CHAPTER 3

The Scary Stuff

Processing Fear and Negativity

Early in my career I was working in a new management position at a company we’ll call Acceleric, a large logistics company in the Pacific Northwest. Still quite young and inexperienced, I found myself struggling to maintain my composure with my brightest employee, Roger, who had tendered his resignation after accepting a plum job with Expedite, one of Acceleric’s archrivals. “You can’t resign,” I pleaded. “You’re running our largest projects.” Roger lifted his eyes from the floor, shrugged, and said, with noticeable excitement in his voice, “They’re giving me a huge salary increase and a nice signing bonus. Plus, I get to use the new design tools from Oracle!”

I felt crushed. I took it ...

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