What I chose to do with someone else's doubt

Years ago, at a job I've since left, I passed a director in the hallway. We had a couple of small exchanges, so I knew who he was and had done a little bit of work with him. He was on his way to his office and made it a point to stop and tell me that I had a great skill set, but someone was going to have to take a risk on me.

I remember thinking “that tells me it’s not going to be you.”

While I was at this company, I ran their highest employee recognition program, and I established and ran the first quarterly employee recognition program for its first 18 months. I also ran several trade shows they held for the 20,000 employees when they needed to get the company’s vision for a new path clearly articulated. The last project I was on focused on implementing Critical Change Management, or resource loading project management, and my role was to drive the communication and change management efforts with the 1,000 people this particular project impacted. And throughout it all, my path periodically crossed with this director, especially at each of the high-visibility events that only top managers and up would attend.

Years later, after I'd left and started my own business, I ran into him in line at Costco one afternoon. He asked what I was doing, and I told him. He said he'd never seen anyone move from one high-visibility project to the next the way I had back then.

I just said, "I guess somebody did take a risk then," and left it there. He told me he was really impressed, and I politely thanked him. What I noticed was that he didn’t seem to realize he contradicted himself.

People like that aren't always trying to hold you back on purpose. Sometimes your gifts just make them uncomfortable, and rather than sit with that, they'd rather you shrink.

That was never mine to fix. It still isn't.

If someone's discomfort with your gifts has ever made you want to shrink, I'd love to help you stop carrying what was never yours to fix. [Schedule a conversation →]