What You Don't Know Can Hurt You Most.

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You Most.
by
Bill Cottringer

“There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.” ~ Russian Proverb.

What you don't know about a situation is what usually results in not feeling good about things, especially about the gap between where you actually are and where you really want to be. Quite a lot of that goes with the private business or public government worlds and it is urgent to know how to best deal with this predicament.

Consider these following typical work area dilemmas and the troublesome gaps of not being where you want to be because of not knowing what is needed to close the gaps:

• Rebecca has a good education, has worked hard and been loyal in her telecommunications job. She was passed over for a promotion she really wanted, being a single mom and needing the money. Her boss isn’t too communicative and she wonders why she didn’t get the promotion. What can she do?
• John's 50-year professional career and lifetime identity is being downsized involuntarily in regards to significant office re-arrangement and total reorganization of job duties. How is he to react to this situation to feel okay in not being where he wants to be at this point in his life? What doesn't he know that would be of help to him?
• Mary is a highly successful salesperson. She wrote up and presented a dynamite proposal for service for a large contract, but her company came in second. How can she improve her future proposals and presentations to increase her chances of winning the next big opportunity?
• ABC Company was just given their 30-day notice that they were being replaced by another company on a large, lucrative contract they held for nearly a decade. This business represented 25% of their overall revenue. What did they do wrong and need to improve in order to prevent such a large loss from occurring again?
Here are some common sense approaches you can take to these typical work predicaments, to help avoid being hurt by what you don’t know:

1. First, realize that everything that happens to you in life and work is a "test" of your character. There is no getting around this reality. You are being tested to see if you are making progress at applying the right principles, values and creative problem-solving skills in your perpetual journey to learn, grow and improve into your very best personal and professional self.

2. Try your best to assertively ask the "why?" question at the most opportune time, but be prepared to not get an honest or reliable answer or not to get an answer at all. All you can do is give this an honest try because you don’t have anything to lose.

3. Avoid the common tendency (even by really smart people) to act on information about these 'losing' situations that you think you have assume to be accurate and complete, without knowing for sure or not even being able to know.

4. When you can't get the information that you think you need to know and act on to close this annoying, troublesome gap between where you are and where you want to be, then you have to look deeply inside for the answers. This requires fine-tuning your intuitive powers, which unfortunately may be out of shape. It also requires you to hear the whispers of your moral conscience above the noise of your psychological one.

One way or another you must find out important things you don’t know to become your best professional self and be successful at work, in gradually closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA., along with being a Sport Psychologist, Business Success Coach, Photographer and Writer living in the scenic mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including his latest book “Reality Repair” coming shortly from Global Vision Press. Bill can be reached for comments or questions at (425) 454-5011 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (425) 454-5011      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or ckuretdoc@comcast.net