Issue #54: Stop Reacting, Start Responding
Insights on messy decisions, better outcomes, and staying aligned with what matters most.
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It’s been 6 months since we launched ✨ Magical Audios ✨ !
And in the last 6 months we have launched:
🔥 A guided self-hypnosis program to beat burnout!
🔥 A guided self-hypnosis program to boost confidence!
🔥 A new look for our website 💅 And we’ve made available a gifting option 🎁 (now you can give the gift of wellness!)
🔥 A Whatsapp Community to give people a safe space to talk about their healing journey.
🔜 Our first online event to discuss burnout: how to spot it, recover from it, and keep it from coming back again (join us on December 12)! see you there!
But the biggest flex we can make are not these launches but the feedback we’ve been getting from the people who’ve joined our programs. ❤️
It all sounds fun and fabulous but behind the scenes are many many sweat, blood, and tears. So for the Magical Audios team, the last 6 months flew by so fast but some days felt so slow!
Kat, our CEO, said that the stories about how much we’ve fucked up while building Magical Audios could make for a good book.
I said, “how about a newsletter?”
Now here we are!
Have you heard of Eudaimonia?
I learned about Eudaimonia in my junior year at University in one of the Philosophy classes we were required to take.
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, describes Eudaimonia as the highest form of happiness or “flourishing”. Eudaimonia is about living a life that is aligned with our true Self, our purpose, fulfilling our potential, and contributing meaningfully to the world.
Said differently, Eudaimonia is said to be a human’s greatest goal. Aristotle also argued that the things that we do, working towards success, building relationships, learning, and growing — our intrinsic goal behind all of these is to achieve eudaimonia.
Eudaimonia is also not a static state. Our definition of Eudaimonia may change over time, as we mature and gain more experiences and perspectives.
Contextually speaking, we do the things that we do — we chase careers, go for the promotions we want, start businesses, and go to Pilates class at 8 am, because we believe, consciously or subconsciously, that this brings us closer to Eudaimonia. Or we believe that these things bring us closer to fulfilling our potential and purpose… the highest form of happiness that we truly are after.
If you’re a Philo major or familiar with Eudaimonia, help me fill in the gaps as I try to explain what I remember from Philo class, how I hold this philosophy close to my heart, plus a bit of help from Google to make sure I don’t misrepresent (as much as I can).
Why am I writing about Eudaimonia?
I’ve been thinking about Eudaimonia lately as I reflect on the choices that I’ve made (alongside my co-founders) so far in 2024. Specifically, the ones that ended up with disastrous results.
Eudaimonia suggests that we make our decisions, whether consciously or not, with the goal of flourishing — so why do we make decisions that give us the opposite?
At the beginning of Magical Audios, we’ve made so many questionable decisions. 😂
We chased after collaborations that compromised our time, money, and effort.
We put out products that were motivated by money more than by our mission.
We worked at 10x speed because we were running after a make-believe deadline.
I could argue that our collective Eudaimonia was to make Magical Audios successful so we can reach and help more women in the world, so why did we make decisions that have given us more headache than satisfaction?
Reflecting on what’s happened - while we made those decisions thinking it would make us successful, those decisions were also grounded in:
Fear - we were so afraid of failure that we put our faith in other people who promised silver bullets
Self-limiting beliefs - we didn’t trust our skills, expertise, experience or our ability to learn, grow, and make things work
Scarcity Mindset - in a world where everybody seems to be thriving, we believed that there wasn’t enough room for us to succeed too
And while we thought then that we were making decisions that would make us happy, those decisions were far from being aligned with our values. We prioritized short-term gratification vs. choosing what would help us flourish.
These days, we’re being more careful with our decisions. We still experiment and take risks. I guess the better way to put is that we’re being intentional.
We question our decisions — not in the sense of “is this the right thing to do?”; but as in “is this decision aligned with our values” or “is this decision aligned with our mission?”.
We don’t always get it right. And we still make decisions that contradict what we intended the result to be. But when decisions are intentional vs being grounded in fear (et al), there are no regrets and only learnings and next steps.
Eudaimonia doesn’t ask for perfection. It only asks for us to live with intention and integrity every day. And when we make mistakes, it invites us to reflect and learn.
What does this have to do with anything, especially careers?
These days, my conversations with my coaching clients have been all about shifting behaviors from reacting to responding.
The difference between the two is the act of being intentional, which relates more to the latter.
Many of my clients are experienced and talented PMs who are frustrated about the state of their careers in one way or another.
They received less than satisfactory feedback from their manager
They’re up to their eyeballs in tasks that never seem to lessen regardless of how many boxes they tick… and yet they’re still seen as “not strategic”
They have conflict with their cross-functional peers over who gets to do what
And no matter what they do, they can’t seem to make the jump from where they are, to their intended next step.
So they react.
A behavior that’s knee-jerk, driven by emotions, and usually generates no value for anybody.
Reactions, especially the negative ones, are often grounded in fear, self-limiting beliefs, or a scarcity mindset (et al). Reacting also assumes that we have no agency to change our situation.
If it’s positive, it’s just a matter of luck. If it’s negative, the world is an ass. Or worse, we’re just not good enough.
Some examples of reactions that I have seen or have been guilty of:
Becoming over-protective of our scope
Blaming other people for the predicament we’re in (and complaining about it)
Giving in to negative feelings and just giving up
Reacting is easy. We don’t have to think long and hard about what we want to say or do. We latch on to the first thing that enters our mind at that moment. And often, in the end, we become demotivated and unhappy.
So the work that we’ve been doing is to learn how to respond instead.
To respond is to be intentional. To be clear to ourselves how we want the other side of the situation we are in, to look like.
When we respond, we consider the outcome we want to achieve. We seek to understand why we feel the way we do, the thoughts that drive our emotions, and to surface the parts that can be useful or helpful for our goals (and our growth). We look for insights and challenge the emotions and thoughts that tend to drive a reaction.
When we respond, we come from a place of perspective. A place that recognizes how much agency we have to change our situation, and make better decisions. But also a place that comes from being confident of the impact we have, while still being open to learning more.
Some examples of responses that my clients have started to choose:
They are realistic about their capacity, mindful of their objectives, challenge their priorities, and communicate clear expectations to other people (or delegate)
They don’t feel threatened by conflict and instead, they find ways to collaborate, co-create, and build relationships (or sometimes clarify boundaries when needed)
Sometimes, they even choose to let things go
And often, these responses, are the ones that are needed — to be recognized that we are more “senior” or “ready for the next step”. Opportunities are then created.
But sometimes the biggest reward is being able to go to sleep at night knowing that:
“I did my best with what I know and what I have. Whatever the results, I will learn.”
When we respond, we make decisions aligned with Eudaimonia
When we respond, we seek to be aligned with our values and self-worth with the aim to fulfill our potential.
Regardless of what you think your purpose is in this world, whether you’re already doing it in your job, or your job is an enabler, or maybe it has nothing to do with your purpose at all — I like to think that, at the end of the day, we’re meant to be happy for what we have and excited for what comes next.
We’re meant to spend our days showing up as our favorite versions of ourselves in every situation we find ourselves in.
And we’re meant to spend our time bringing ourselves closer and closer to our Eudaimonias.
As our jobs take up more than a huge chunk of our day:
if it’s making us more miserable than anything else
if it’s creating a wide gap between us and our values
if we find ourselves constantly questioning our worth
… and the result is what feels like an impenetrable wall between us and opportunities.
Let me ask you this:
Are you reacting or responding?
***
I started this newsletter thinking I was going to write about the challenges we’ve run into so far while building Magical Audios. Instead it became a reflection of how much we let our emotions and our thoughts take away our agency and bring us further from our ideal scenarios (or Self). 😂
But if this helped you reflect on your own behaviors, I’m glad I deviated.
If you’re feeling frustrated, challenged (and not in a good way), and blocked from the opportunities can help you get closer to your Eudaimonia, I’d love to help you make the switch from reacting to responding so that you can find your way around the walls you keep running into.
I have new 1:1 coaching slots opening in January. Let’s chat!
5 Things That I Loved This Week
The call to create from the Happy Startup School
Letting go is your path to happiness from Yung Pueblo
Lionel Loveless talks about patterns at CreativeMornings PKX
Choose your fuel wisely by Seth Godin
And lastly, check out the latest guided self-hypnosis program we just launched.
If you got to this part of this newsletter, thanks for staying with me til the end. And thank you for sharing with me topics that you’d like for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions on.
❤️
Kax
PS. Here are more ways for us to connect:
Follow me on Threads or LinkedIn for less filtered thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions. 😂
Learn more about my 1:1 coaching services. I typically work with experienced Product Managers and new Product Leaders who want to achieve their product and career goals. (and if budget is a constraint: join incitefulapp and you can get coaching for free!)
Another great read! And you're so right, being intentional on where we spend our energy is essentially the fast track to our own happiness and fulfillment.