When a key employee started a competing firm and took one of our clients with them, I was furious.

They’d signed a non-compete and an NDA, so as far as I was concerned, they were clearly in the wrong.

I knew I had to respond.

If I didn’t fight it, did that mean my agreements didn’t matter? If I stopped being angry, did that mean what they did was okay? 

At the time, I thought letting it go meant letting them get away with it.

Justified

For the next four months, I told the story to family, friends, and pretty much anyone who would listen.

Everyone agreed with me. The employee was wrong. The client was wrong. My anger was justified.

It felt good, at least for a little while, to have so much support for my position.

But every time I told the story, I relived the whole thing. What they had done. Why it wasn’t fair. What should happen to them.

The person listening would get offended on my behalf, which made me even more certain I was right.

I thought I was processing what happened. Mostly, I was just reinforcing my negative emotions.

The Cost

I was distracted. Instead of focusing on growing my business, I kept replaying what had happened.

I had two decisions to make: how I wanted to feel and what action to take.

But I thought if I stopped being angry, it meant what they did was okay with me. And it wasn’t. 

It was like I was treating my anger as part of their consequences. But the only one really feeling the pain of it was me.

And from that state, I kept thinking about the penalties they should pay. How I could make sure they didn’t benefit from what they’d done.

For those four months, I spent more energy making sure they didn’t get away with it than the lost client was even worth.

Imagine if I had put that same energy into creating $300k in revenue instead.

I’d have not only made the money, but increased my confidence and momentum.

One thing saved me from taking it all the way. It was my dad telling me that the only people who win in litigation are the lawyers.

That’s when I finally took some deep breaths and calmed my emotions.

So I talked to my attorney and decided against suing. Instead, I had him send the employee a cease and desist.

I also made the very uncomfortable call to my client to let them know they were violating our agreement, but that I wasn’t going to take legal action against them.

Then I finally let the whole thing go. I wish I could have done it all within a week, instead of stewing on it for months.

What We Decide

You don’t get to choose every circumstance in your life. You get audited. Your flight is canceled. Someone lets you down.

There’s an initial reaction. Anger, fear, embarrassment, disappointment. That’s part of being human.

But you get to decide how long you stay in it and what you do next.

How you feel when you decide matters. It affects what you notice and whether you’re reliving the past or creating the future.

Letting it go was really for me.