Not Caring Too Much - Detachment is the Secret Sauce for Professional Success and More

Passion. Supposedly that's what those hiring want to see and, once on the job, what managers monitor. And too many in the workforce wind up burning out, making serious errors due to such blinding intensity and/or losing the respect of leadership because of being such blatant suck-ups. 

The reality, as emerges in this thread on Reddit Jobs, is that those who don't take it all that seriously usually have the edge in professional life. The psychological term for that is "detachment." Some religions describe it as a state of being of "wearing the world like a loose garment."

The poster describes himself as devoid of ambition in management consulting. In a primarily remote consulting position they don't scurry into the office for face time and compulsively attend those tedious company social events. Yet, they have continually received positive performance reviews and promotions. One response nails it:

" ... maybe that’s why you’re actually excelling at this job — not getting stressed out about the deadlines, not caring too much about the meaning/purpose of your work, and yet still being able to deliver the work within tight timeframes. This in my opinion is indeed the ideal mentality for anyone working in consulting. Caring too much could get you burned out so easily."

In addition, it can trap you into the distracting cycle of being preoccupied with your mistakes. In the tarot that's symbolized by the Five of Cups or the Spilled Milk card,

It's a major card in the tarot because of the destructiveness of preoccupation with what doesn't go as expected. It can keep a human stuck in the past when the world is galloping forward.

 At Disney Bob Iger shook off his early stumbles when coming back to the job of CEO. The stock price recovered. 

OpenAI's founder Sam Altman didn't let being ousted from the organization undo him. He did what it took to get back in and went on from there.

In the crisis-plagued Big Law sector chair of Paul Weiss Brad Karp steps skillfully out of the vortex of catastrophe back to solid ground. There's no getting caught in a time warp. In this era of high turnover of business leaders, Karp has held his job since 2008.

The power of detachment also carries over to life-off-the-job. Extreme involvement in relationships is what creates unrealistic expectations of another human being. Implosion is inevitable. So are murder-suicides.

Relationships are an important part of life but only a part. In addition, regret over what went wrong can prevent putting together new kinds of connecting, based on lessons learned. No one wants to hear that sad story.

Takeaway: Detach and then observe how effortlessly you're succeeding on and off the job.

Thriving in difficult times starts from the inside.

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