Great Work
The Great Work Podcast
Almost nothing is a crisis
0:00
-3:01

Almost nothing is a crisis

Even if it sometimes feels like a crisis.

This week’s message can be expressed in just a few sentences. So that’s what I’ve done.


Want to listen to this instead of read it? It’s now a podcast! (Or, at least, I’ll read you the email, with rock-bottom production value and added fervor.) Play it above. Or click here. It’s also, disconcertingly, available in places like Apple Podcasts (search for ‘Great Work Adam Sandell’), Spotify, and Google Podcasts. If you’re podcast-inclined or -curious, consider subscribing.


Almost nothing is a crisis

Some things feel big: the sudden departure of valued colleagues, an impossible amount of work, the loss of an important client, a serious error, the breakdown of a vital-seeming relationship, criticism in the media, litigation. But these are things that happen in the working lives of people who do work that matters. Whatever it is that’s going on may be big and it may be challenging. But whether it’s a crisis is usually determined by how you react to it. You can often choose to think of it as just the job, an interesting twist, something from which you’ll learn.

Of course, occasionally it truly is a crisis. But that’s rare. And even when there’s no escaping that something’s a calamity, if you can (as Rudyard Kipling put it) keep your head while all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, you’ll ride it out more serenely and successfully.

The benefits are huge. You handle it vastly better. There’s less stress around. Your anxiety doesn’t crank up your colleagues. Everyone learns from it. Unanticipated benefits emerge.

Pause before telling others—or yourself—that you’re swamped, or firefighting, or in crisis response mode. Consider whether that’s true, or whether the problem may be as much in your reaction as the—I’ll bet genuine—challenges of the work you do.

Almost nothing needs to be a crisis. And it’s so much more fun when it’s not.


I’ve overcommitted the last few months—a lifelong bad habit (but not a crisis). I’m going to follow my own advice and pause these emails for a couple of weeks. Back soon!


Do you have a working life-related puzzle or situation that you’d like me to write about? A practical or psychological thing you struggle with and haven’t been able to resolve? Part of a team that’s not thriving? An unhappy marriage between your work and the rest of your life? Something else? Reply to this email and tell me about it.


Thoughts about this?

Leave a comment

Know others who’d be interested?

Share

Not yet signed up? Correct that oversight now!


Discussion about this podcast

Great Work
The Great Work Podcast
Serenity and success for people who do work that matters
Listen on
Substack App
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
Pocket Casts
RSS Feed
Appears in episode
Adam Sandell