Couple of weeks ago I sent out an email called “How to get along with difficult colleagues”.

My point in that email was this:

A colleague being difficult doesn’t mean that colleague is being personal, just like an empty boat hitting our boat doesn’t mean that boat is being personal.

In response, a great question rolled in from a reader.

Take it away Sophie:

Indeed we need to be empathic, and also try to not take things personally, but I also think there's that fine line:  

When is it ok to accept that someone's boat is empty and when do you call in the RNLI or the coast guard?

Now, clearly there’s a difference between a colleague who gets a bit prickly or is hard to pin down for a meeting vs a colleague who deletes all your electronic files & replaces them with kitten photos or who logs into your laptop & sends bizarre emails to the rest of the office.

Yes, I know these are wacky examples.

But examples like these help to bring the question to life:

Where do we draw the line?

Or, as Sophie said, when do we call in the coast guard?

Or, to broaden the question out further:

How do we decide what to do when we’re not sure what to do?

This question doesn’t just apply to tricky everyday interpersonal decisions involving your colleagues or your friends but also to the "bigger" decisions in life like whether to take a new position at work, move house or start your own business.

And it's a question which has an answer.

Whatever the decision, the principles underlying a sound and stress-free decision-making process are exactly the same.  

These aren't principles I've had the words to describe until recently.  

And yet, when I look back on some of my most satisfying decisions, I can absolutely see how these principles were at play without me even realising it. 

These are the principles I’ll be sharing in my free Decisions on Demand webinar at 10am PST/1pm EST/6pm UK Time.  That's just under 8 hours from now.

I’ve been emailing about this webinar for the last few days and this is the last email I’ll be sending about it.

By now, you’ve either decided you’re in or you’re out.

If you’re in, hit reply, let me know, and I’ll send the Zoom details straight over.

That’s all for today.

 - Tom