Win-Win Situations

I was split! Divided! Didn’t know what I was going to do! You see, for the holiday weekend, my sister and my niece were flying into town from California. Let me clarify, they are flying into the town where I grew up – St. Louis. I’ve only seen my niece a few times in her short little life. In addition, my toddler nephew whose birthday is in June is also in St. Louis. I’ve only seen him a few times as well.

So here’s why I was split. There were several volunteer projects going on that weekend that I wanted to help out at and I had a ton of other work to catch up on as well. So I could go to the volunteer events, stay home relax a little and catch up on some work, or I could go out of town on one of the busiest traveling days of the year, go see my niece and nephew, and get absolutely no work done.

Pop quiz hotshot.

What should I have done? What did I do? What would you have done?

While thinking of my dilemma, I was reminded of a story about two siblings who fought for an orange. Yes. An orange. They both needed an orange for what they were going to do and they were arguing about who should get the orange. The first person said, “I saw it first, so it’s my orange.” The second person said, “I got to it first, so it’s my orange.”

So who should get it? The one that is biggest right?

Just kidding.

What would you do or who would you give it to?

Would you cut it in half?

Well, one person grabbed it from another and it went on and on back and forth. After a brief scuffle, a parental unit (that’s their mom or dad) walked in and asked them what was going on. When they each said that they wanted the orange, their parent asked them why they wanted the orange. Turns out one of them just wanted to eat it – that is – the fruit on the inside and the other one was baking a cake and just needed the peel as garnishments.

 

So the real answer was that they could both get what they wanted.

The challenge is that so often no one ever asks what the other person wants. They just assume the other person wants the exact same thing that they do. When you dive down into it, many times, there can be some solution where both individuals win t
herefore creating a win-win solution.

Back to my dilemma, I was still really torn on what I should do – until a wise person told me, “Go see your family. You don’t see them that often.”

Then it hit me.

What’s really important in my life?

While yes I do have responsibilities that I must meet, family comes first. It always does. Our friends and our family are what make us strong. So it was decided for me. I really wanted to see how I could make this work out for everyone though.

So instead about being concerned about what I was going to do, I sat down to ask MYSELF the questions of what was really needed.

I was able to determine that if I left town on Friday, I could attend a couple of events on Thursday. Then I could get back on Sunday and attend an event that evening and another one on Monday. I could then see my family and make 3 out of 4 events. The fourth event had plenty of help, no real worries there. Hey, that’s pretty good. I was able to figure something out and create a win-win solution after I got out of my own way.

So two important things to mention here are
1) Family comes first. It’s what defines us and makes our world.
2) Stop stressing and look at needs to determine a win-win situation.

Too many times people get concerned abo

ut the little things and it prevents them from figuring out what is really needed. Once I stopped focusing on the “problem” and started focusing on a solution, it really wasn’t that difficult.

Where has your focus been and where can you create win-win situations?

Think about it and ROCK On!

Celebrate Life!
Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen