The great Greek philosopher Socrates once asked: in a time of need, would you choose the captain of your ship because of his ability and knowledge or because of his popularity?. In the context of history, Socrates referred to the Spartans who’d been put in power and to whom he was openly critical. In the context of these lines, the captain represents those people in power who have the ability to steer your ship to safe waters or bring you down as fast as the Titanic.
Throughout my entire life, I always broke the mold. Not only as an adolescent, but I mean always. Always until I got my first job. It happened to be a giant corporation, with lots of manicured northern European men who seemed to all like to wear the same Hugo Boss black suit. I thought to myself that it was time to tone down, no more breaking the mold, time to fit in my very well paid job in my very prestigious company. I studied too hard and invested too many thousands of dollars in my education in the best universities in the world to throw it all away with my “out of the box” behaviour. I made a conscious decision to fit in.
Months passed and I was so hooked with my Company’s name and size and my big bucks in the bank that I started losing sight of what I really wanted to accomplish in my career. I thought I had a great job and a great future, so I would do my job, work hard, and good things would happen in time.
After a year, sitting down with my boss to discuss my yearly performance, I recalled asking what was the secret to success. I will write down his exact words, which were not only borderline illegal, but if you are a woman, I am sure you have heard them at least once. He told me: “If you want to succeed, and I know you are married, you have to do what your male colleagues without girlfriends do: work, work and work. Forget about your husband and just work”.
I looked into his eyes, and the sweet girl trying to fit in was incapable of uttering a word. However, he must have read in my eyes, how much I despised him. He must have noticed because his end of year review read: Maria is a very hard-headed woman. Of course from there on, I was the hard-headed woman. I wanted something for myself. That is why to him, I was hard-headed. If I had been a man, I would have been called “a man on a quest” but as a woman, the best word he came up with was “hard-headed”.
You could ask that same boss if he would like his daughter to do his job one day. He would tell you that never in a million years. So you can wonder right away that if he would not want his daughter to do his job one day, why would he be prepared to coach you and nurture you and help you grow if he would not want his own child to ever go through what you are going through?
Many times we let our superiors at work make very important decisions about our life. It is not only our career, it is our life. There is nothing wrong with allowing people more experienced than us to guide us, but the question that we can ask ourselves is: are those people who are guiding our career, the most capable and truly skilled people to guide us?. Were they promoted because they were the best people for the job, or just simply the most politically savvy and popular?. Can we trust them with our life?. I bet in many instances our answer will be negative.
Your life is your ship. You are the owner of the ship, and you have the power to choose where you want your ship to sail. You can spend years of your life allowing a poor skilled captain sailing your wonderful ship through swamps and dead seas, or you can take command and be the captain or choose one captain who is truly capable of leading your ship to waters that will teach you how to sail, that will keep your ship doing what it was built to do: to sail, not to float with the flow.
All you need is courage. Don’t let promises of a bright future tempt you. Most of the time, you are the promise. Be the Captain. Don’t be afraid to do what you were born to do.
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