One Piece of Advice that Skyrocketed Me Out of My Comfort Zone and Into My Dream Career
By: Megan Yulga, Brand Lead
“Toughen up. Your emotions are making me uncomfortable.”
It’s age-old career advice: “Go outside your comfort zone.” Dare to do things that make you feel uncomfortable and you’ll make mistakes along the way; failing is a necessary part of growth.
As a startup die-hard, this advice has been drilled into my work ethos. Be uncomfortable. Take risks. Learn how to fail well. Work hard. Work smart. Take ownership. Incidentally, these are all values of Circles.Life, the tech startup I work at, single-handedly transforming the definition of what a telco and digital services company is.
When I joined over 3 years ago, I loved the idea of these powerful principles. They made sense to me and I was looking for a challenging career. But believing in these ideals is one thing, and learning how to execute and cope with shooting above your weight is a whole other.
I’m a messy, emotional person. Discussing career feedback and performance development triggers something in me that I wasn’t prepared for. Let’s just say, I get emotional. There were times in my early 20s when I couldn’t get through a peer review without my face getting all quivery, my eyes tearing up or breaking down into full-blown sobs. It wasn’t because I was getting terrible feedback, it was because my career was so deeply important to me that it just poured out of me.
And I would get so embarrassed. Hell — I was mortified every time. Embarrassed that I had acted so unprofessional. Embarrassed that I had made my mentor, one of the company co-founders, uncomfortable. Embarrassed that I wasn’t tougher or stronger, or more self-composed.
I was levelling up and learning so fast, my heart was high one minute and down another and I was constantly caught in new situations. Those in the crossfire were honestly very understanding, but despite my efforts, I couldn’t turn off the tears. Because of this, I soon became used to hearing, “Toughen up. Your emotions are making people uncomfortable.”
Then something surprising happened. My co-founder and mentor looked at me one day, in the middle of an emotional spiral, and said, “Why don’t you try embracing these emotions. Lean into them. I like that you’re emotional. Everybody likes that you’re emotional. Start using these emotions instead of them using you.”
Wow. Nobody had ever said that to me.
When you hear the opposite of what you’ve been told your whole life, it’s very disorienting. There was a long adjustment period where I was figuring out what “embracing your emotions” even meant, which resulted in trying to suppress them even more. One time, I found myself in a healthy debate with a colleague over a project decision, one I was extremely passionate about, and if there were medals awarded for attempting to hold yourself together, I’d be getting the gold. Key word: “attempting”. What flipped the switch for me was discovering what I call ‘explaining the spiral’.
That internal monologue of guess work is your brain spiraling to make sense of the situation and to feel in control by assuming details. 90% of the time, I realized that I interpreted the situation completely wrong. Explaining out loud the thoughts that nobody else can hear, immediately as they happen, has opened me up to embracing emotions in the present, instead of letting them consume me in the now and in the future. It helps me to squash any misunderstandings and talk through what I’m feeling to a person, so that they understand where I’m coming from and vice versa. This allows me to process how I’m feeling as it’s happening and I end up with a much deeper understanding of the situation and myself.
Vulnerability is a polarizing concept. The dictionary describes vulnerability as ‘the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.’ It’s such a shame that the definition doesn’t showcase that powerful yin and yang that comes with vulnerability. Sure, you are exposed to an attack by opening up your insecurities — but in my case, being vulnerable and embracing my emotions opened up a world of sincerity and growth.
But don’t take my word for it, watch the lessons from Brené Brown and her Ted Talk on the power of vulnerability.
Embracing my emotions hasn’t just benefited my emotional state and saved my poor colleagues from uncomfortable chats with me, it’s also given me my dream career. I’m still with Circles.Life, still changing the world one SIM card and app feature at a time. Instead of cowering in emotional embarrassment, I’m throwing all those feelings into a brand and company that I believe in.
I love people. The messiness of emotions and creating a customer experience that is transforming an industry into a pleasant experience has been a joy. Our brand has become highly attuned to emotions. We lean into customers’ emotions as we build products and user journeys with real-life feelings at the core of every decision.
I’ve learned that it’s not just my emotions that should be set free, but also my customer’s. Why would any company intentionally put policies in place that cause the level of frustration the global telco industry faces? Likewise, what’s the point of creating a product in an app if you’re not starting and ending with the customer in mind? Poor telco and digital services experiences have resulted in social media rants and nasty calls to customer service heroes across the globe. Why? Because customers and their emotions are ignored and shamed. Instead, I’ve tried to explain the spiral of those raw emotions customers go through, just like I do, to ensure we provide a thoughtful experience that embraces the reality of feelings.
Sounds simple enough, but this really takes a lot of emotional discipline and practice to see through. I’m still amazed at what it has done for me — allowing me to take charge of my career in the most unfathomable way.
I guess there’s more than one way of toughening up, and setting loose my emotions was surprisingly one of them.
If you’ve always wanted to work in a company that encourages you to embrace your true self and own your weaknesses as strengths, we want to hear from you! Check out our open positions at the link below:
