Hi, and welcome back to the Awfully Quiet podcast. I am not gonna lie, it is the crack of dawn. I'm recording at a really early time, and you'll hear it in my voice because normally I'll really get my voice ready to record. This morning I thought, I'm just gonna give you the, the, the raw, authentic, pre 8:00 AM morning voice and we'll see how that goes.

But, I'm recording something that stuck with me that this week, and I really wanted to get it out before I head into the workday. Before, well, I actually have. A cheeky reformer Pilates class booked before I start the workday today. It's a Friday morning and I'm really excited for the weekend. Now, I wanted to get this out because I think I said this in another episode.

I feel like when you have an idea in your head and you wanna express something. There is a time window at which you can, you know, really bring it across in a way that it lands, and I wanna hit that time window. Now, what it's all about is this affirmation that I'm sure you will have heard of before. And it goes, everything works in my favor.

I'm sure you've heard this on well, maybe a LinkedIn quote or on Pinterest, or you know, somebody will have said this to you. You know what? Everything is going to work out in your favor, and maybe you are a strong believer of that tool because I certainly am. I have always believed that I have always had this trust that everything's working out for me.

Everything, you know, turns out to be good just the way it is. And, I wanna talk about a recent opportunity ahead at work that reminded me of this affirmation and of this sentence that everything works in my favor, because frankly, it felt like it didn't. So, what happened is that I recently had a huge opportunity at work.

and it looked like this was going to naturally catapult me to the next level, and the way it came about was really beautiful because it's what I talk about. All the time on here. and it's all about this concept of advocacy and having people in your corner who, vouch for you, who support you, who know where you're headed in your career, and are then able to really bring you up to the next level when chances come up, when opportunities arise.

And this is exactly what happened in this case. So, I've had somebody reach out to me with a job opportunity who I have worked with a couple of years ago. I was on his team, not directly reporting into him, but I was on his team, interacted with him quite a quite a bit, and then he went on to be, a, you know, global VP for a, a brand and, you know, in a different structure.

So I'm currently working in. The regional structure. He worked in the global structure and so.a couple of years past, I've always stayed in touch. I've always made sure that this person knows where I'm heading, what my next potential move is. just kind of loosely stayed in touch, which I think what, which I always recommend because somebody having worked with you in the past is, is you already having proven yourself.

And, for somebody like me who is not extremely visible in an organization. This is gold. Somebody like that is solid gold because they will always support you and think of you. So, that person reached out to me this summer and had a job opportunity that frankly, was fantastic. It would've been such a great move for me and something I, yeah, had envisioned for my next step.

And quite honestly, I wouldn't have thought that that next step would happen right now. But. Why not, right? Why not? Because frankly, this would've been the first time in my career that things would work out in my favor and work out a little without me having to push, without me having to, really go for it, try hard.

And, obviously I would've still needed to apply and there would've still been an application process. But knowing this person, having worked with them in the past and having proven myself to them in the past. It looked like it was really going to work in my favor. This time. It really looked like it was going to give me an advantage and was going to give me an upper hand in something for the very first time, because up until then, I always applied with, for, applied for roles with a team and with managers that hadn't worked with me before.

And so it was always this huge pain of. Having to prove myself in an interview, having to, you know, really bring examples or have people advocate for me. And I always feel like selling yourself is so much harder than somebody else, doing the talking for you. And so, long story short, the opportunity didn't materialize because at the end of the day, I wasn't able to apply.

And the reasons for that were mostly. A little bit political, a little bit, you know, logistically it didn't work out. The timing wasn't quite right and so I wasn't able, to, you know, go for it. And that felt heavy at first. I was quite a bit frustrated. Felt quite a bit sorry for myself because again, I thought, well, this is why this is, you know, why I've worked so hard.

This is why I've put so much effort into building advocacy, into making sure I stay in touch with people. And this was going to, I had this beautiful success story in my head of like, oh, this finally shows, this is how it's done. but then it didn't work out. And, One of the first things though that came into my mind was, well, it just wasn't meant to be.

It's, you know, something else is gonna happen that's going to be so much better. Something else is going to work out. and everything is going to be working in my favor and. I'm not kidding when I say that. It's, it's really what I believe and I believe that in that moment I thought to myself, well this is, I feel a little sorry for myself.

I am a little sad, but it's okay because something else is gonna happen and I have a beautiful support system around me at work with my current manager. You know, the management and the senior leadership around me, they are extremely supportive. So to with the bottom of my heart, I believe that things are going to work out.

but then recently, and somebody, somebody said this about, things working out all the time, it was actually in spin class. I know I've talked about spin class quite a bit in these past few episodes, so I wanna be mindful. But, one of my favorite spin instructors said this in the middle of a ride, where they went.

You don't need to feel like everything is working out for you all the time. And you can imagine how that goes down in spin class where obviously you're struggling at a certain point and you know things are not working in your favor and you feel like you're not gonna make it. And what they were referring to is obviously that feeling is not a bad thing.

Like things not working out in for you in that moment or feeling like too hard for you to to do. It's not a bad thing. We don't need to feel like we can easily do every spin class and we can easily jump up to any level or, you know, things are working out for us career wise. It doesn't need to feel like that all the time in order for it to be good.

And I remember in that moment I was like, oh my God, I need to remember the sentence. I need to jot this down. I need to talk about this because. There is. It almost takes this affirmation, a level deeper. Everything works in my favor. Yes, it's true, but what we don't talk about is that everything working in my favor, a lot of time looks like things not working out for us because we don't know what's in our favor.

Sometimes we go after things that. Are simply not meant for us and that wouldn't be good for us. And then in that moment of rejection, in that moment of frustration, it looks like they're not working out for us because we can always just understand these things retrospectively. We can always just look back and see well.

In that moment where I was frustrated, that was actually everything working out in my favor, but I didn't realize that. And so I feel like this is what we need to keep in mind when it comes to career opportunities, when it comes to things feeling hard or things feeling like they're working against us.

Maybe they aren't. Maybe this summer, this opportunity for me, it, it just wasn't. Meant to be and something else is gonna happen. But right now it feels, it just feels like an opportunity that was missed. It just feels like, the universe conspiring against me and people not supporting me. And I wanna hold some space for that feeling of things not working out.

And I wanna embrace it more because I always strive for this. It. So in my career and in and in life, I always feel a certain level of success or contentment or pride, proud of myself when things are working out for me, when the things I've planned or things I've really wanted end up happening. Things working in my favor and then things accumulating and, and more things and opportunities coming to me that I hadn't even envisioned and, dreamed up and, you know, things just feeling like they naturally click into place.

I love that feeling, but it's so hard to create it. It really comes from a place of being in tune with yourself, feeling grounded. Being grateful for what you have, attracting more of what you have and truly believing that things are working out for you and, and, and going with the flow of what is meant to happen.

And likely also the ability to let go of things that weren't meant to be and letting go of opportunities that didn't materialize so that we have that space of. Of things being able to work out for us and that is certainly something that I'm going to be taking into the next couple of weeks and month.

This sentiment of things don't always have to feel like they work out. They might be working out in the background without us knowing, but it's not going to feel like it. It's going to feel tough. It's going to feel like, you know, sometimes everybody's working against us and things are not working in our favor.

Things are not going as planned, but we embrace that sentiment of That's okay. It's a hard stretch, like in spin class, it might be a tough climb. It might be a sprint that feels exhausting. It might be that everyone else looks to be doing so much better, which they aren't. Not in spin class, not in real life, not in our careers, but it looks like that.

And so this feeling of I am trying so hard and it doesn't seem to be working. Just a reminder that things are likely going to be working out in the background and in the long run. I love this for myself and so I thought, I love this for you too. I hope that you can take something away from this and it gives you the ability to take that affirmation of everything works in my favor a little deeper.

And understanding that the feeling, the feeling is not that, Warm fuzzy, oh, I know everything's working in my favor. What it's going to feel like in the moment is, is, is shit, is, is, is not work it, it doesn't feel like things are working out for you, but they are in the long run. And so let's feel like that together for the moment and let's see what else happens in the next couple of weeks and months.

I'll see you next week.