#43🐼 Core PM Skills - Processing Disappointment and Rejection

A framework to process feelings when things don't go the way you hoped.

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog that explores ADHD, product management, and the complexities of a neurodiverse life.

In each issue, I help you navigate the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.

Part 20 of the Book of ADHD Product Management, a guide to navigating the basic principles of product management and ADHD.

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🌋Takeaways

• Refer to my very first illustrated graphic below for the Ground, Conduct, and Give framework.

• Fuck the fear, and be inspiring.

⭐Introduction

Originally I was going to write about how I use my visual thinking skills and ADHD to create a new brand design.

I decided to save that for next week because that’s not the most important thing on my mind right now.

Disappointment and processing big feelings are on my mind right now.

This morning I was rejected from a job where I felt like I fully prepared and showed up for. I offered my full self and didn’t try to mask or be weakened by my insecurities. I was ready for a 6 round battle.

I didn't pass the first case study. It's crushing to fail so early at something that brought me such personal growth.

Today’s story is about me processing my own big feelings of disappointment and showing you how to process yours in 3 steps:

1. Ground

2. Conduct

3. Give

🐼Ground

Allow yourself to feel and process the emotions of what’s happening. If you’re like me, your go-to reaction to big feelings is to bury or rationalize them away.

It’s a great strategy until you bury the feelings so much they explode unexpectedly and hurt whoever has the luck to be near you. Then you bury your feelings again until the next cycle. A solution based on cyclical pain is not a great solution.

Instead, allow yourself to feel the emotions and sit with the uncomfortableness.

I'm allowing myself and my family to process the feelings of it by giving it a name and sharing them.

Here’s my negative feeling pile:

• I'm sad and disappointed I didn’t get what seemed like an amazing job.

• I’m scared to continue to not have a regular income.

• I feel guilty that I continue to put the majority of our financial burdens on my wife.

• I’m envious of the people that did make it to the next round.

• I’m sad my friend won’t get their referral bonus.

• I’m scared to ask for feedback.

Here’s my positive feeling pile:

• I’m proud I didn’t cram and I asked others for help in getting ready.

• I’m proud I conducted the interview with my full self and didn’t hide my personality.

• I’m happy that I have no regrets about how I performed and prepared for the interview.

Grounding is allowing yourself to feel the emotions instead of giving in to whatever reactive feeling that may come up. To fully experience the feelings away so they don’t come back to get you later.

Sometimes it’s putting your hand on your heart and doing deep breathing. Other times, it’s a list of feelings to strangers on the internet.

🐼Conduct

Decide on what to do with these feelings now that you’ve had the space to experience them. Now that I know what I’m feeling, how do I choose what to do with them? The choice is the key part.

With ADHD, it’s easy to give in to whatever feelings and actions that come to mind. So far I’ve wanted to cry, tell my wife I’m sorry, eat a ham and cheese croissant, and run until my legs gave out.

I decided to write this post instead. I did it because I didn’t want to diminish the personal growth experience I had from the rejection. I chose not to give in to a pity party or the “screw them, they don’t know what they’re missing out on” thoughts.

I chose to allow myself to feel what happened and share it with others who might be experiencing similar feelings.

🐼Give

Take action on what you’ve decided to do with your feelings and share it.

I’m giving you my feelings of disappointment, sadness, hope, and pride through this story to help us all move forward. Giving is an invitation for myself and for others to experience this event with me. It’s an invitation of kindness, love, empathy, and hard truths (maybe I didn’t practice enough?).

Giving can be as simple as sending the feelings out through your feet or accepting a hug from a friend. My give for this experience is sharing my interview experience and also letting the company know what I liked about the interview in hopes they keep it up.

Pandas always me happy hence the theme today as I process my disappointment.

🐼Here’s how they made the interview experience great and why I’m so disappointed

Feel free to jump to the conclusion if you’re not interested in reading about my interview experience.

• I've never felt more welcome and accepted by a company in talking to the recruiter.

  • They didn’t care that most of my experience is in internal tools and cost savings for a customer-facing product.

  • I was valued for my writing, side hustles, and work experiences let me know that. I was told my blog was part of why I was picked out of 650 candidates.

• The product challenge was something familiar but challenging enough that I was excited by it and not bored.

  • In this job market, most places are only interviewing candidates with direct experience. Most of my experience is in data visualization but I haven’t seen a good challenge related to it in a long time.

• I really enjoyed the customer experience in setting up their product and felt like a valued customer even in my trial.

  • Reading their feature release page was like reading through a new phone announcement page. It was fun and exciting to read rather than just a text list of release notes.

• The case study was an inclusive experience.

  • They provided me with a written prompt with the case study.

  • I was told the case study came from their library and the questions were more thoughtful and fair than the questions that people make up on the spot (I’m guilty of this as an interviewer)

  • They offered to turn off their camera to allow me to read and process the case study.

  • Their video and audio feed was high which made it easier to see their facial expressions and hear them.

• The recruiter offered to meet up for feedback. (I’m going to accept it after I get over the fear)

• The salary was the target salary I’ve been working towards for a few years.

✨Conclusion

This experience has taught me that being my authentic self is my competitive advantage and not a weakness.

There are lots of people that do the same job, so how do I stand out? I stand out by learning as much as I can about what I want and who I am. I stand out by telling people I’m a product manager who also is an ADHD coach and a whiskey company co-founder.

I am fearlessly authentic because it empowers my feelings to be my best self in interviews. It invites companies that are looking for my exact skills and needs to find me. It invites companies to be inspired by me.

Fuck the fear, and be inspiring.

🐼Want to learn more, talk to me.

⏭️Next Week

Visual thinking, design, and how to not annoy others with verbose honesty.