LTL 133: Responding When Thrust Into The Unexpected

How many times have you said, "Wow, I didn't see that coming!" or "That was completely unexpected!" Sometimes it's good, but most often it's not. Like you, I have my fair share of these surprise moments. But today, I want to offer some practical tips on how to respond when you are thrust into an unexpected circumstance.

Because of my line of work, I hear stories all the time about people who have found themselves in shock over a recent circumstance. Think about it, there are tons of examples:

• failing an important exam that will impact your career
• experiencing divorce
• receiving an unexpected bill that exceeds your emergency fund
• losing a job
• being notified of an audit by the IRS
• experiencing the death of a spouse/friend/parent/child
• finding your home or car broken into
• having your home destroyed by a fire or natural disaster
• losing significant savings over a bad investment
• having to declare bankruptcy because your business failed

These are just a few examples of the things that seem to come up more frequently than any of us would like. Some of them are way more serious than others. By themselves, they are tragic and when you combine more than one, it can feel overwhelming – like you can't go on. But you can. And that's the most important thing for you to remember today: you can go on.

I was reminded of this recently when my son was telling me about what was happening where he works. The company had to make some very difficult decisions about how to continue operating. As you can guess, they were having to lay people off and an impact is felt by the families of several employees who were told that it was their last day.

Yes, it was unexpected. Not shocking maybe. An incident like this generally has some signals leading up to it that might indicate a problem on the horizon. But even if every one of the people in that company could say "Yep, we knew it was bound to happen!" that doesn't make it easier when you are watching your friends, peers, coworkers, and even arch-nemesis leaving the office for the last time with a box in their hands containing several years of blood, sweat, and tears.

It actually was very emotional for me when he first told me about it. I felt like I was thrown right back into the feelings I experienced over different periods in my career. I have been the one delivering this kind of news and I have also been the one who was receiving it. Neither is better than the other.

Trust me, I'm not downplaying the significance of these events. It can be so painful. Like you, I can literally feel what that person feels who has just been told they don't have a job here anymore or hearing that a close friend or relative has died. These unexpected events will tear a massive hole in your heart leaving you feeling scared, scarred, confused and alone.

And there were times I didn't think I would make it through it. So this is a fantastic opportunity to talk about it. So I am. The first thing I want to remind you of when you find yourself facing the unexpected: you aren't alone. You aren't the only one who ever dealt with this. People much less capable than you survived. And you will too.

The second thing to remember is that emotions flow in cycles. I talked about this in more detail in Episode 109: Leading While Leaving. Go have a listen and learn about the Kubler-Ross grief cycle to know how emotions run from denial to anger to bargaining, to depression, and finally to acceptance.

You don't necessarily move through them in order and you might move quickly from one stage to another. In other instances, you might move much more slowly and even skip some. The point is that there is a process and you need to let that process happen. It can be a mistake to push through or past this too quickly.

Next, I want you to consider resilience and fortitude as more than just pithy words about how you go on from here. I talked extensively about the value of fortitude in Episode 35: Fortitude: Six Steps To Increase Your Ability To Endure. For the rest of this episode, I want to talk about how you increase the other element: resilience.

When the unexpected arises, you start making a myriad of choices. How you respond is within your control even though what happened might have been completely outside of it. So what does it mean to be resilient?

The technical definition is interesting: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress (from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary). M