In the podcast, we are segwaying into Mike’s story.
I was about 6 years into my logistics career, I had mentorships to help me, but I was confused. I grew up a big pleaser, being helpful and of service to others. With that background, sometimes you feel that you please people to a fault. No matter how I helped and served, I wasn’t growing any more, I had plateaued. This is were my story comes from, where I felt stuck.
It had worked up until a certain point, and that point was a point of responsibility that I had worked for, earned and gotten promoted to. Saying those hard no’s and standing up for yourself is the only way. It doesn’t mean that the next promotion is going to get more people under you, I think if you really want to grow and build your life in an authentic way towards yourself – it starts with saying no. This is the story.
I got to a point where I had just bought my house, white picket fence, golden retriever, little family. I had a decent paying job, and I felt stuck. I was unhappy even though I had completed my checklist. Personally everything was purchased and done, you know, married and everything is going well. I felt stuck because on the road towards those goals, I did not feel happy. We get frustrated, right, but when it’s not about a moment – it is about being unhappy for too many months, too many weeks. It was not a thing, it was about working 12-14 hours a day to deserve the next promotion, but for what? I didn’t know why I wanted to move on to that next level.
Today, I know what kept me going. I grew up working hard, by working hard it meant kind of a reciprocal love from a parent or a partner. At the end of the day with my wife, I flet that working hard meant that I could promise that next vacation, that bigger house. By working hard, i fealt that I could get that void filled which was actually the love that I missed. Being vulnerable here, that first marriage was more of a room-mate relationship, and professionally speaking I had plateaued with the mentors I had. They had mentored me to a certain point where they couldn’t mentor me anymore. I started to have my own voice, my own direction, my own leadership style which was different from theirs. It started to clash.
Personally I had this clash at home because I wasn’t present enough, trying to work hard for that next promotion so I could seek better pay, more things to fill that gap of love which I didn’t have. Long story short, an equation for disaster. You can’t buy love, you can not work towards love – you can only find it. Professionally speaking I was clashing with those mentors that I had looked up to for years because Mike had started saying no. He started having his own voice. I was finding myself at a crossroads where I could lose my authentic self and adapt and please again, but I would lose my leadership style, my new voice, who I really am. OR – I could go all in in the other direction of the crossroads.
There was another opportunity, a phone call asking me to come to an open position in a french speaking town, 4 hours away. Professionally speaking, I was filling the void by packing my bags, leaving all the preconceived opinions of who I was behind. The labels, the experiences which comes from growing together. Starting from scratch was the best thing for me at that time, it was an opportunity to reinevent myself. At the same time, it was also the most painful thing I had done both personally and professionally. Because of it I went through a divorce, I had the most challenging obstacles of my life at work. Only months after the move, I became the logstics manager of the highest volume store in North America, at the same time going through a divorce – at peak season. Learning how to work with a team with a lot of experience, learning how to work with a union.
It broke me, and it made me. It was like being the Phoenix, you burn to ashes and rise again. I wrote down my lessons.
- The moment you feel that your’e being disrespected, either personally or professionally, in a reoccuring fashion – it’s time to go.
- When you live more in your past than in your present, it’s time to go.
- When you repeatedly give more than you take, year after year – it’s time to go.
- When you are given false promises, and here we are all humans, we can promise too much by mistake, but repeatedly – it’s time to go.
- When you hype who you are – time to go.
- When you have lost all joy already when you wakeup in the morning, it’s time to go.
- When you have purposely been made to feel less than you really are, it’s time to go.
All these lessons might sound negative, that is very much not the case. I am so grateful for those lessons, it made me who I am today. Made me a better husband and father in my second relationship. I am a better leader for it, not perfect in any way, but better.
Being stuck or unstuck, the line in the sand is, do you feel that your direction is aligned with the people around you, the resources that can help you develop and move? Even if that direction is vague, if there is movement in the right direction, it is OK. Today I am learning by falling forward, and man am I having fun. Aim for it, and if you fall on your face in the right environment, where you can have fun about it – you are not stuck.