Are you a Mellie or a Scarlett?

For those of you who are old enough to remember that little classic called "Gone with the Wind," you'll probably recall the impetuous, emotional lead character of Scarlett O'Hara and her polar opposite saintly and patient Mellie (Melanie) Hamilton.

At my job, I am lucky enough to have Mellie as my boss. She is the most nurturing, positive, encouraging, forgiving human being I know. And she has so much patience.

This afternoon, she showed that patience again with me when I went into full on Scarlett about something that happened at work.

I will admit I have passion (in my family, we call it being "grizzly"). I get these sometimes "I love Lucy"-type ideas when I'm sitting in a meeting that makes me want to suggest things that sometimes do not fit neatly within my existing job description but veer into what I call "the extracurricular." I see things sometimes (not dead people) but ideas -- when we'll be talking about, say, a routine event we're planning and I'll get a wild idea to do something unusual, not on the normal path. Something that I think our clients might like.

I get this fire - to do something extra for our clients - something that often involves a precursor sentence, "Now - go with me on this."

My boss has consistently given me an environment to shoot for the moon with these ideas. For example, first, it was telling "love stories" between our line level employees and the line level customers they helped with our IT services. Next, it was interviewing our client CIO and her daughter who had six concussions for a blog to bring awareness to our client's philanthropic foundation dedicated to creating concussion education and awareness. Now, it's an idea involving bringing to life our incredible culture.

Like Mellie in "Gone with the Wind," she has embraced all my ideas, all my suggestions -- a constant supporter to all of us around her. She's positive, smiling and I have never once heard the words, "I don't think that will work," or "I really don't like that idea." I use her as an example to our young son who's interested in leadership - as the example of a true servant leader.

I, on the other hand, have been the sometimes-impetuous Scarlett at work when it comes to these ideas. I've been working on dialing down the passion. As I refresh my memory on Scarlett and read on Wikipedia, I can't say I'm "vain, self-centered and spoiled by wealthy parents," but I do have the passion she showed. Today at work, that passion was dialed to "11." I went far too Scarlett/impetuous with my Mellie boss. Not disrespect, mind you - but the fire in the belly when I wasn't understanding a course of action. I texted her after, "I promise to be less emotive and more measured next time."

I called my work buddy who's my insta-support group person and talked through my reaction. She was the perfect salve to a long work week and we traded stories of our work tests -- doing a bit of problem solving together but mostly just listening to each other's challenges. We also remarked that we both sometimes burn ourselves by going out of the box with our jobs while others around us are content with staying within the lines and sometimes those colleagues move further.

In the middle of our phone conversation, my Mellie Boss called me and asked, "Are you OK? Can we go get a cup of coffee together?" .... and we did. She drove to my house to pick me up. One hour later, I get a text from my work buddy asking if I'm OK .... I text her that I have the best boss in the world who just took me out for coffee after a tough afternoon.

My support group work friend (who coincidentally happened to be named after a certain female character in "Gone with the Wind") texted me back on hearing the news of our Mellie/Scarlett coffee break: "Oh!!! I love u both! That made my heart happy! ... Gigi you and I want our work to matter and make an impression, lets promise each other we won't second guess our passion and gut reaction to things ... I don't ever want to be mediocre ... Promise?"

Here's to not being mediocre even if it means taking a chance and coloring outside the lines. And SOMEtimes being slightly Scarlett.

Do you have passion at work that you have to sometimes check?

See this great Forbes article on the different types of work passion and how to dial it up or down.