
Second my professional pivot leaves me wondering what happens next with this blog. I’m not giving up, I’ll keep blogging. I wanted to say thank you to my loyal readers, knowing some people value what I write has meant a lot to me during this time. I’ll keep up non-canonical ideas coming.
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