Stop Letting Other People Define You

When I talk to friends and relatives about their kids, I always underestimate the kids' ages. "How old are Leo and Maxine now?" I ask, "seven and nine?"

"They're nine and eleven," is the answer.

"How did they get so big so fast?" I wonder.

My own kids grow up like beanstalks right before my eyes. It is hard to take it in. My eldest will graduate from college in a few months.

She is about to give her senior recital. Your head spins thinking about it. Didn't she just graduate from kindergarten not long ago?

Life is all about change. Children bring those changes to the forefront. That is one of the great things about kids. As adults we can get into ruts very easily. We forget that to evolve and grow as people, we have to change. We have to accept changes instead of avoiding them.

Getting used to changes and learning to ride the waves like a surfer is the principal life skill, but we don't teach it in school. We teach kids about columns and rows and tell them "You'll grow up, get a job, get married and get a car. End of story!"

We don't tell them how to read the weather patterns and be on the lookout for shifts in the wind. We don't teach them how to grab a wave and ride it.

We don't teach kids that we will keep growing and evolving until we die. We'll grow new muscles and get battle scars. We finish school and then the real education begins!

A static state is not good for us, but we want things to stay the same. Our muscles atrophy when we don't use them. When we fall into the classic rut working at the same job, making the same commute, and grappling with the same problems for years on end we wither on the vine. That's when we get really fearful.

We think that it would kill us to lose the unexciting job because we're used to it. We forget the feeling of air on our faces. We forget what living in the moment feels like.

Mother Nature wants things to change. We see that in the seasons, and in the weather - especially here in Colorado! There are mounds of snow everywhere you look and it's sixty-eight degrees outside. Maybe it will snow again this weekend, or rain. Oh well! That is the weather.

There will be signs that will tell you when Mother Nature wants you in a bigger box. There are signals that will first whisper and then shout at you "Something has to change!"

When you are ready to burst out of your old box and into a new, expanded one, you will get messages. At first they'll be small signals. If you ignore those, the signals will get louder.

One of the signals you'll get from Mother Nature when you are evolving is a tap on the shoulder. It might happen like this.

You'll be at work and you'll hear one of your workmates say about you -- or say right to your face: "Mike, you're the greatest. Thank you for being such a great support guy. You are so great with customers. You're my favorite customer service rep."

That's when you'll feel Mother Nature tapping you. Wow, you'll think -- that's how you see me?

Nothing against customer service reps, because companies live and die by their customer service and those jobs are not easy, but - dang! I've been working with you for four years as a product specialist. I do so many things here but you still see me as your friendly customer service rep.

I push big projects through when no one else does. I get on the phone with your customers when you haven't told them diddly about how the product works, and I take them through demos to get them excited about the product and get them to buy. And you say "You're a great customer service rep."

Why do people limit you and tell you what you are, when their impression may be just a small piece of what you bring? Why do people want to define you?

People cannot always see what you bring. That includes your boss, your co-workers and even, God bless them, your family members. They can't see you as you are now.

People see you stuck in the past sometimes, the way a far-away observer with a very good telescope could look at earth through the telescope right now and see Neanderthals hunting caribou.

It is the coziness of the people around you with the person they think they know, the old version of you, that can easily keep you stuck in an old shell long after you've outgrown it. Like everyone else, you are a hermit crab. You need a bigger shell every now and then.

People around you will try to keep you the way they like you. They may have a hard time with the idea that you want to make changes. If you accept someone else's definition for yourself just to please them, Mother Nature will have something to say.

Eventually the tap on the shoulder or the whisper in your ear will turn to a hard shove or the sound of a freight train. You're going to get the message one way or another.

It's no good to let other people define you. You don't fit into a box, no matter how much the box-makers love you or say they do. If they love the wrong you, can we still say they love you? They love the person they want you to be -- a very different prospect.

People will put your into tidy small boxes that make them comfortable. Your changes and your growth challenge other people to rise up and change, too. Your expanding possibilities hold up a mirror in front of their faces. Not everyone wants to look.

Don't get defensive when someone -- your boss, for instance -- tries to put boundaries around you. The more fearful your boss is, the more likely he or she is to try and define and thus limit you.

You can talk about it. You can be adult and professional, compassionate and earnest all at the same time.

You can speak your truth at work about the most important topic of all -- your forward path. We are all learning to talk about our paths.

We are learning to stay in our bodies and stay human at work, even when our fearful brain says "But what if your boss doesn't like what you say?"

BOSS: So Margie, I saw you in the inventory meeting. How did it go?

YOU: It was good. The big issue is that our product numbering system doesn't support the new inventory system. The inventory system is obviously the smart way to go, so the crushing reality is that we have to re-number the products internally. It's going to be a big job. It's going to be gnarly, but it has to happen - growing pains, I guess.

BOSS: Database hell.

YOU: Yes, but the high-altitude question on that is "Do we give the products intelligent product numbers that fit into a hierarchy, so that if you see a particular product number you can figure out what the product is by decoding the number -- or give them random numbers and save ourselves the hassle of creating a big, hairy, consistent logical numbering scheme over time?"

BOSS: So in other words, if you put an M in the product number for all mobile products, and a D for desktop -- that sort of thing?

YOU: Exactly. If you do that, you can figure out what a product is just by seeing the number, but then you buy yourself the headache of having to come up with new categories all the time and keep everything consistent - and with all the new products we're launching!

BOSS: Well, it's an interesting puzzle. You know what, that's a great question for the IT folks. You're my Inventory Coordinator. Just make sure the reports are accurate and I'll be happy.

YOU: Can I ask you a question about that?

BOSS: Sure, what?

YOU: I heard you say that you want me to make sure the inventory reports are accurate, and I definitely understand why you do. I take the inventory reports very seriously. You haven't seen a problem with my reports, have you? I would be concerned if you had.

BOSS: No, I just mean, that's your job description.

YOU: I understand. Do you feel uncomfortable that I'm helping IT and Marketing to build the new product numbering system? I want to make sure that you and I are in synch.

BOSS: Well, honestly, I don't know why you need to be involved in that. You've got a different job.

YOU: Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it. I want to make sure that I work on the stuff that's important to you. I can back out of the product numbering project if you like. We should talk about my role and my roadmap at some point. I'd love to sit down with you and make sure we're aligned on that.

BOSS: What do you mean?

YOU: Well, I think you're happy with my work -- this is my understanding -

BOSS: Yes, definitely.

YOU: And I want to keep learning. I want to keep growing. I see that I can make more of a contribution, the more I know about the company and about business in general, the more people I know and the more I see how the pieces fit together.

BOSS: Okay. Let's meet about that. I guess I was hasty. Go ahead and work on the product numbering scheme. I'll be interested to see how that turns out.

Who gets to define you? Only one person does, and that person is you. The best you can do is to listen for the signals Mother Nature sends you and follow them the best you can. That's all any of us can do.

When people box you in you can accept the little box and try to stay snug in it. Alternatively, you can decide to figure out who you are by pushing against every barrier you find -- starting with the ones you've built yourself.