We suffer more in imagination than in reality. –Seneca
In the mid-90s, I had the distinct pleasure of selling advertising for The American Trucking Associations newspaper, Transport Topics. My boss at the time was Dick Kornblum, an affable, good-natured septuagenarian who didn’t know the meaning of retirement. We couldn’t have been more opposite. He was a grizzled sales veteran and a grandfather, with little formal education. I was a wet-behind-the-ears college grad with no demonstrable sales skills of any kind.
For the first two months, I rode shotgun (Tommy Boy style!) while he drove us through all the small towns in my East Coast territory. We covered thousands of miles and visited hundreds of accounts, struggling to find common ground for conversation along the way. Half asleep at one point, Mr. Kornblum (as I called him) asked me a question that I didn’t hear. But that didn’t stop me from responding.
“Yes, indeed”, I answered matter-of-factly.
“Whoa! Really! Me too. I absolutely love them!”
Uh Oh! He was WAY too excited. What had I gotten myself into?
Turns out, he had asked me if I was a Baltimore Orioles baseball fan. And while I liked The Orioles back then, my dad raised me as a Boston Red Sox fan. But from that point forward, Dick Kornblum talked about little else. Obscure trivia. Pitch-by-pitch detail of every game of the 1983 World Series. Clipped out box scores of the previous night’s game. He even bought me an Orioles hat to wear on our road trips. There was no putting the genie back in the bottle now!
I agonized for weeks about how to tell him I simply didn’t share his passion. I pictured him getting angry. Dismissing me completely as a fraud. And even firing me! The more I thought about it, and the longer I waited, the more anxious I became! It was negatively impacting both my work life and my personal life. Serenity now! Finally, after a particularly long diatribe about the merits of Camden Yards over Memorial Stadium, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Mr. Kornblum, I’m so sorry, I’m a Red Sox fan!”
He furrowed his brow and slowly turned toward me. Yikes.
“I beg your pardon”.
“Yeah, it’s just, you know. I like The Orioles okay. But I just don’t love them like you do.”
Dick Kornblum froze. His face lost all expression as he blankly stared through the bug-splattered windshield. And then he broke into a huge smile and slapped the dashboard.
“Why on earth did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I was just trying to be nice. And I thought you’d be mad.”
This sent him into mass hysterics, culminating with a long, guttural guffaw. I’m glad I could entertain him!
He went on to explain how important it is to have tough conversations early. To be polite, but also be direct. And to avoid the unnecessary stress of waiting to break bad news. And isn’t that great advice for all of us?
Don’t Wait
Oftentimes, the anticipation of a tough conversation is far scarier than the reality. It doesn’t do anyone any good to wait when something needs to be said. A direct discourse with an underperforming employee. A confrontation with a co-worker who is overstepping their boundaries. An intervention with a friend who is sliding off the rails. These conversations don’t age well. And as long as we are civil and respectful in our delivery, rarely do these cause the kind of commotion and turmoil we anticipate.
And the same is true when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable situation. Sometimes, we can be too polite! We don’t need to suffer fools. We don’t need to laugh at jokes that aren’t funny or put up with boorish behavior. We don’t need to constantly agree with views that don’t align with our values. It is one thing to get along, go along. But the longer we wait to express our true emotions and viewpoints, the more we lose our own unique identity. It’s time to get real!
Stay Genuine
And that is especially important when it comes to staying resilient. In down times, we have to get back to our core values. We have to get back to our inner circle of friends and family who will always have our back. If we have stifled our own feelings for the benefit of the crowd, it will be difficult to know whom to trust. If we have avoided being direct just to stay the course, it will be difficult to get in touch with our true feelings. The more genuine we are with our thoughts and interactions, the faster we can bounce back from any challenging situation.
If something is bothering us, we have to address it. Everyone loses when we stifle our true feelings and sweep challenging conversations under the carpet. Dick Kornblum was possibly the nicest person I have ever met. It is comically ludicrous that I let my admission of indifference go for so long. And it underscored a major lesson we can all embrace. As with everything in life, we gotta keep it real!