Life is About the Stretch

"Life is about the stretch, not the fold." I came up with this line myself, while exchanging emails with DW. "Come on, you've gotta stretch yourself, dude!" I wrote, referencing his uncanny ability to hang tight to the status quo. Of course, this has led to a solid, respected career in our discipline.

I, on the other hand, suffered a career-limiting kick in the butt. Nevertheless:

"Life is about the stretch, not the fold." I continued.

I meant it is better to stretch oneself, rather than to fold in your cards and accept whatever is happening.

DW agreed it was a cool sentiment.

If leadership is in your soul, no demotion in the world can kill it. You'll bear scars, for sure, from wounds of pride. Being demoted is almost a form of corporate mental illness - no one wants to talk about it, it's awkward, and everyone just really hopes you will suck it up and move on. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again!

You can do that - you must do that - because there's also a whole new raft of possibilities that can present themselves.

I have to admit that, prior to my demotion, I never gave my career much thought. It just kind of happened. I found myself, after a thirteen year stint as a high school teacher, in an IT department at a small natural gas company. This was a considerable surprise, as I had taken Fortran back in university, and failed it miserably. In fact, after the school generously offered me the opportunity for a summer rewrite, I managed to lower my final mark! So I had written computers off. Until Bill Gates came along, slapped a "graphical user interface" with colors, and buttons and windows on top of the bits and bytes mathematical logic, and my English-besotted brain found what it had been looking for.

After five years, I was promoted to a mid-managment leadership role, at the helm of a small group of professionals, most of whom did work I didn't really understand. That all came to a halt in January 2010, when we had a reorg, and I was unceremoniously bumped from my happy little throne - back to the same role and boss, DW, I had back before it all started.

Sort of a career "Groundhog Day" - for those of you who are familiar with the movie in which Bill Murray has to live through the same day over and over and over and over again until he gets it right. Each morning, he wakes up exactly where and when he was the day before.

That's how it felt - Groundhog Day in corporate Canada. The eagle soars, the ostrich touches ground and stays there. I am - the ostrich. Or, perhaps, the dodo bird. Is my leadership extinct, or am I just grounded for a while? I guess that all depends on whether I stretch or fold.

I choose stretch.