What if Everything is a Gift?

How to love the thing you hate at work

What if the thing that sucks at work doesn’t have to suck? What if it’s… a gift?

I know that seems counterintuitive, but bear with me:? My background in improv comedy gives me a set of powerful concepts that I use in my work as a coach and facilitator. One of them is the power of choice; specifically, the power of choosing to treat everything as a gift.?

When you’re onstage, making something out of nothing with other people, treating every move another actor makes as a gift helps propel the scene forward by giving you additional information. Even a small, nonverbal reaction is incredibly valuable. If I say to my scene partner, “Hey, I got us tickets to a Broadway show tonight,” and she frowns, that reaction doesn’t mean I made a bad choice as an improviser — it means she’s given me the gift of new information to move our scene forward. “Oh, right, I forgot… you’re still blacklisted from most of the big Broadway theaters because of the incident.” I don’t know where that scene is going, but I do know that every piece of incoming information is a gift, if I choose to treat it as such.

Likewise, when you’re offstage, improvising everyday life (as we all do), everything someone else does provides you with the gift of information. Whether you’re interacting with a family member or a corporate stakeholder, when they do something unexpected, you can choose to see that as an obstacle, a setback — or a gift. Why a gift? Because now you know something you didn’t know before. You have data. And you can use that data to make an informed next choice.?

I talk about choice in several workshops I offer that use improv concepts to help leaders unlock new levels of confidence and joy. One of my favorites is called Choose the Fun Script, which? may sound light and fluffy —? while it is a ton of fun (“we laughed til our cheeks hurt,” said one group recently), it also gets at something incredibly serious, which is our ability to make different choices that lead to different outcomes. A COO who recently attended one of my workshops told me:?

“I'm going to use this later today at a board meeting. I've been focusing on all the things we can't do, but I want to use this mindset to start focusing on what we can.”

How did she go from dread to positive anticipation in the course of a one-hour workshop? By choosing to experiment with a new perspective, and to start treating things (even challenges!) as gifts. Notice my use of the word “experiment.” It’s something I emphasize with all of my clients, because it takes the pressure off of our need to “get it right.” You’re just trying something new, and seeing what happens. When you’re feeling struck, as this COO was —?why not try something new? There’s a reason we all know the old aphorism about the definition of insanity being to keep doing the same thing but expect different results. Experiments give you a powerful, manageable tool for change.

For the COO heading into her board meeting, during our time together, nothing changed but her perspective. But changing your perspective is huge; ultimately, the first step to changing our circumstances is to change our mindset. This can be especially hard if you work inside of an organization that doesn’t incentivize you to look at things from a new angle, or that implicitly punishes you for trying new things. We’re often told, “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions,” when in fact, it might be much more fruitful to be told, “bring me problems, and we’ll find the opportunities — the gifts —? in them together.” Note that this reframing is a powerful tool to use not only with yourself, but also, with anyone you lead.

In my own life, one area where I’ve tried treating challenges as a gift is as a parent. When I find myself butting heads with my daughter, I try to remember: she’s telling me something. If I can find the presence of mind, I will try to step back and ask myself, “What is she telling me, either directly, with her words, or indirectly, through the way she’s expressing herself? What’s the opportunity here to connect?” It’s not easy, but I also try to get curious about myself: “Why am I reacting this way? Is there a different choice available to me?” More than once, embracing this approach has had us laughing or hugging, instead of being mad at each other, within minutes.

If you want to start treating everything as a gift, here are some simple questions to ask yourself the next time something that someone else says or does feels like an obstacle:

• What’s true here?
• What else can I notice?
• How might I do/think/be differently from my defaults as I approach this?
• If I knew I couldn’t fail, what would I try?
• What would be the fun way to approach this?

...Yes, the fun way! As people often tell me after participating in my Choose the Fun Script workshop, there’s real power in fun, and in play; in fact, it often unlocks a whole lot more than seriousness.?

If you’re trying to make a change, the most important place to start is by shaping your awareness of your defaults, so that you can start playing with new approaches, in order to achieve different results.?

If you’re ready to shift your perspective, have more fun at work, and unlock your team’s confidence and joy, I’d love to talk to you about bringing a workshop to your organization.?

Where do you see an opportunity in your life, either at home or at work, to reframe an obstacle as a gift?