Mind & Mindfulness

It might sound like a relic from adolescence, to be “misunderstood,” but I’m not sure we ever outgrow the occasional, often intense and unsettling sense that you—your objectives and your identity—are being misconstrued, dismissed, or in some way compromised. Even for leaders of large enterprises—VPs, SVPs, C-suite executives—feeling misunderstood can register as a threat, and at the very least, it can be incredibly destabilizing. Whether that misunderstanding comes from the people in your professional orbit or your personal one, the futility of correcting false perceptions, and worse, the resulting dissonance that can make you question your own intentions, is universal.

It might sound like a relic from adolescence, to be “misunderstood,” but I’m not sure we ever outgrow the occasional, often intense and unsettling sense that you—your objectives and your identity—are being misconstrued, dismissed, or in some way compromised. Even for leaders of large enterprises—VPs, SVPs, C-suite executives—feeling misunderstood can register as a threat, and at the very least, it can be incredibly destabilizing. Whether that misunderstanding comes from the people in your professional orbit or your personal one, the futility of correcting false perceptions, and worse, the resulting dissonance that can make you question your own intentions, is universal.