“Near a project deadline, it was naturally a high-stress time. I’m pretty calm and people would tell me that I don’t freak out like some of the others — stuff like that. Because stress seems contagious.”
Yes, yes, yes! Now we’re getting somewhere! Calm under pressure! Resilient! Efficient in high-stress environments! What a gem this woman was.
Do you see what we’re getting at here?
She had no idea what she had going for her. I had to root it out of her, like a pig searching for truffles. Yes, her software skills could use brushing up, maybe (whose couldn’t?), but that was no reason to think that someone else was a more qualified candidate than her.
She had to shine a light on what she had and stop overly revering others who were still in the corporate mix just because a 2.0 download of some unremarkable software was on their laptop. Big. Deal. Think for a second: Where are you overlooking a significant contribution you make — or can make? This doesn’t apply just to women, moms, or stay-at-home parents. It applies to all of us.
When Heath and I moved to New York, and I was interviewing all over the place, I had no college degree or American connections to tout. But I knew there were two things I do well: I connect with people easily (largely by asking questions), and I’m also pretty persuasive. But heck, having these qualities didn’t wipe out my nerves. I still felt like a scared kid half the time, a child who’d been given way too much to handle. But I knew I had to soothe myself into a confident mindset in order to get the best out of myself. As I sat on the 1 train on my way to a meeting or interview, I’d replay past career situations in my mind. I’d relive them, my chest tight, hoping the people in this impressive, huge city could find me impressive, too.
And when my interviewers asked me about my education (which was clearly absent on my résumé), I didn’t lie. But I did deflect the question by asking about their education.
It went something like this:
“So, you didn’t go to school here, Susie?”
I straightened my shoulders, not wanting to appear discouraged, and said, “I didn’t. Where did you go to school? There are so many great universities in America!”
And then I’d listen. That was it. Potential disaster averted. People love talking about themselves, and I knew that.
On the persuasive side, I knew I’d need to gloss over the fact that I had no local experience. Coming from Australia and working with a couple of American clients, I knew that some New York execs wouldn’t necessarily place much value on my foreign experience. So I thought about it. I’d worked at a host of cool Australian and Asian companies, but my interviewers wouldn’t recognize those. Even though I’d never worked in America, I’d worked with American brands. And so, I did have American experience! That made me as good as a local, right? So that is all I talked about. American brands. Expedia, Allrecipes, even LinkedIn. Dot-com or dot-au — who cares? I focused on the dot-com part.
I had two job offers and accepted the highest-paying one (it was $75,000). But five years later by the time I was thirty, I was earning $500K a year in the advertising technology field, as we talked about a little earlier. And I got there just by doing one simple thing: using what I had. My ability to connect with people and be persuasive took me a long way. And most of my peers, many of whom had degrees from Ivy League universities and/or MBAs, were making way less than I was — because they were terrible at knowing their strengths.
DIRECT MESSAGE
Whenever it’s appropriate for you, just wear a blazer. Blazers make everyone look and feel more impressive. You can get them for $40 at H&M! Zara also makes great ones. This goes for both men and women. You’ll also make more money as a blazer-wearing person. It’s an unspoken, universal rule.
What strengths are you overlooking because you’re too busy noticing how you are at Excel, how you don’t have a master’s degree, how social graces don’t come easily to you, or how short you are compared to your tall, elegant friend?
STOP.
Knowing your strengths is vital. Our time on earth, and our unique talent, is too precious for us to be focusing on what’s missing. There’s nothing to prove to anyone but ourselves. No one is perfect or has it all going on. The most perfect-seeming among us simply work really well with what they’ve got.
And no one, no one, has every skill under the sun. And everyone, yes, everyone, has problems. Author Regina Brett said, “If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.”
So if we’re going to envy someone’s perfect hair and perfect marriage, we also have to envy their behind-the-scenes problems like their credit card debt, anxiety struggles, verbally abusive partner, or eating disorder. But we just don’t know what these behind-the scene issues are — and it’s not our business. It bears repeating: as proof, just look around you. Do your best friends post on social media their UTI, their tears over their ex, the rent increase they’re freaking out over? Heck, no.
And if it seems that someone doesn’t have problems, it means you simply don’t know them well enough. Because that’s the problem, right? We don’t see everybody else’s crap. Other people’s business is not for our eyes — unless they wish to share it. But we can judge what we do see with a more level head. Because it’s like a quarter of the full picture in a lot of cases. And what they do share? It’s the good stuff they’ve got.
Instead of ruing the strengths of others, you can start putting the spotlight more on your own. This is a really fun thing to do. So few people do it, and it’s highly beneficial for those who do. You can even start with something simple like a StrengthsFinder test. Not just knowing but acting on and revealing more of what you’ve got is life changing. Not to mention that it’s a terrible thing to go through life with diamonds in your pocket and be oblivious to them because your attention is on other people’s jewels.
Comparing Lunchboxes
When I was a kid, I used to feel jealous of other people’s school lunches. Because of my broken home and nomadic family, I went to a lot of schools — more than twenty. We had no money for those cute juice-popper drinks or colorfully packaged Cheez Doodles and sliced apple and carrot packets. At the schools where they didn’t give us a free lunch (with a gross, chunky, and far too conspicuous silver token), my packed lunch was always the same. One peanut butter sandwich cut into small squares, and half a banana. My sister would get the other half.
“They have water at school,” my mom always said.
I mean, they did have water. But lunch was the longest, most exciting part of the whole day. And I certainly had no one to trade snacks with. At lunch I’d eat really fast so no one would see the (lack of) contents in the lunchbox that was too big for my meal. There was a saving grace once — a local church at Christmastime donated lunchboxes to me and my sister. They were the best part about lunch for me. The brand-new pink Barbie lunchbox that went “snap” with a metal buckle.
So if I didn’t have the coolest lunch, what did I have?
I had good writing and reading skills.
I nearly always attracted a nice, small group of friends wherever I went.
I had a generally good aptitude for learning most things quickly, despite switching schools a lot.
Do you see something here? As adults, we often compare what’s in our metaphorical lunchboxes. We compare our relationship, job status, body type, everything, to that of the person with the best of that one thing. But what percentage of your overall life does any one item in your lunchbox represent, really? It’s not the whole picture.
Someone else might have the better-off family, but you’re better in the classroom. Someone else might have the newest, trendiest clothes, but you have the oldest, most loyal friends. Another person might have exciting engagement news, but you’ve just gotten back a perfect health check.
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