Levels of Offensiveness Behind Closed Doors
So what are they, exactly?
Who is allowed to throw the punches, and to whom?
Is professional jabbing allowed to be done without the other partner present?
How do you mend relationships with the above mentioned people?
to put it bluntly....HOW DO YOU NOT TELL THEM THAT YOU HOPE THEY GET HIT BY A BUS?
My life is full of predicaments. I'm sure yours is as well, especially if you are venturing into the word of start-ups, dick-measuring-contests, seniority vs. young blood, experience vs. expertise & the like. Being a female is it's own league of volatility; disrespect is apparent and evident more often than not, and incompetency is almost expected. This, in my opinion, is so disheartening and downright insulting. But, wait a minute. I am also only 26. Is this general behavior due to myself being a female, or just being young?
Start-ups are full of similar aged young professionals; even though they may not be female, they are still innovative and highly intelligent. I am proud to consider myself one of them, even if other people care to disembowel my notion. This is my first attempt at running a successful start-up, and it is the most valuable learning experience I have ever been involved with. Doing it with only the help of my partner (who just happens to be my boyfriend) has taught us both so much about-literally-everything we had no idea about before (seriously!!!!).
Unfortunately, I was called 'incompetent of being a CEO' regarding my own creation. So far we are on track with where we need to be, and don't get me wrong there have been blunders, mistakes, stuff taking longer than it should have, relationships that I should have taken more/less seriously, etc. but at the end of the day I can go to bed happy and wake up hungry every morning. I may be incompetent of comprehending the above mentioned statement, but that's about all I can come up with off the top of my head. No, kidding. I am very open to learning about my incompetencies...err, well, I prefer the words 'what I suck at' to incompetency. I feel as if the latter imposes a feeling of helplessness, unwillingness to learn, inability to understand; I am none of these.
I am the most adamant person on working to overcome suckage; I started working in b2b outside sales to learn business accumen; I then switched over to inside sales to conquer my formerly most hated thing in the world-talking on the phone. Now I love it, have learned to control the pitch and my pitch, and have conquered the toughest part of corporate mumbo jumbo that has ever plagued me. Put me in a crowd of 1000 people and I put on a show, but for some reason the phone was always daunting. I am not only an expert and highly educated in fitness & nutrition (BS/MS nutritional biochemistry and exercise physiology) but I have a successful track record from cold-calling to contract signage with Fortune 500 companies in a totally unrelated field. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I am saying that I have worked really hard and am not a pile of rocks.
When someone close to the business calls a start-up entrepreneur incompetent...mind you, this entrepreneur who moved across the country, and has a working app, intellectual property, patent pending and some of the most successful public relations ladies & gents behind her while still working another full-time sales job to continue to help fund her business.... but not to her face, and makes outrageous claims and requests (just use your imagination), what does someone in my shoes do? Ignore it and move on? Fight back?
Feeling...dumbfounded.