Record

There’s a phrase that I think Bill Parcells said about his team at the time: “You are what your record says you are.”

In my head and heart I feel like I’m a good leader. I feel that any opportunity I’ve had to be placed in charge of people and run a team that I took care of each of my people as best as I could, the team advanced its goals, and at the end of my time in charge I left things better than I found them. I feel like I’m a good leader.

I’m not sure if my record reflects that, though.

This is the conflict I go through a decent amount of the time. Objectively speaking, I think a lot of people wouldn’t mind being in the position that I am in life. I personally feel like I haven’t come close to living up to the potential I have or once had. I feel like if I were a good leader, someone in the Air Force would have seen that at some point and would have fought for me to advance further in my career. I wouldn’t have had to exit at 15 years. My record, apparently, says I wasn’t good enough to fight for. What does that say about me?

I could take this outside of the Air Force. First job I had for billionaire chemical plant guys I had any number of people tell me how they appreciated that I would listen to them and bring them what they needed; that I was an asset to the plant. None of this mattered because my boss decided I wasn’t worth keeping and fired me without any notice whatsoever. 

The current job I’m in I have a level of knowledge but I’m mostly unfulfilled; any number of things I’ve done well is enough to keep me employed but not one is knocking down my door asking me to advance. No one is looking at my past experience to see I could do a ton more than what I’ve been asked. 

When I look for new opportunities within the company, I feel as if my record is not being understood or I’m not selling it well enough. Mostly I’m told to keep networking and waiting.

I don’t have a super great point or ending to this. I feel that I’ve done good/great things in my professional life but I don’t feel like I’m where I should be professionally. Maybe that’s because I am what my record says I am. 

I mean, fuck that. But still.

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