It’s Hard | Career Angles
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
When I worked in recruiting as I did for more than 40 years, it was hard to see people as human beings. Often, people were like commodities— someone who is the means to my end of earning a commission.
If I disagreed with a coworker, I became annoyed and, once I allow that to fester a while longer, angry.
If anger festered within my body for very long, it evolved into hatred.
Hatred was hard for me to get rid of.
Anger was hard for me to get rid of.
Feeling hurt by not having support from my employer inflicted regular wounds on my body and psyche.
A bad commute.
An institutional customer who told me something that was not true.
A person who asked for my help in finding a new job who didn’t return my phone call.
Another commuter who walked directly in front of me causing me to stumble.
The phone calls that were not returned
The emails that I never received a response from
The clients who didn’t pay their invoices on time.
There are so many daggers that I felt and yet I continued.
It’s hard to relearn how to be a human being when you have so many bandages on your body from all the conflicts that you experience.
Recalibrating and relearning, relearning and recalibrating are all important for me to return to my humanity.
I’m no longer in the fight that I was before.
I’m at a stage of acceptance and awareness, having determined what’s important to me and my values.
I know that’s a high-class problem but as you get older, it becomes an important problem to tackle.
You tackle it because that’s what men do.
They do hard things.
Sometimes, I don’t succeed in my own estimation when I tackle the hard thing.
My self-criticism feels less than it did some years ago because I finally realized it wasn’t helpful.
That’s what men do.
They learn from their mistakes professionally and personally and work to make them better.
It’s hard.
But joyful.
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2020, 2022
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2300 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, and Amazon, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) and on Facebook (on the Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter page) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me through LinkedIn’s messaging .You can also message me through chat during the approximately 30 minute show.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching? Please click here to see my schedule to book a free discovery call or schedule time for coaching.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Like me on Facebook.
We grant permission for this post and others to be used on your website as long as a backlink is included and notice is provided that it is provided by Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter as an author or creator plus a backlink to www.TheBigGameHunter.us.
