Part 6 of My Journey Starting a New Career in My 40’s: "How I Shifted From Entitlement"

I’ve spent the last five posts bringing awareness and acceptance to the barriers that get in the way when we want to change careers. In today’s post I’ll be talking about appreciation. While appreciating your current job may seem counter to this entire series, it’s actually a critical step in gaining the traction to where you want to go next. 

Is Entitlement a Barrier to Your Career Change? 

Conscious leaders understand that nothing happens in isolation, but that life is an ongoing chain of interconnected forces at play. Whether you are already in the midst of transition, considering a job change, or in the early stages of reflecting on purpose and career, your current role is most certainly a stepping stone to where you are going next. By becoming adept in appreciation, you can actually boost the effectiveness of that stepping stone and lay down a stronger foundation for what’s to come.  

 Dr. David Daniels, co-founder of The Narrative Enneagram describes appreciation as “consciously focusing our attention on what is good and positive, in ourselves, in others, and in the world. Appreciation is in line with the energetic quality of gratitude. It’s the act of giving thanks for something, honoring the energy of it, and being glad that it’s there in front of us.”

I love this definition because it describes appreciation as an action we can take, which is something I learned in my time at Meta (more on that below). While most of us can understand how such action can be beneficial, many of us are not aware of how much we unconsciously spend time in the OPPOSITE way of being.  According to The Conscious Leadership Group co-founder Jim Dethmer “at any moment in time you’re either in appreciation or you’re in entitlement”.  Entitlement is the opposite of appreciation - and many of us are guilty of reacting to our jobs from that place. In the book “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership” when entitlement shows up ,we commit to getting “what’s ours” and feel resentful when things are not acknowledged in exactly the way that we want. Entitlement creates a rigidity that inevitably results in disappointment. It’s a stance of wanting to be right around how people, situations and organizations should show up. 

“The problem with entitlement is when a preference becomes an expectation - not something we’d like to happen but something that we believe should happen, and in a certain way.”  - Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership 

 How Entitlement Creeps in and Takes a Hold 

It's review season and you got passed up on that promotion. You didn’t get the assignment you were hoping for. You don’t agree with your client’s decisions. Your team got re-org’d…again. When these things happen in the workplace, it’s easy to get demotivated and silently blame others (the leader, the client, the organization). It’s even easier to allow your resentment to linger until you wake up one day and you are cynical and disengaged.    

“Wait” you say as you read this. “I’m not entitled! I’m just sick of not being heard. I’m tired of being overlooked and undervalued. It doesn’t matter what I say or do, it’s not going to help.”

When we blame others for the world not showing up the way we want, we’re in entitlement.  Part of the reason entitlement creeps in and gets so comfortable is because it gives us a free pass from taking responsibility. It’s easier to silently resent a company, team, or leader from a safe distance than to create solutions that may involve putting yourself on the line. It can be even more difficult to bring awareness to the ways in which YOU have contributed to not getting the thing you say you want (raise, promotion, forward motion, strong client relationships, etc).

 If you’re considering a career change but find yourself begrudgingly showing up to work every day, bring your attention inward and check for entitlement. Even if only a hint of entitlement is there, leading from this energy dilutes your life force and makes you less available for connection, creativity and innovation. Leading from entitlement blocks your ability to get curious, see opportunities, and can leave an energetic residue that others remember for years to come.  It can express itself as a leaky, whiny energy, or for others it appears as being aloof and disengaged. Throughout my career I’ve witnessed so many people who became embittered or gossiped with everyone around them before eventually leaving their role. Others say nothing, do the bare minimum to cash out before they leave. I can think of even more examples where important matters were never mentioned or discussed outside of a one time exit interview. Whether you transition in two weeks, two months or two years, how you leave (including your action and inaction) is how people remember you, and can affect the opportunities that come towards you.

 I also wanted to address a form of active disengagement called quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is a term originally coined at a Texas A&M economics symposium on diminishing ambitions. Those who “quiet quit” do the minimum asked of them in their roles in an effort to create boundaries with the demands of an “unfair” or “unjust” workplace. I want to recognize that there are some companies out there who may push people too far and create unhealthy work environments. I also want to acknowledge that not everyone has viable alternative employment options. But I do want to mention that for many individuals, entitlement is at play in the way they view how they are “at the effect” of their company, org or manager. The danger of this stance is that it’s rooted in a passive reactivity and victim consciousness. It’s when people feel they are owed happiness by their company and resent their job for not giving them what they want, and then disengage. By having awareness around entitlement and shifting to appreciation, we can start to take an active stance in co-creating what we want in our careers. And with that comes an increase in our feeling of aliveness and more energy to bring our gifts and contributions to the world. 

 How I Shifted from Entitlement to Appreciation

When I was at Meta, there were several moments when I felt dissatisfied with my role and hit a wall. With mounting pressure around goals, career ladder expectations and waves of unexpected change, there were many occasions where I told myself a story I couldn’t succeed. In those moments I would drop into a victim consciousness where I believed I was undervalued and unseen. In my training with The Conscious Leadership Group, I practiced bringing my awareness inward instead of pointing all the blame outward. I worked towards taking 100% responsibility for what I could control. I tried to own where I had entitlement and worked to find appreciation in even the most challenging moments. According to “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership” when we’re in appreciation we choose to see the world with fresh eyes and with fine attuned awareness. In appreciation, what we place our attention on grows in value – relationships, circumstances and experiences - and we do this with sincerity and authenticity. In my role, instead of resenting not getting what I wanted in the specific way I wanted it, I began to look at my role with a new lens, seeking what was positive and worthwhile that was in front of me. I considered what qualities I wanted to nurture and grow in myself and others. This led me to ask open ended questions around my role that were rooted in curiosity and appreciation.

My open ended questions looked like this:

 In his Enneagram literature Dr. David Daniels talks about the three life force energies – receptive forces, active forces and balancing forces.  He believes that in order to achieve a fulfilling life we need to harmonize and integrate these energies. As I considered my career change, I noticed I didn’t want to wait until I had a new job to feel fulfilled. I realized that I could practice co-creating fulfillment in my current role by exploring these questions.  

Grouping questions by forces:

Spending time reflecting and actioning on these questions reinvigorated the time I was spending at work, even as I considered a different role in the future. By simply shifting from entitlement to appreciation, I was able to open the aperture of my world and see opportunities I couldn’t see before.  I leaned into what I wanted to grow and cultivate in myself and others, and placed greater intentionality around giving (not just receiving). 

Here’s what I discovered in my exploration of wonder questions:

As you can see in question #4, some of my proudest contributions at Meta ended up being in the DE&I space. Meta was a place that supported leaders who set ambitious goals and the company had the unique ability to impact entire industries due to the level of scale we operated at. Through appreciation, I saw an opportunity to utilize my role to affect change. In 2019 with the partnership of business affairs (the infallible Jenna Szereszewski ) and the support of leadership, I started a net new DE&I program for commercial production. My team and I authored guidelines and goals for director, talent, partner and crew diversity across an enormous global production scope and held the organization accountable to it year over year. An important part of the program was an economic workforce pipeline that created new jobs for underrepresented communities, the formerly incarcerated, and those affected by homelessness and the foster care system. It would have been easy to let go of the motivation to do this by year four at the company, in moments of COVID overwhelm across the production industry, as well as when new privacy law regulations threatened to shut the whole program down. But in exploration of these questions I continued investing in a legacy I knew I could be proud of. Our team stuck with it and with the support of leadership we overhauled how we collected and tracked data (in large part due to the tireless efforts of Cristie Zellmer ). The program increased the number of awarded female commercial directors by 600% in just under 3 years! In my last six months at Meta as I felt a career change looming, I doubled down with the time I had left. In partnership with sourcing and the global supplier diversity team I co-authored a diverse supplier strategy. With the support of leadership and the entire marketing organization, we were able to put $30M in the hands of diverse business owners in under one year. This helped contribute to Mark and Sheryl’s $1B goal.  As I look back, had I not intentionally brought appreciation into the way I viewed my role, I don’t know if I would have taken such an active stance in leaving any kind of legacy behind.  The D&I production programs have continued since my departure and Meta continues to dedicate even more spend with diverse suppliers. I’m proud to look back and know that I was a part of helping to affect important change that was much needed in the industry. As I look forward, I also feel confident that the time well-spent in appreciation at my last role offered huge impact in my future success. 

Impact of finding appreciation in my last role on my career today:

In so many ways, by shifting to appreciation I was able to utilize my current role to lay a stronger foundation for the future. I was able to do this in a way that helped me AND helped others which created an internal sense of well being and connection to a greater whole. By seeing the world through the lens of sincere appreciation, I was able to open myself to receiving more from my workplace, which accelerated my learning. I built deeper connection with others rooted in my authentic passion and care. I was able to give back to the company in a meaningful and fulfilling way. And I was able to do this with attention to balance, which is something I’m still very much practicing! And before you think this kind of exploration creates extra work that leads to burnout, I was able to do this within the hours I had. There were some late nights now and then, but exploring these questions and integrating my receiving, active and balancing forces in the workplace put energy back in my tank even during the most difficult work weeks. I know I'm now thriving in my new role because I took the time to use appreciation as a tool for my own growth and development even before my career transition process began.    

As you look around your current role and company - what can you appreciate that is coming from a place of authenticity? What skills, experiences and relationships would you like to nurture and grow? How will you use the present to lay a foundation for the future you most want?  Feel free to comment below, I’d love to know! And join me in my next few posts where I’ll be talking about our immunity to change, and ways to take action when we feel the most stuck.  

Follow @joycechen_coaching on Instagram and The Conscious Leadership Group

Resources: Jim Dethmer wrote a fantastic article about quitting your job from below the line that everyone should read. And he did this great video about how to turn resentment into appreciation that everyone should watch. Lastly, here’s a powerful meditation on appreciation.