They Didn’t Pay Me to Think Then — But They Do Now

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When I Got My First Big Job

Thirty some years ago I started working for a Fortune 500 Corporation. I was the first female sales trainee in Chicago and the second in the nation. I was about five years out of college and ready for a real career. I smart, savvy, quick on my feet, great at presentations, and strong on building relationships. I was also the youngest and the quickest to pick up the new computer system. Let me tell you, I was pleased with myself and they were pleased with me too.

Then three or four months into my tenure a reorganization occurred. I was offered a choice I was unprepared for. I could stay in Chicago knowing that my job would probably be phased out by the end of the year or I could take a transfer to a new city where I’d have a territory of my own.
I was 27 years old. My mother had died nine months earlier. The move would put me four hours further from my 72-year-old father who was living alone.

Even in those glory days of great corporate training, a few months learning in a seasonal business of complex relationships is no learning time at all. I’d hardly learned what business we were in or how to talk to a client. I was more trainee than sales rep. I couldn’t spell the word “close,” let alone design a multi-store deal with major client.

Yet, I said yes I would go, though in my heart and every cell of my body I knew the right answer was no.

Part of it was moving to the next step on the success path, part of it was never having failed at anything, part of it was thinking this was what “the company wanted” and that what I thought didn’t count. I hadn’t thought through the risk or the reality. I hadn’t thought through whether I had the skills or the will to do the job. I was simply doing what we learned in school – do what the teacher says and it will work out.

I negotiated a nice deal. I kept my condo in Chicago. They paid for my new apartment in the best neighborhood. I moved down to that city and into a huge showroom with a separate office downtown where I worked alone. I was a business person now. I paid my office rent. I bought my samples that sat on the shelves. I booked my meetings, took my orders, and for six weeks twice a year, I packed my car and drove to hotel rooms that 13 sample cases and I called home.

I came face to face with who I was and who I wasn’t. I didn’t figure out what I’d loved about my job in Chicago until it was gone. I didn’t figure out what I needed to do this new one until I didn’t have it. I longed for someone to teach me and someone to be with me, but the guy who had been there before me had moved on. The information didn’t feed me. The competition depleted me. The lack of people and feedback made me feel small, lost, and alone.

I missed the thinking and connecting of ideas. I missed interactions with people and the relationship building that are so much of who I am. I missed being part of something that wasn’t just me. Everything about me has always been a teacher, a community builder, and a designer of ideas. I did my best to pretend I was happy, but I hated my job and I didn’t like myself for doing it badly.

Soon enough it was obvious that the move was a bad choice all around. I learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work for me at the expense of a territory that went nowhere. Luckily a bad economy covered some of what I’d not done.

And I’m grateful to that Fortune 500 company who saw the situation for what it was and who generously moved me back home.

Stories Like That Happen Every Day

My story was expensive for me and for my company. Every day, I hear stories of how many of us learned to be leaders on someone else’s path. A little too ready to fit ourselves into the job description set out without thought to what we already are or are suited to be.

Thirty years ago, I didn’t have the wisdom, the courage, the leadership to think through that first decision and to answer with what I already knew – that I should have said no.

They didn’t pay me to think then, but they do now.

Now I see what I see and know what I know — and I’ve figured out what I add. The rest is about aligning goals to build something together that we can’t build alone.

Still the start of it all was going down the wrong road to learn that…

our best strengths, talents, and skills often seem easy because they are naturally ours and
we often don’t recognize our best strengths, talents, and skills until we can’t use them.

Inside our successes is the key to our path. Inside each of them is what we naturally do well.
Look at your successes to see what you see and know what you know about yourself.

When you name it and claim it other folks will recognize and value it.

What comes so naturally to you that you’re not yourself if you’re not doing it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!