I'm a really big deal
Or at least I've decided to act like it
I’ve decided to act like I’m a really big deal.
Maybe you disagree, and maybe, objectively, I am not, but this isn’t about 3rd party opinions or facts. This is about me and how I move through the world.
I made this decision about a week or so ago when I lost out on a big job after ten interviews over three months. I gave it everything I had, although I guessed I would not get it. I was confident I could do the job - the same way I’ve jumped feet first into new domains and started swimming all my career - but this isn’t the kind of job market where anyone’s going to hire you for your potential. If the company says you need 8-10 years of experience doing this very specific thing, you’d better hope you have 12, because someone applying already does.
And so I asked myself: Where am I THAT person? What are the things I’ve done for 12 years or more that make me the person the candidate with potential alone cannot get past? Where can I show up with the confidence that I am the one person who can really lead this team or project? Where can I stop trying to be all things to all people and instead really double down on what I am actually great at, even if it feels small?
This isn’t a professional blog so I’m not going to answer that question. Anyway, it’s not the point. The point is the self-confidence and intention the answer enabled me to put out into the world.
Since I made the decision about being a real big deal in the really specific ways that I kinda am, the following has happened:
I had a startup founder approach me for a consulting role that could lead to possible future employment.
I attended an in-person networking event with my new swagger statement and got connected to another, local founder who immediately thought I might be able to help him too.
I got invited to apply for a different position at the company I lost out on that job for before.
I got a second interview for another job, which aligns so directly with my niche experience that it’s insane.
My interview anxiety has improved. I still have some way to go there, but I’m happy to say that I’m starting to feel an unwinding of whatever craziness caused my brain to deliver only static white noise in situations where I was previously quite strong.
I spoke to a recruiter a couple of weeks ago about #5 and, at the time, felt demoralized by the conversation. She was pretty blunt and had little time for my emotional reasoning, preferring instead to impose a stranger’s off-the-cuff diagnosis on my performance issues. She told me I had a “confidence problem”, which I balked at because it seemed too simplistic and because I haven’t had a confidence problem since I was a preteen. I mean, for Heaven’s sake, I’m a fifty-year-old, empowered woman. This did not fit the narrative.
But even if it was an overgeneralization - not representative of many factors that were causing my cortisol and adrenaline to spike to the point of panic - it niggled at me as being true. Perhaps confidence wasn’t the right word, but self-belief was, I realized. I’d always been able to count on myself, and I no longer felt like I could on multiple fronts.
It made me think about Brene Brown’s quote about assuming that people are doing the best that they can, even if you can’t objectively “prove” it. Maybe they are and maybe they’re not, but “All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are.”
I know you're a big deal- always have. Love you, friend. Glad things are looking up!