Who knew that last week's U.S. Senate loser in Michigan has life lessons for the rest of us?
Brian O'Connor does, and The Detroit News' personal finance columnist shares pick-yourself-up tips for Terri Lynn Land and others knocked down hard in their profession.
Terri Lynn Land got dramatic, public career coaching.
Granted, most of us never will be called "a national embarrassment," as the Republic nominee was by Jack Lessenberry on Michigan Radio a day after Gary Peters beat her by 55-41 percent. Still, O'Connor thinks these fundamental things apply to low-profile setbacks as well as front-page ones:
- Revisit your successes, and remind yourself that you can — and have — done good work in the past.
- Figure out what went wrong.
- If you were pursuing something you believe you should do, did you go about it badly and need to improve your execution?
- Or did you do it with the wrong people in the wrong place?
- Focus on where you're headed now.
O'Connor, who quotes a local career coach, also raises "a more difficult question" for Land and ordinary wash-outs:
Whether you did a bad job at something you secretly don't want to be doing.
In Land's case, career coaching came in a dramatic way. Her public performance evaluation from voters, journalists and party leaders should confirm that being a senator isn't something this 56-year-old is cut out to do.
