The Bounce-Back Muscle

Detoxifying Success

Rockstar of the Week!

Phoenix: Construction Executive with extensive leadership experience at residential and civil construction companies. Experience managing $50M+ budgets and scaling companies from small to mid size.

If you have a hiring need for this individual, want to be a rockstar of the week, or need help with anything else, email me at rob@zarrellco.com

One bad day is 0.002% of the year.

The other day, I experienced what many recruiters would call a “bad” day. A few searches went on pause, several onsite interviews happened but no offers, and some companies didn’t provide feedback on the resumes I sent.

For a few hours, I let it all get to me. I found myself asking:

Am I doing something wrong? Why is this happening? Am I still good at recruiting? What else could go wrong?

Those thoughts started to affect how I approached the rest of my day.

Eventually I decided to take the afternoon off, get outside, and go for a walk. Sometimes, I also vent to someone close to me.

What really helps me get back on track is remembering why I do what I do. I keep a list of the people and things I’m grateful for, along with pictures of the goals I want to accomplish, and the places where I want to be, all right above my desk. I look at these daily, and especially on tough days, they help me regulate my mood and refocus my attention. 

Another thing I think of is that one bad day is only 0.002% of the year.

Between all of that, that’s usually enough to get me back on the horse and keep going. But it took me quite a bit to realize this. Early in my career, I struggled a lot more with bouncing back from all the “no’s” and other wonderful surprises that come with recruiting.

I believe it’s important to acknowledge that bad days are okay as they happen to everyone and they’re mostly out of our control. What really matters, and what is in our control, is how we handle those bad days.

That’s a skill we build over time with patience and practice. Just last week, I saw a recruitment company owner publicly criticize someone who had declined an opportunity he offered months earlier.

When she posted that she was open to work, he shared a screenshot on LinkedIn of his earlier message and called her out, claiming she should have been looking when he reached out. He claimed she turned down the “job of her dreams” from a good recruiter.

I don’t know that recruiter, but I bet if he tuned into himself that day with the intention to turn things around, he probably would not have posted that.

My hope is that we can all take a moment to tune into ourselves, understand why we’re feeling the way we do (especially on bad days), and take the steps needed to keep a few setbacks from derailing our path to success.

This requires self-assessment and awareness. It's something I didn’t want to face earlier on in my career, but once I did, I felt a whole lot better. 

Sami’s Take

Tuning into ourselves can be very scary. There’s a lot of stuff in there we don’t want to look at. But when we try to bypass those things, they slip deep into the subconscious parts of ourselves and then sneakily affect our emotions, thoughts, and eventually our behaviors. 

We can’t bypass the subconscious. We just can’t. This is what Rob had to learn over the years and doing that subconscious work is how he developed his bounce-back muscle. I know this because it’s something we’ve been doing together. 

Keeping in mind that one bad day is just a small whiff of the year is very important to not getting stuck, but if you find yourself coming back to that bad day again and again, there’s likely something in it you need to analyze more. This is what we found when taking a look at why Rob would get so stuck on his bad days turning them into long stretches of sorrow, slowdown, and stalling of his success. 

That deeper look showed us that Rob had really high expectations of himself and what success was meant to look like for him. His expectations were so high there was little to no chance he’d ever achieve them. And I’m not saying Rob isn’t capable of fulfilling his dreams- I mean his parameters for tracking how and when he did achieve part of his dreams was reaching inhuman levels of productivity. He was expecting to hit yearly success goals daily. These goals were unreasonable and when he couldn’t achieve them, he felt like a failure. 

To help Rob overcome this we dove into where and how he set these goals in the first place. It turned out he had a lot of subconscious beliefs about what success looks like and when he should accomplish them. We noticed he felt he was “behind” in hitting his goals and so each day that passed when he didn’t feel he achieved them, he “failed” again. 

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh…” Rob said to me after realizing what he’d been doing to himself. “That’s kinda crazy.” he said. And crazy it was! Once we identified his subconscious beliefs that were driving his emotions, thoughts, and actions we were able to reprogram his mindset and shift it to something that was healthier and more sustainable. As a result, he’s actually realized some of his loftier goals. 

I’m not saying doing the subconscious work will always lead you to your biggest dreams, mostly because after doing that work you might find your “dream” isn’t really your dream, but rather a programming left in you from someone else’s dream for you. Either way, this subconscious work can make a world of a difference in your journey to detoxifying success. 

And if you feel you need some help along the way, I suggest working with a trusted therapist and/or a subconscious coach (like me) who can guide you deeper into your subconscious world to see what’s really going on. 

If you want to work with me email me at sami@soundslikesami.com or book a session at https://www.soundslikesami.com/. I’d love to help. 

*The SoundsLikeSami brand is NOT affiliated with ZARRELLCO. Working with Sami (Samara) DiMouro is NOT a replacement for therapy or other mental and/or medical services. Sami is not a psychologist or medical doctor. All information given is taken based on the judgement and discretion of the client. Sami and the SoundsLikeSami brand are not responsible for negative outcomes to a client's situation, life, and/or actions related or unrelated to the information given. Sami and the SoundsLikeSami brand will never suggest or condone harmful actions (physical, mental, emotional) as a solution to a problem/situation. Any advice acted or not acted on is done on the sole volition of the client. Sami and the SoundsLikeSami brand are not liable for any outcomes, positive or negative, or lack-thereof.