Have you ever had one of those moments when you just know, intuitively, that a relationship must come to an end? You’ve tried everything in your arsenal to make it work. You’ve taken responsibility for how you’ve been being in the relationship. You’ve tried open communication, being direct, being compassionate, and even getting angry. Yet nothing seems to create that magic effectiveness and ease you are looking for.
You’ve got fundamentally different value systems, and as nice as that person may be, the energy dynamic is off.
Can I do this business and stay married?
When my clients and retreat attendees begin to grow their business and step into who they are in a big way, often it will disrupt their relationships. People often ask me, “Can I do this business and still stay married?”
My answer is generally, “I don’t know.” I find that usually the person knows their answer deep down, or they probably wouldn’t be asking the question.
Where were you coming from?
But the thing I tend to encourage people to look at is this. Where were you coming from when you began that relationship? Did you come together in an energy of love and passion, with a belief in abundance (e.g. I could have a relationship with anyone, and I’m choosing this person) or did you come together in an energy of fear with a belief in scarcity (e.g. I’m nervous about being alone right now and so are they, we might as well do this together)?
One woman recently told me, “If I’m really honest with myself, on our first date I was sweeping things under the carpet.”
I teach about the seven levels of energy, and that the energy we are in when we make a decision always determines the outcome of that decision. If we are coming from a place in which we feel like we don’t have options (Level 1 Victim) or a place in which we fighting feels like the norm (Level 2 Conflict), that energy dynamic will be a part of that relationship going forward, and it becomes very hard to shift. It can be shifted if both people equally become aware of the dynamic and committed to shift it. Unfortunately this isn’t often the case.
Bad Selection
I recently retreated to Hawaii with Mastin Kipp of The Daily Love. We spent a day talking about relationships, and he put it so simply. He calls it “bad selection.”
That is exactly what I see when I have a client who has a relationship that, no matter how they shift and grow themselves, the relationship doesn’t seem to change. In the beginning it was bad selection. And Mastin’s stance was that bad selection is bad selection, and it’s time to move on.
If there is a fundamental value mismatch in a relationship, no matter how nice and kind and good both people are, no amount of working on it will make it happen.
All of this is true when it comes to hiring as well.
Bad selection and hiring
One of the biggest decisions a business owner makes is who to hire. What type of person will you invite in to be a part of your dream? This is one of the hardest decisions as well, especially in the beginning when you don’t know exactly what you need help with or how to do the things you need someone to come in and do – that’s why you need them, right? And there are many different types of support teams out there available for hire, and they may be perfectly nice and good and even smart, but they may not be a good fit for you.
When it comes to hiring the same principles apply. When you are hiring from an energy of fear and scarcity, feeling like you just need someone and no one will be good so you settle, that dynamic is bound to fail. If you like someone and you think they are nice, so you overlook the things that they say or do in the beginning that are signals of a mismatch, you won’t have a good outcome their either.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.”
– Maya Angelou
You’ve got to be willing to set aside your sense of desperation to find someone, and give yourself the space and intentionality of finding the right match. Just like in dating, you want to envision (and write down) the qualities of the perfect match for you and let the Universe go to work supporting you to find them. And have complete faith that it will happen.
We can’t see what we can’t see
The issue is that we can’t see what we can’t see. In other words, we are doing the best we can given our current level of awareness. And when we have no awareness of how we will vibe with different energies or what to look for in an ideal match, we do the best we can with what we know. And if we’re not willing to make decisions and make mistakes and course correct, we’ll never leave the starting block.
Some hiring examples
For example, someone who isn’t aware that people lie will take everyone at face value and could get burned. After being burned, they may become so guarded that they don’t let anyone help them. They would then tend to bring in someone who is very nice and trustworthy, but very ineffective or risk-averse.
Someone who has a hidden commitment to being responsible would attract a team member who wants them to take responsibility for them.
Someone who doesn’t want to deal with the details of an area of their business at all and attempts to bring in someone to handle it for them so they can keep their head in the sand would attract all types of things. One pattern I see is a team member who tends to break things or create problems so that they be the one to solve them and feel important. If the business owner isn’t aware of what it really takes to get these things done, that could easily happen and feel like a necessary part of doing business. But in Truth, based on the energy they were in around that topic they simply created bad selection.
And once you become aware of the dynamic you’ve created, you can change it. Don’t beat yourself, just learn from it and move on.
Yes, it can be painful
Here’s the thing. Bad selection is painful. You also know you need to end that relationship. You can’t talk your way through it or try to fix it (in fact, you’ve probably already tried that). It’s time to part ways, and this can be heartbreaking. Especially for a kind and generous and loving business owner like you. But you’ve got to rip off the band aid because no amount of fixing can remedy bad selection. Good luck to you. You can do this.