A WorkLife Lesson: Sinead’s Story: The Power of an Act of Kindness
Sinead had wanted to branch out into running her own commercial real estate business for some time. This was because she believed she could make a positive impact in an industry that often charged what she considered to be unfairly high rental rates. This was the practice at the company she worked at - the only real estate company in her town - her competition, should she go it alone.
Could she do it on her own?
External circumstances gave her the opportunity to test that out.
On her grandmother’s passing, Sinead inherited a property that had been in the family for close to fifty years. As newlyweds, her grandparents had bought it - they ran the downstairs as a sweet shop and had lived over the shop for all of their married life. When Sinead’s granddad passed away, her grandmother remained living upstairs but closed the downstairs shop. She hadn’t wanted to run it alone, and none of the family was interested in running it with her. And so it had become a vacant, unused space in the centre of town.
Over the years, the real estate company that Sinead worked with had approached her grandmother to buy her out, but she had always politely declined, saying this was her home and this was where she intended to see her days out. Sinead knew there was more to it than that. She knew her grandmother didn’t like how the high rental rates had pushed many of her fellow retailers out of business. She knew her grandmother didn’t want to play any part in that.
On learning Sinead had inherited the property, the real estate company approached her to buy it. She politely declined, saying she was going to live there. They then suggested buying or renting the downstairs, with a view to letting it out. Sinead once again declined.
She shared her desire to branch out on her own into commercial real estate. Her intention wasn’t to leave the company, she considered this an opportunity to have her own small venture, and she didn't believe it would impact her work with the company. The company didn’t see it that way, they considered it would be a conflict of interest, and Sinead was told in no uncertain terms that if she followed through with her plan, she would be dismissed. She didn’t hang around long enough for that to happen. She resigned.
In this lesson, you will learn how Sinead’s BIG question, But now what? was soon answered.
You will learn how through an act of kindness and a desire to help others, when Sinead was back asking herself, So now what? Her question was once again answered.
In this lesson’s WorkLife Learning Assignment, you will learn how to follow your vision or dream to engage and inspire you to create a fulfilling WorkLife.
In this lesson’s Continuous WorkLife Learning Assignment, you will develop a practice of journaling on insightful questions to get to the answers you need to move forward in your WorkLife.