When I was in high school and college, the last thing I dreamed I'd do was get a job in Corporate America (hear the empty echo?) and give my talents to someone selling widgets or insurance or whatever it was that 17 year olds thought you could “make a living” doing. In my third year at UTD, I was in the full swing of what Christy calls my “post-adolescent idealist phase.”
So since I do everything in 3s, here are three lies I believed.
1: Advancement is linear
I was hired as an analyst 1. In a year or so, I'd be a sophomore, I mean an analyst 2, my pay would go up 10% and before I knew it, I'd be at double my salary and a manager, like the guy that hired me. After all, everyone who tries advances and the only thing separating upper management from me is tenure and effort.
In reality, I met lots of analyst 2s in their 50's. But those guys maybe didn't try? And they guys that were managers, a lot of them didn't work their way up through the ranks. And the ones that did? Quite a few were in multiple departments and even other companies before they had that "up the ladder overnight success"
Ah, young Rob, so many things you didn't know and worse - things you needed to unlearn, like...
2. Loyalty is always rewarded
I don't mean to be cynical, but loyalty is not what any company (especially a large one) hires you for in 2015. They hire you to plug a hole in their leaking dam (which is a reference to this business parable). Ok, maybe that is a little cynical, but the real truth is your skill and dependability is why you're there not your ability to bleed company colors.
I saw this again recently in my organization where folks that were well loved (and skilled and there for decades) were let go because the last projects they worked on were discontinued and the projects that were still running didn't have open seats they could fill.
Sad yes, but not evil, which brings me to:
3. If you're not as successful as you want to be, it's because someone is out to get you!
I added the exclamation point because I wasted (and even still sometimes waste) so much energy and time looking for imaginary foes to vanquish or prove wrong. Definitely buy Jon Acuff's book or Ryan Holiday's latest for a better treatment, but the short version is this:
It's not you against the world. It's you against the squirrel.
You're not being opposed or even ignored as often as you're just being briefly noticed and forgotten. It's indifference not enmity.
Don't believe me? Tell me the life story and deepest longings of the last people you gave head nods to on your way to the elevator. For bonus points, forward me the email you sent their bosses, demanding they get to do more of the stuff they like for more money. You shouldn't feel guilty for not being everyone's dreams sherpa, but it's healthy to acknowledge that we root for a lot of folks that we like without making their agenda ours, all the time.
Does that help?
I've gotten a lot of great advice over the years. At its core, it's been don't stress yourself out about being “on track”, be loyal to the people you love most, and be nice to people. Oh yeah, and I always remember what my dad says, God is your broker. You can't even fathom the deals that he's making for you. It does all work out. So young Rob...
chill out.