Please Don't Confuse Your Worth With Your Work

You are good at what you do, amazing really. You have value and a bright future ahead. Please do not confuse your worth with where you work. Everything is going to be okay. 

This has been rattling around in my head for some time. To the point where I just need to share this with 2,500-3,000 of my closest friends and colleagues to set it free. As talent acquisition practitioners, we do what we do because we have an innate interest in matching people with opportunity. When it comes to doing this for ourselves, why is it so much harder?               

This internal conflict started in the winter of 2017 after a terribly introspective New Year's break. I am 20 years into a career at a large financial institution. For the most part I have been able to advance in my career at a pace that left me content. I moved from retail banking to consumer marketing, to the very early stages of what is now known as the employer brand industry. I had unwittingly landed in a fast-growing niche that represents the intersection of people and marketing, which is where I live and breathe.

I’m working from home, a lot of hours, but my commute consists of the seventeen steps it takes me to get from the espresso machine to my home office. The work is trying but rewarding. I am working with people who I have come to value not only as colleagues but dear friends. I am comfortable but the days often blur into one another, like the movie Groundhog Day. It was not uncommon for me to realize on a Thursday afternoon that I had not left the house all week.

Then it happened. It began as an itch in my mind, something I was vaguely aware of but was unable to identify with any clarity. Quickly this turned into a want, and then a rudimentary plan. Was I ready for a change, if so, how could I divorce myself from something so familiar? The plan was simple, get out from behind my computer and get involved. Where once I would have considered myself to be quite outgoing, it turns out working remote for the better part of a decade had made me a bit of a shut-in. As painful as it was, I was going to need to get out there and mix things up. 

What did this look like? A little bit of everything, really. If something came my way, I promised myself to be open to the possibilities. I replied to every InMail, speaking opportunity inquiry, and random phone call lobbed in my general direction. This began in the most humble of beginnings as I sat through a lot of meetings that went nowhere and took on speaking opportunities to a handful of people. Literally, you could count the number of attendees on one hand.

Undaunted, my mixed bag of results only fueled my resolve to press on. This took the form of increasingly fruitful discussions and larger audiences. About this time, I also started to explore what a career transition would look like. My requirements were wildly specific. Attract talent and brand at a Fortune 100 company while being 100% remote. I applied for several roles, and surprisingly the response or lack thereof, was meh at best.       

I was shocked, given my tenure and background in a booming industry, that my interest in some of these opportunities was not met with the level of interest I had expected, or any interest for that matter. In hindsight, my timing was less than ideal. By early 2018 my employer was over a year into what was a very visible brand crisis that had shaken the company to its core. I was watching a very public inquisition of the organization before my eyes. This was also coupled with the guilt at the thought of jumping ship when the going got tough.

This had a definite impact on my psyche in my search, interactions, and in my public speaking. I became obnoxiously apologetic for being attached to what was happening with my employer. At times it seemed like that was all anyone wanted to discuss, or at the very least that is how I felt. If someone did not mention it, I would be the first to point out the elephant in the room as some sort of preemptive strike.

This was quite a change as the organization came through the financial crisis of the late aughts relatively unscathed. In fact, I distinctly remember holding on to some organizational arrogance that my employer had done things “the right way.” Many well-known companies did not make it through that time intact, and now my company was struggling less than a decade later. It is through this very drastic change I came to a fundamental realization:

My employer does not define me. 

To be clear, it is vital that we align ourselves fully with the mission of our respective organizations. Any misalignment between personal and corporate beliefs can create unnecessary friction in our level of satisfaction with our employer. However even the most aligned values can shift, often due to extenuating circumstances that are impossible to forecast.

No matter how bad things are, at the end of the day, we cannot tie our self-worth and long term prospects to things that are outside of our control. There are thousands of talented people working at companies that have struggled in the most public of ways. Companies miss earnings, lay people off, and stray from the path. That in no way diminishes the skill or potential of the hard working people who happen to work there.

Likewise, if you work for an esteemed organization, I would not tie the good fortunes of your company to your self-worth either. Tides can shift quickly and it’s easy to get whiplash from the speed of which things can change. You can’t get too high or too low about perceptions that may have nothing to do with you. 

Emboldened with this knowledge, I carried on with my journey. Connections were made, conversations became more fruitful, and opportunities began to present themselves. It is during this time that I began to connect with some people who have been vital to my development. Over time I have learned that there are some things guiding my career that are far beyond my intention. A perfect example of this is my group of mentors and confidants who have drastically altered my thinking and have played a huge role in my journey.

Fast forward two years, and I still marvel at this process. The road was not always smooth or without twists and turns, but the destination made it all so worthwhile. Once I quit tying my worth to things I could not control and started tying it to what I am capable of, I was able to reach something closer to my full potential. I feel like I have done enough due diligence to now identify the right fit for me.

Sure, I am less “comfortable”, and my commute is longer than seventeen steps I had prior. Still, for the first time in recent memory I feel I am where I should be, doing exactly what I am meant to do, with people capable and motivated to match people with opportunity. It was likely there earlier; it just took me getting out of my own way to see it clearly.