What are you trying to get over? What self-destructive stress loop are you trying to escape? We all roil around in the same old stuff until we learn to free ourselves from the past and embrace the inobvious and counterintuitive opportunities unfolding in front of us. Opportunities often look like threats until we look deeper. A bigger version of you wants out. Here's one way to spot that person...

This week I received notice of a podcast from a friend who was interviewing a former client of mine. I was really invested in working with this person who decided I was no longer relevant to the cause and never told me. I just found myself on the outside one day wondering what happened and why. As soon as I saw the email I cringed and a flood of bad memories and hurt feelings flooded back into my being. I started ruminating once again on what I might of done wrong. I have been processing this one for a few years now and it seems to be the gift that keeps on giving.

What's your trigger?

Rejection is an inevitable part of life and a trigger for many people. Rejections come in all shapes and sizes. You've got yours and I've got mine. Every business has some level of natural attrition. Clients come and go. But some I take more personally than others. Some dismissals trigger my deepest core wound and this one really challenged my sense of relevance in the world. Feeling irrelevant is my least favourite.

Of course, and maybe ironically, "relevance" is at the core of my work with impact entrepreneurs. Since I'm an expert at what it feels like to be irrelevant, I've also become an expert in helping leaders become more relevant. The value I add has evolved from my emotional wound. I think yours does too and the events in your world that trigger you are significant clues to opportunities you are missing to make your contribution to people who can really make the best use of your help.

The things that other people say and do combined with the thoughts and feelings I have about my self in the moment are what trigger my reactions to the world around me for the better or for the worse. I tend to take dismissals very personally but I am learning that if someone does not want to take advantage of what skills and strengths I have to offer, it does not mean I'm irrelevant in the existential sense. It means that there is someone else out there to whom I'd be more relevant. It means that it is time to put myself out there, get off my ass and do my marketing, and let the people I want to know get to know me. 

Triggers are neither positive nor negative. 

The events of the world carry no inherent threat or opportunity outside of what I ascribe to them. This is my choice. My former clients are out in the world pursuing what's important the best way they can. It just doesn't happen to include me. My current clients are also in that same world chasing worthy causes and they have chose to include me and me them. The more solid I am about my own cause and the more proactive I am in including the people I want to work with, the less emotionally reactive I become through time.

My emotional connection to my purpose in time comes to replace the emotional wounds of rejection. I still carry the scars but I have developed stronger character to heal the gaping, bleeding cuts. I am better for the experience and more useful to the people I care about and who care about me.

Your trigger is your future contribution.