The Version of You Worth Recommending

"You don't outgrow a label by managing it. You outgrow it by questioning whether it was ever true."— James McPartland

It is often far more important to have questions for your answers than to have answers to your questions.

If someone asked you to recommend a leader, would you recommend you?

Most of us are generous when we size up someone else. We factor in potential, not just their current track record. We give credit for effort, for growth, for the trajectory they're on, not just the snapshot. 

Turn that same question on yourself, and the generosity tends to disappear. The answer gets stricter, slower, more conditional.

Try the full exercise. Would you recommend yourself, right now, as a:

• Leader

• Friend

• Parent

• Sibling

• Coach

• Expert in whatever you call yourself an expert in

When the answer isn't an easy yes, there's usually a specific story sitting underneath it. 

I'm not a details person. 

I'm not good with conflict. 

I'm not someone people call back. 

Said enough times, that story hardens into something that feels like fact. It gets treated the way you'd treat your height, fixed, not really up for debate.

Here's the more useful way to see it. That story was never a fact. It was a decision, made once, probably a long time ago, in a moment that had very little to do with who you actually are now. 

And if it was a decision, it can be revisited. That's where the real opportunity is.

Which raises a better question than the original one. Not "would I recommend myself," but: what would have to be true for the answer to be an easy yes?

That question does something the first one doesn't. It stops being a verdict on where you are and starts being a map of where you're headed. 

Maybe it's one hard conversation you've been avoiding. Maybe it's showing up on time for the follow-through you've quietly opted out of. Maybe it's just retiring a sentence you've said about yourself so many times you forgot to check if it was still true.

None of that requires becoming a different person. It requires casting a few different votes, in small, repeatable ways, for the version of you that's actually worth recommending. The label that's been holding you back was never permanent. It was just familiar, and familiar is a much easier thing to change than people assume.

Start with one label. Test it against something real from the last thirty days. See if it still holds.

That's the whole project. Not a reinvention. Just an honest look, followed by one small vote in a different direction.

Mac 😎