Insights and Reflections on Career Experience

You've offered your talents , you've offered your heart , and if those things aren't accepted , then you shouldn't have any regrets . Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast . I'm your host , Tracy Wallace . Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life , that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues ? So did I . You don't have to be an only child to feel this way . In my podcast , we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting , while doing so with humor and light . Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast .

Today , I'm going to talk about insight , having insight , getting insight , stuff like that . Do you have insight into situations around you ? Do you want to have more insight ? Is it something that you even think about ? In general , I would say that I feel like I have pretty good insight into situations that I'm involved with , people that I'm involved with , but recently a relationship , shall I say , with a group of people ended and , on reflecting back on it over the last year , I realized that I felt like I didn't have insight or as much insight as I should have had , and I learned a lot in the process . Let me explain .

If you're a regular listener , you might have heard the episode where I talked about a job interview process , really , because it wasn't just one interview . I had interviewed for this one job for about two months and subsequently I was turned down for the job . And subsequently I was turned down for the job . I was one of three candidates and I felt as confident as I could possibly have felt that I was going to get the job . And when I didn't get it I was pretty sad . I felt like it was the wrong decision . But then , about three months later , after the passing of our horse , dallas , I heard back from the main woman that I had been dealing with , who shared with me that the candidate that they had hired had left . And was I still interested Now ?

Initially I was a little hesitant because I wanted to know why this person had left . Right , what was wrong ? And I asked that question and I was told that , given this job was part-time , he had wanted to . Well , he realized that he needed a full-time job to support himself and his family , which at the time I accepted that answer . But looking back on it later , I questioned it because he knew going in that it was part-time and there's no way that he could have supported a family on that one job right . Maybe he had other part-time jobs or another part-time job and maybe something happened with that . So I guess I didn't give it too much thought right away . I started the job and things were going along pretty well , but then I started to realize that , yes , but then I started to realize that , yes , there were some issues with the job I was working remotely in .

Another state of working in offices is that you can still have conflicts right , working remotely , you can still have personality issues even I mean , not that that was what it was necessarily but you can still have disagreements over job responsibilities and job duties and how things are done . Well , I came into this job with literally three decades of experience in fundraising . My advice and my thoughts and ideas weren't always taken seriously , and that was a little troubling , because the people that I was dealing with initially especially one person who was my boss didn't have anywhere close to the experience that I had . Okay , but fine , that's fine . Part of my job as a fundraiser is to explain and educate on how things work in fundraising , because it's not always necessarily an intuitive process . An intuitive process , it's just not . People feel uneasy about asking , especially for money , but just asking for things in general . I get it . I mean , come on , what are the top three fears in life ? Public speaking , death and asking for money . So it's right up there , anyway , okay .

So time went on and you know it's only part-time anyway , right . Time went on and then in the summer there was really a catastrophic event and a lot of things changed within the organization in a very short time and almost everyone resigned in that short period of time . Now I well , looking back on it , I should have resigned as well , I think , but I decided to stay mostly because I thought I could be helpful . I didn't have a lot of history with the organization , but I had some history and I thought that that could be useful to the people that came in after me . Nobody really had that history or that information that I had , and after going through the period of time in my last job where my boss died suddenly , I realized that there would be a lot of questions and it was going to be a rocky period . I thought I could stay and help in some way . I think that I did . But at the same time things were going to change and change is okay . I'm okay with change . Sometimes things have to change to survive . Things have to change to persevere . That's very true . Not everybody's comfortable with change and of course it depends on the type of change .

Shall we say I've learned a lot , or I've learned some , about the first period of time that I worked there , about some of the backstory , and I realized that , well , I guess there was no way that I could have known some of the history , but I could have asked more questions and possibly I could have read between the lines better . Maybe if I had asked more questions up front and really drilled down into the answers , I would have known that there were some fairly large issues that might have caused some problems down the road and maybe the job that I thought was so good really wasn't Now . I've been doing a lot of thinking about this recently because my time with this organization has now come to an end . It's really a mutual decision . I've gone on with other opportunities that are taking a lot of my time and with this position that I just left , they just don't have the resources to pay me for the work that needs to be done to fundraise to keep the agency going , and that's okay . I'm okay with that . It's really a better situation for everybody .

But , like I said , I've been thinking a lot about this and I question myself was I being naive ? I mean , was that even a possibility ? I've lived a lot of years on this earth and I don't think I'm that naive anymore . I'm not jaded either . I think I'm realistic about things and I do try to see and read between the lines . But I feel like I missed some things .

I think it's important sometimes to dig a little deeper , people and really stretching past where most people would , to really understand and dig deep into the situation , right To understand , and that takes a lot of energy , takes a lot of energy . I mean a lot , let's face it , and sometimes you're rewarded for that and sometimes you're not . Sometimes you're just spinning your wheels . I mean there comes a time when you have to realize that maybe your good ideas aren't going to be listened to , maybe your good ideas are falling on , as my mother would have said , deaf ears , maybe the people involved aren't ready to listen to you , maybe the people involved feel like they have the answers already and the answer's for them and you know what . That's okay . That's okay . That's okay . I don't always have to be the one with the right answer and I don't have to always be the one to solve the problem . I get that Especially as I've gotten older .

I mean , when I was younger , I was more , shall we say , on fire . Right In my 30s I didn't really know what I was doing . I mean , I look back on it now yeah , I knew more than I did in my 20s . Sure , in my 40s I really started to come into my own , I really understood a lot more about how things worked and I understood more about my life and I had more confidence . And my 50s the same .

But now that I'm in my gulp 60s , I feel like , you know , I can tell somebody something , I can provide my observations , but if people don't want to listen to my advice or my insights my insights then it's time for me to move on . Then it's time for me to move on and it's time for me to use my energy and thinking power in a more productive way , right ? But yeah , I really have thought about the question of was I naive in this situation ? Did I put too much trust in this group of people ? Did I not ask enough questions ? I like to think it was just an unfortunate series of events . Sometimes , when things happen in this world . They play out in a way that you couldn't really have predicted . But once things start in motion , one thing happens after another and you get to a place where you could never have guessed that that was going to be the end result . Looking back on it , I think I know what the pivotal moment was and what the pivotal decision was that really caused a major breakdown in the organization . But I'm not really sure and in the end I guess it doesn't really matter , because I've moved .

Learned in this is well , no matter how old you are , you never stop learning from your situations . You never stop learning from your experiences , and it's a good thing to reflect on things that have happened to you . I try not to reflect too much . I mean , I'm not going to obsess over this , it's over . My husband asked me after I had the last scheduled Zoom call . He said well , was it bittersweet ? And I said no , not really . It's just time to move on . I do tend to get emotional about endings , but that wasn't the case this time , so I know it was the right decision . Am I sad or upset with myself for staying on after the big event that happened ? No , I'm not , because I did learn , and I did have good intentions . I wish that I could have provided more assistance to the organization , but that just wasn't the way it worked out , so I don't have any regrets .

I think that's a really important thing to mention is not having regrets , setting yourself up for well in any situation , whether it be personal or professional , with your family , with your friends , people you don't know work environments , school , whatever Doing what you need to do so that you don't have any regrets and I think you know what I'm talking about . If you sit and think about it for a while , you know what you need to have in your mind to make sure that you don't have any regrets going forward After you walk away . That you've done everything that you can do , that you've communicated everything that you can communicate , that you've put yourself out there in a way that's positive , in a way that is justifiable , if you will , that you've offered yourself , you've offered your talents , you've offered your heart , and if those things aren't accepted , then you shouldn't have any regrets and you also shouldn't necessarily be sad about it . So there you have it . That's my dialogue on insights and no regrets for today , the beginning of February 2025 , here we are heading towards who knows what , spring . Let's think about spring . I'm ready for spring , I'm ready to get rid of the cold weather . But , folks , that is all I've got for today .

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Next week , we'll tackle another topic together . I hope you'll join me platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review . It helps others to find us . Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well . Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast . Thanks for listening . I'm Tracy Wallaceace and these are the only child diaries .