July 9, 2026
It's July. The out-of-office replies are stacking up, meetings are shorter, and everyone's a little more distracted than usual. It's the perfect season for people to disappoint you (kidding but not, lol 🫣🥴)
Someone drops the ball on a project. A colleague goes quiet on a thread that needed a response. Someone shows up late, again, to the meeting they asked to reschedule. Your first reaction might be frustration. Maybe even "I would never do that."
But what if, instead of getting furious, you got curious? One of my mentors, Carolyn McKanders, always says: "Be curious, not furious."
Curiosity asks a different question. Not "how could they," but "what's going on for them." It assumes there's a story you don't have yet, instead of assuming you already know how it ends.
This isn't about excusing bad behavior. It's about staying open long enough to find out what happened before you decide how to feel about it. Half the time, the story surprises you. The colleague who went quiet had things they needed to prioritize. The person who was late had a family emergency they didn't want to share with the group.
AND…You might never learn what was going on. Extending the most generous interpretation is a gift to you too. Curiosity keeps the door open. Fury slams it shut.
A Next Step
Next time someone "lets you down" this month, ask one honest question before you react: "What might be going on for them?"
