Stop Workplace Drama: Train Your Team to have No Complaints, No Excuses, and No Regrets

Chapter 5. Stop Relationship Drama

	If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends—you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.
	--Alice Duer Miller

Besides a lack of clarity, all drama has a relationship component. When I first started my business as a professional speaker, I had a lot of drama. Business was not as good as I wanted it to be, so I hired a coach.

After some digging, the coach uncovered something that was significantly impeding my growth: I did not like the phone. I avoided making follow-up calls, and cold calls were completely out of the question. So, my coach said something that changed my life: "Marlene, if you want to excel at this business, you need to fall in love with the phone."

I jokingly say today that this was the best relationship advice I have ever received. The point is, the only way you experience anything is in relationship to something else. I had a bad relationship with the phone, and it kept me from doing things that I needed to do to make my business succeed.

The Premise of Stop Relationship Drama Is This

Everything in life is centered on relationships, and relationships exist because of the way in which you think. You can only experience someone or some situation in relationship to yourself; therefore, in order to change anything in your life, you must change the way you think about it. When you are willing to see another person differently, you can change your relationship with ...