Hey friends, feeling like your career might be a little bit stuck? Just isn't any fun anymore to go to work or to show up for work these days, however you show up. Hey listen, often we go right to thinking that the job's not right for me, the company's not right for me, or I just need to change. Sometimes the thing we need to do is right in front of us.

And the thing we've been avoiding doing is something that can have huge leverage for us in our career. So let me tell you a story.

 About 25 years into my career, I was working for a chief information officer, and in my one on ones with her, she didn't seem to be really paying attention. Now, this had been kind of going on for a number of weeks. When I met with her, and I thought maybe she was just distracted, which might have been true, but she did something that I'll never forget, when we were meeting, I was across the table with her.

Her computer was behind her as I was talking. In mid-sentence, she swiveled around, started typing on her computer. I guess the meeting was over. So, after a couple minutes of her not returning, I just said, I'll catch you later, and I left her office. Now, I remember walking back to my office and thinking, that is the worst possible leadership I have ever experienced.

And at that time, I put it all on her. I didn't assume any ownership for it at all. hey, I mean, I walked into that job in that position, and I was there for probably a year at that point in time. I had a solid resume, a lot of positive results in my experience, decades of experience.

 I didn't even think about how I approach that relationship. So, here's the big tactic. Here's the big shift in thinking that I'd like to suggest to you, if you're feeling daunted. And you're feeling as though there's something not ideal, or even quite right, with your relationship with your boss.

I'd like you to, to utilize a, a model that Stephen Covey put forth, uh, called The Emotional Banking Account. And shift your perspective from I'm trying to get my boss to do what I need to listen to me because I know better. I'm the expert in this area. I'm trying to get convinced them and to sell them and to influence them.

Try to shift your perspective and focus on the relationship. Ask yourself, what does my boss need from me for them to be successful? What situations are they in? What kind of pressure are they being put under? Hey, at the very least, what do they ask me for? And am I delivering on those things consistently?

So, the emotional bank account model is one where you start every relationship at a zero dollars kind of level. emotional bank account and based upon your actions and your interactions with the other individual, you're either going to go positive or negative. You're either going to make deposits into that relationship, or you're going to make withdrawals.

As you make deposits, by responding to requests that they have directly made to you, by listening closely and adjusting your behaviors by offering help, all those kinds of things and being able to deliver on commitments you've made, you'll start to raise up in your balance with them. And as you do them, the other thing that happens is it develops trust.

And then you move from being just the other person across the table that you don't have experience with to someone who becomes more and more a trusted colleague. Less and less someone you have to manage. So, another thing I would like to offer, if you're not quite sure where you're staying with your boss, maybe they don't communicate with you very much.

If you feel like they're over controlling you, if you feel like they're always on you, that's a good indication that your kind of negative in that sense. At very best, you might be at the zero line. So, try to do what I'm suggesting. Shift your perspective. And I don't care how many years you've been working.

This applies to everyone. Especially if you've gone into a new position, a new situation. You've got to build that trust up. And that's based upon you taking ownership for the relationship and investing in it by responding to the requests that your boss have made on a consistent basis and developing that trust.

So, maybe not earth shattering, but believe it or not, in these mentoring and coaching engagements I have, this often comes up. So very often. So, anyway, I leave you with that. Give it a try. And please leave your comments below. And if there's other tactical types of topics, you'd like me to delve into, I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks a lot. Take care, friends.