How To Deal With Other People Letting You Down

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE DONT SHOW UP. IT IS REALLY INCONSIDERATE.

That is how I was feeling just ten minutes before writing this. Today I want to talk about how to deal when other people do not deliver.

Now the statement at the top is what I thought when I got off the phone with my energy supplier. They were supposed to come yesterday to fit a smart meter, but they never turned up.

This was annoying, especially because I had set m,y working day around them being here in the morning. I felt angry and agitated, and have only just managed to call the company up.

So my call happened over seventeen hours later. SEVENTEEN HOURS. Now imagine I had been full of rage for that seventeen-hour period because someone did not come through on a promise.

That would be destructive. To put that into perspective, here is what I accomplished in the last seventeen hours.

• Recorded and edited an Instagram and Youtube Video
• Had a call with my social media coach
• Spend time with my fiancee
• Slept
• Worked Out
• Showered
• Scheduled Decembers Instagram Posts

All of this happened in the last seventeen hours. Now would this of been possible if for that length of time I was annoyed and upset that someone had not delivered when they said they would?

Probably not.

My mind would not have been focusing on being constructive towards my targets and outcomes. But DESTRUCTIVE, as my emotions would take over my body and mind.

This is not healthy and it certainly will not help you become more productive in your workday.

As a business grows your job as an entrepreneur or manager or newcomer changes.

An entrepreneur becomes the sole decision-maker, as other duties like marketing and sales are passed to teams. A manager may have more staff working under them. A newcomer will become more knowledgeable and may have to help newer comers to get up to speed.

As we grow, as the business grows our responsibilities change, and the more we begin to depend on other people. This then leads to the side effect of that.

People letting you down. People not coming through on what they promised. Excuses as to why that did not happen. This can lead to you becoming infuriated. It can lead to you wanting to make rash decisions.

I once witnessed this first hand. I had been asked to do a very simple data collection task by my boss, who was also the owner as a favor for one of his friends. I tried to rush it and made a categoric mistake which meant that we could no longer help this friend.

My boss phoned his friend and explained he had made the mistake. After screaming at me and giving me a well-deserved verbal beat down, I asked him why he did not say it was one of his employees who made the mistake.

He looked at me calmly and answered.

I am in charge of the business, it was my decision to trust you with the task, that was my decision, clearly, I made the wrong decision, but in business, you have to be willing to die on the sword when your employees make mistakes. If you cannot do that, you cannot have a successful business.

These words have lived with me since, and it is how I look at everything. In business we are going to have people let us down, we are going to trust people to come through for us, but we are also going to have to learn how to deal with the rage.

So here are my top tips on how to deal with that rage.

By taking emotions out of the rage you are feeling, you are allowing yourself to make better decisions. It can be hard at times to see through the red mist but at the end of the day, we are all human, and we will make mistakes.

Take time to relax then be analytical then make your decision. You will feel so much better about it.