Chapter One: Get Aligned CHAPTER ONE GET ALIGNED By her senior year of college, Alisha had become seriously concerned about her future. She''d started her freshman year confident about what she would do after graduation. She always loved writing, being creative, and learning about other people. Growing up, Alisha idolized Barbara Walters and wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a journalist. But over time, a little voice crept into her consciousness. Her parents had emigrated from Korea to the United States with very little, and here she was at Harvard, one of the world''s most prestigious institutions. Shouldn''t she be using this one-in-a-million opportunity to set herself up on a path toward success and financial security? Suddenly her dream of becoming a journalist felt frivolous, and even a little selfish. So, during her freshman year, Alisha switched her major from English to sociology, rationalizing that it was more "business"-oriented and therefore more practical.
As graduation loomed large and official adulthood crept closer, Alisha was feeling anxious, even panicked. She worried that she might have actually squandered her education by denying herself the chance to pursue what she was genuinely excited about. Now she feared it was too late to turn back. Her anxiety (or as she referred to it, "that sick feeling") grew and grew until Alisha was almost paralyzed by it, barely leaving her room except for meals. Then the recruiters came. Descending on campus in droves, they represented hedge funds, consulting firms, and investment banks, pitching the students on careers befitting Ivy League graduates. These soon-to-be grads had gone to the "best" schools; didn''t they deserve the "best" jobs (not to mention the enormous paychecks)? The recruiters assured them that starting their careers at such elite companies would put them on the fast track to guaranteed success. But what exactly was success? Alisha wondered.
Financial security? An impressive title at a big-name company? Or was it something more personal, and harder to describe? She banished that sick feeling and dutifully dressed up in what she hoped resembled business attire and joined the rest of the students who jostled to get into the right networking events in front of the right recruiters. Everyone was competing for the pot of gold that was promised at the end of the rainbow. All they had to do was follow it. Whether it''s silently modeled or explicitly stated, many of us are raised with a vision of what our lives will look like: stability, a spouse, kids. Certain professions are deemed serious, and others silly. As adults, we take that vision on as our own, even though it''s inherited from those who came before us: our parents, schools, society; our churches, role models, and mentors. When we are faced with making critical decisions, we may orient toward that vision without question, choosing paths that will lead us to the "right" destination with the least amount of struggle. Early on in my own career, I was very lucky to have been challenged to push myself past what I thought I wanted, to what I deeply needed.
Just a few months after I''d graduated, I met Stephane, who was around fifteen years older than me and much wiser, and who would go on to become a mentor of mine. I vividly remember a conversation we had where he asked me what my definition of success was. As I began to answer, Stephane waved his hand, motioning me to stop. "Whose voice is that?" I was confused. I hadn''t said anything. "Try again," he said. I''d barely uttered a sound when Stephane put his hand up again. "Try again.
" Now I wasn''t just confused, I was annoyed. But before I could say anything, he smiled. "Is that voice your mother''s? Your father''s? Your school''s?" I then realized that what he was doing was pushing me to consider that there are infinite ways to imagine the future and that I was allowed to have my own, personal definition of success, not bound or limited by who may have influenced me, or what I''d been exposed to. He was also challenging me to be brave and think for myself. Coming up with my own definition of success meant that I had to question--and maybe even reject--what I''d always thought to be true and start fresh with my own ideas. This is what Alisha had attempted to do during her freshman year when she set her sights on a journalism career. But her inner critic had quickly swooped in to protect her from taking a risk, and she changed her course. Four years later, even though she felt lost, Alisha actually knew more than she realized.
That sick, anxious feeling was like a signal trying to alert her that she was headed in a direction that was unlikely to lead to purpose and fulfillment. Still, it would take some time (and real-world experiences) before she was able to heed the signs her body was sending her. In this chapter we''ll see how Alisha, a high achiever most anyone would consider "a success," confronts the assumptions about work that she''s carried her whole life, and how they''ve influenced the decisions she''s made in her career--not always for the best. Overcoming external expectations means recognizing that you have the power to define your own direction, no matter your circumstances. To change your way of thinking, you have to confront the assumptions you carry, where they come from, and how they''ve influenced your decisions, for better or worse. As you do this work, you may find that you begin to look at the unknown as exhilarating, not terrifying. There is no formula whereby you answer some questions and out pops your dream career. Instead, you''ll learn how to trust your instinct over your inner critic and create a system to evaluate opportunities that are aligned with your values and goals.
And while it will always be a little scary to stand up for what you want, you''ll feel pride in taking control of your career. You''ll also be more motivated, which in turn will help you do your best work, putting you in a position for rewards and recognition. You''ve earned it. LISTEN TO YOUR INSTINCT When Alisha received a job offer from a big consulting firm shortly after graduation, she took it immediately. While this wasn''t what she would necessarily have imagined for herself during college, it would at least put her on a track where she knew she''d have financial and professional security. She assumed that sick feeling, still with her since college, would go away soon. A few months into the job, it was still there, but Alisha was so busy that she barely noticed it. She was putting in long days at the office, so what little energy she had left was spent doing the minimal self-care necessary for survival: sleeping, eating, and showering.
The workload was grueling, but it was the norm; everyone was in the same boat, so who was she to complain? This was the price you had to pay for a big paycheck. No stranger to working hard in college, Alisha could handle long hours and taking work home on the weekends, but it was the office politics that really rankled her. After proving her competence on smaller projects over a few months, Alisha got the opportunity to lead a project for a high-profile client. She prepared for weeks, only to have the opportunity to present her hard work to the client taken away and given to someone else the day of the presentation. "I was laying out all the slides of our PowerPoint to do one final review. As I was walking the team through it, a senior executive walked in. She thanked me for my work and informed me that Paul would be presenting it to the client. I was stunned.
" Paul was a newer employee and from what Alisha could gather, a master at politicking. She, on the other hand, would describe herself as an introvert. She''d never considered this a liability before. It didn''t matter whether or not you were gregarious, she thought; what mattered was how well you did the job, right? She''d been raised to believe that working hard would get her ahead. And it had, until then. But now something was off, and she didn''t know what. Like so many other women, Alisha assumed the problem was with her. She needed to not just work hard, but schmooze better, and be aggressive in the way that the company clearly rewarded.
She never really considered that contorting herself into what the company needed her to be wasn''t the only way to work. But it was hard to see any other way, given that most of her friends were having similar experiences. Clearly this was just what it meant to be a working professional. Alisha hit her breaking point a year later when she returned from a major business trip. She''d gone to Korea, where, almost as soon as her team landed after a fourteen-hour flight, they rushed right into their first client meeting. For the next three days they ran around the city, gathering firsthand market research, talking to locals, and all the while Alisha (who is half Korean) was real-time translating from Korean into English for her teammates, then back into Korean. "A two-way language translation is incredibly draining mentally and difficult to pull off well, and doubly so when you are doing it for your direct boss. I was obviously sent on this business trip because of my language skills, and because it would save the company thousands of dollars (perhaps tens of thousands) rather than paying an external interpreter.
" Upon her return to the United States, Alisha promptly got sick. She was able to hold it together for a client presentation, but the next day, jet-lagged and ill, she called in sick. She figured she could take a day to recover, given how hard she''d just worked. Wrong. Early that morning the phone rang: it was her boss''s boss, calling to express his concern--not for.