Welcome to this week's episode of the Modern Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Cook. And today's

episode is all about those frustrating work situations that seem to happen over and over again.

Guess what? They're trying to tell you something. Today we'll talk about how you can find the

insight in those moments and turn it into

positive action. In the earliest days of running my business, I remember being fascinated or

horrified by the black hole into which every proposal seemed to fall. Back then, I'd meet with a

leader seeking a program or some consulting, and I'd follow up with

exactly the proposal they'd requested, and then, nothing.

I was so frustrated.

Our conversation had made clear that they had a need, and I had a solution.

And their inability to close the loop was so bleeping frustrating.

I'll confess to having spent a few hot minutes, or maybe a month, stewing in my frustration over their failure to respond. And then one

day, my brave husband gently suggested that maybe I needed to look at how I was contributing

to this frustrating outcome.

I really hate it when he's right. But as it turned out, I was indeed playing a role in this

broken record of frustration. These people were busy doing their day jobs. They apparently

were not sitting around waiting for my proposals. I realized I needed to sharpen my calls

to action in my cover notes. I needed to follow up, sometimes three or four times to land the next meeting.

But this reflection was a game changer for me. I made some tweaks to my approach, and magically

their behavior changed. Suddenly, proposals became contracts, which

ultimately became a business. Being this brand of reflective, asking what am I doing that's

contributing to this problem, can be hard. But in your own moments of repeated frustration,

...