The Climb – Part II: Understanding Yourself

Please Note: This Article is Part of the Series “The Climb: A Real-World, Comprehensive Guide to Workplace Success for Ambitious Young Professionals.” The series is designed to be read from the beginning, as the concepts build on themselves throughout the series. You can access Part I of the series here.

Before we get into anything else, you must know exactly what the cards are that you hold as an individual. If you do not know yourself, you cannot properly propel yourself forward, nor can you inspire and motivate yourself to continue on the path of upward momentum when faced with resistance.

Understand: Getting a promotion isn’t about just making a few easy moves and getting a new title and salary. It isn’t even just a competition between you and your peers. It is a vivacious, aggressive, dog-eat-dog campaign. A promotion is a life-changing affair, and the more drastic the change, the more intense the competition will be.

• You will compete with your coworkers for visibility and recognition of talent
• You will compete 1-on-1 with your boss
  • Directly, if vying for their position
  • Indirectly, if vying for their respect
• You will compete with your own self-doubt and insecurities as you experience the unease and discomfort going against the status quo. (you don’t think people are just going to let you move up, do you?)

Even in companies where everyone is excessively cordial and tactful, this is the situation. The competition may be hidden under several layers of façade, but it is there, and it is real. Lack of understanding yourself in such competition means not knowing how you will respond to the evolving situation, or how the situation will respond to you. Conversely, a thorough understanding of yourself will allow you to strategically engineer a situation in which you come out with your desired outcome.

Mastery of yourself precludes mastery of your situation.

There are two major pieces to understanding yourself: Self-awareness, and Interaction awareness

Self-Awareness

You have a pretty good idea of who you are, but do you know yourself?

Just reading that sentence may make you feel defensive. Of course, nobody knows you better than you know yourself, right?

Interestingly enough, the general public is not as self-aware as they would like to think they are. The vast majority of what you perceive yourself to be is based on a perceptual bias that is forced onto you by your surroundings.[2] While this bias is a necessity and does provide good insight into your own personality, it is important to remember how that bias plays into your perception of self.

 You primarily know yourself as those around you perceive you to be.

I want you to re-read that a few times and truly internalize what this means. The majority of your perception of self is based on the feedback that you receive from others. This means that all their biases, insecurities, desires, and other attributes form the lens around which you view yourself. Here is an example of this in action.

“No, I’m not going to do that. It just doesn’t work for me.”

• This statement is bold and defiant as an employee said to their boss
• This statement is powerful and firm when used in a business negotiation
• This statement is selfish and stubborn when used in a marital disagreement
• This statement is cruel and dismissive when used by a surgeon refusing to perform a life-saving operation

“Identity is the single most important aspect in taking control of one’s career …”
– Issac Hicks

That employee will be met with disrespect, the negotiator with candor, the spouse with resentment, and the surgeon with disgust. If presented with these responses enough, these individuals will then internalize the associated attributes as a latent part of their personality.[2]

Think back to the last time you got into an argument with someone who was being really irrational about something. Did you stop to think for a second (even if very briefly) if you were the person in the wrong?

Consciously or not, you use the way you are treated as a way to assess yourself. This applies to both positive and negative attributes. You learn that you are unreliable when people tell you that you can’t be trusted to meet deadlines. You learn you are persuasive when you can easily convince others to change their opinion to align with yours.

The world around you acts as a feedback mechanism through which you learn about yourself. Conscious awareness of this fact allows you to view your personal attributes objectively: as tools that are more useful in some situations, and less useful in others. We will explore this concept deeper later in the series.

Identity – Content

Let’s talk about identity. That is, what you believe makes you, you. Identity is the single most important aspect in taking control of one’s career (and one’s life in general) but is normally overlooked. Take a second to think about what you identify as:

• Are you an ambitious corporate ladder climber ready to take the world by force?
• Are you an opportunist?
• Are you a diehard sports fan?
• Are you an office manager?
• Are you an amazing parent?

It is a combination of the ideas that form our identities that infest every action we make as individuals. There are some ideas that only come into play in specific instances (i.e.: a professional golfer standing at the tee), and others that pervade almost every aspect of our lives (i.e.: a martial arts fighter that carries heightened confidence due to many wins in the ring). Knowledge of the ideas that make up a person’s identity provides insight into the deepest core of their decision-making process and can be used to both positively or negatively affect that person’s livelihood.

What is it that makes you, you? This isn’t something to be taken lightly. Knowing what constitutes your identity is a key step in knowing how to make things happen in your favor.  Write it down if you have to. I’ll wait.

People base their identities on many different things. Although the list is nearly infinite, these attributes that define identity can be boiled down into 5 different categories.

• Their morals/values
• Their personality traits
• Their hobbies
• Their accomplishments/experiences
• Their occupations

Identities that are formed on morals and values tend to come from altruistic and socially progressive individuals.

• “I don’t let people walk all over me.”.
• “I stand up against unfair discrimination”.
• “I would never allow a child to be bullied in my presence.”
• “I’m a vegetarian” – If used because the person is opposed to industrial meat processing

These aspects of identity allow the person who holds them to feel that they are in a position of strength against their surrounding world. “Although others may be _______, I am _________ instead.”

Personality-based attributes arise when a person looks to maximize a certain response from the world around them. They receive positive feedback from the world for a given series of actions and categorize those actions into a personality trait to provide greater efficiency in gathering this feedback.[3] Good things happen to them when they do certain things, so they want to keep doing them and do so with little effort. Personality-based identity traits are how they accomplish this.

• “I don’t take things too seriously.”
• “I’m very ambitious.”
• “I’m just a funny guy.”
• “I’m mature for my age.”
• “I have strong conviction.”
• “I’m an intellectual.”

Many other identity-forming attributes are loosely connected back to personality-based attributes.

Link this to the fact that personality-based attributes are based on getting positive feedback from your surroundings, and you see just how important the perceptual bias discussed earlier is.

Hobby-based personality traits are (as expected) based on the hobbies a person has. These attributes are held primarily due to mammalian desire for adherence to a larger group (as discussed by Dr. Maslow in his famous Hierarchy of Needs). This larger group normally has personality-based attributes attached as well, in which the individual adheres to the “brand” of the group to further express aspects of themselves, but that is outside the scope of this brief digression.

• “I’m a soccer player.”
• “I’m in a band.”
• “I’m a rock climber.”

Identity attributes based on accomplishments or experiences are those which use aspects of a person’s life as defining factors of their sense of self. I debated for a while whether or not to split this one out, because it is really just a more nuanced version of a personality-based attribute that includes evidence.

• “I started my own company when I was 24.”
  • “I am ambitious, hard-working, smart, and persistent.”
• “I’ve been to 13 countries.”
  • “I have met a lot of people and am mature for age. I’m also pretty wise.”
• “I went running with the bulls in Spain.”
  • “I’m adventurous and courageous.”

Occupational identity is something I just don’t agree with. This is without a doubt the most show-stoppingly horrific thing you can do to yourself if you are looking to move upward and onward in the corporate world. This is due to the simple fact that identifying with your occupation is literally defining yourself based on your current position. Unless it is an occupation that you would like to have for a very long time (i.e: “I am an amazing parent”), you should never do this!

A Closer Look: The Toxicity of Occupational Identity

Why exactly is this so toxic? Let’s say your out with some friends grabbing a drink. Your group starts talking to another group and you find yourself in conversation with the person who caught your eye not 20 minutes prior:

Them: “So, what do you do?”

You: “I’m a __________ at XXX corp.”

Them: “Oh that’s cool, how is it?”

Now, you have a problem. If you don’t like your job, you either say that you don’t (and take the conversation into negative territory) or you lie and get positive reinforcement on your position. That positive reinforcement both distances you from the other person (because you lied) and gives you a little perceptual bias that your job has status and may be worth keeping even though you are not happy. Keep in mind, this is the best case scenario, that assumes they think your job is interesting to begin with.

And even if you are happy at your job (which again, if you are reading this you probably aren’t), aren’t you more than just some empty face in an office building? Do you want your potential paramour on the other side of the table to know you as an individual, or just another corporate cog?

I was scrolling through my LinkedIn the other day, and a rather interesting post caught my eye. “What is the role of your job in your life?”

What was even more interesting was a comment that a girl I used to know left on the article: “Your job is what gives you a sense of purpose, a sense of direction. It is what lets you know what value you are bringing to the society around you. Without your job, you would just be wandering aimlessly through the world devoid of purpose.”

What she is saying here is: You feel like you matter when you have a job, and you don’t when you don’t.

The hard reality of what happens to people with that mindset is that some charismatic superior in the company hierarchy realizes that they have completely drank the kool-aid and take advantage of it. The superior lets them know that they are “the best” at their job and that they are “really making a difference” in their position, all the while leaving them to spin their wheels for the next 40+ years until they retire.

A point could be made here that such diligent work may eventually lead to a promotion, by why wait, and why leave it to chance?

Interaction Awareness

The reason I spent so long getting into the nitty-gritty of self is that these are what constitute the core makeup of an individual. If you can understand yourself, you can understand others. If you can understand yourself and others as a unit, then you can understand how situations arise between the individuals within the group, and how these situations could be influenced for your benefit.

Identity – Strength & Mindset

Now that we have taken a look at the different types of identity and you’ve had some more time to think things through, let’s expand our view and take an outsider’s perspective: how strong is your identity?

Identity strength is simply how seriously you believe the attributes that you’ve assigned to yourself accurately represent who you are. Just having an idea of who you are isn’t going to cut it. The thing is that your identity is based on positive aspects of yourself (if it isn’t, you have some larger, more fundamental things to attend to before you can tackle that promotion), and those who don’t like you or disagree with you are going to find a way to directly attack your sense of self. Any positive attribute you have assigned to be part of your identity can be easily discredited or spun in a negative way.

• A person who thinks they are smart is either arrogant or full of crap
• A person who thinks they are mature for their age is hubris, boring, or “just doesn’t get it”
• Ambitious people are irrational and sociopathic

As you try to change and/or improve your position in the job market, you will face resistance. Your identity will be under constant attack by those who feel threatened by you. Those who know you to be a certain person will express their distaste when you begin to act in a way that does not align with their perception of you.

If the shy, nerdy kid you knew in high school is now a masterful business owner who hangs out with supermodels, your gut instinct would be to try to break his identity. He is not what you remember him to be, and that change is inconsistent with your mental model of him. On a subconscious level, he is saying that you are wrong, and you feel inclined to fight back.

Everybody does this. Once you are looking to move up to the next career level, and your actions fall in line with that goal, everybody will do this to you.

In order to not lose yourself during your climb, you need to have a strong identity. Identity strength is a by-product of the reasoning you have used to define yourself. The stronger your reasoning is behind what makes you, you, the stronger your identity is.

In the interest of getting to the heart of this piece, I’m going to be concise about why this matters.

In a workplace setting, anyone whose goals are in conflict with yours should be seen as a potential threat. Everyone in a company is out for themselves. The only reason you are employed by the company, to begin with, is that you generate more income for the company than you cost in salary and benefits. If the situation is to change and your employment begins to cost more than it brings the company, you are out the door.

In June of 2017, the Boeing Company branch in Seattle laid off 429 employees and “bought out” (meaning laid off, with a small severance package) over 1000 more.[4][5] Many of the employees who were laid off were senior engineers that had been with the company for many years. The company’s statement on the matter was as follows:

“In an ongoing effort to increase the overall competitiveness and invest in our future, we are reducing costs and matching employment levels to business and market requirements.”

To translate that last part from corporate speak: “people who have been here for too long, cost too much.”

Business is a cold game. There is no loyalty except within the groups that you have cultivated yourself. If you are strong and add value to the company, you are an asset. If you are weak, you are a liability.

Back when humans were lesser evolved, and survival depended on the capture of goods from nature, “strength” was a matter of physical stature. Those of greater physical ability were better able to hunt and gather food and established themselves at the top of the tribe hierarchy.  In the modern era, where survival is assured (for all intents and purposes), prosperity is the new quest, and the “tribes” are now “companies”. Strength is a matter of personal brand and resilience.

What is a personal brand? Well, that’s just one’s identity projected out into their surrounding world. What is resilience? The ability for someone to keep their personal brand intact when it is challenged.

A strong identity begets a strong personal brand, and it is those with the strongest personal brands who achieve the greatest prosperity.

It is the strong who will become executives, the strong who will live the best lives, the strong who survive layoffs, and the strong who will win this modern version of natural selection.

So the question is, what makes you worthy? What makes you the one who is strong enough to get the promotion above your peers?

• Are you smarter than them? Why do you think that?
• Are you better aligned with the company vision? Can you prove that?
• Are you just willing to put in more work, or be more aggressive/sociopathic than them? When it comes down to it, will you do that?

Are you willing to do what it takes? Does it matter enough to you to make it happen against the wills and plays of all those who will oppose you? Will your identity withstand wave after wave of testing from your surroundings, that continuously push you to see if you really are who you say you are?

Look, if you are going to play this game, you have to COMMIT, and you need to be prepared for the rewards you seek to be less than what you thought they were.

I had a series of vertical leaps from 16 to 23 where I went from a graduating high school in a town of 650 people (my graduating class was 20) to influencing executive hierarchies in Fortune 500 companies. I made so much money I didn’t even think twice about going out to eat, buying new clothes, going on trips around the world, etc. I could do anything I wanted.

I was the most powerful person (in terms of wealth and occupational status) in every social circle I occupied outside of work by a large margin. I was a trusted adviser for people who had been working at client companies since before I was even born.

And I was miserable.

Fast forward to the present, I’m sitting here in a coffee shop making these edits with about three months of living expenses left. I’m way happier than I was when I was wealthy because I feel that what I’m doing right now actually matters.

So before you commit to the climb, you need to decide what you really want to do.

If it truly is getting to the top of the ladder and having the extra money, power, and status, then I am so incredibly happy for any value I am able to provide you with this information.

But if it isn’t, you need to take a long, hard look at what you are doing with your life, where it is going, and if that really where you want it to go.

What do you want to do, and what are you doing on a daily basis that is getting you there?

Your career, and your life, are yours alone. Don’t waste them.

[2] Klip, Alar. “THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FUNCTIONS OF PERCEPTUAL BIAS IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS.” ENDC Proceedings, vol. 14, 2011, pp. 56–73. https://www.ksk.edu.ee/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/KVUOA_Toimetised_14_3_alar_kilp.pdf

[3]Lodi-Smith, Jennifer, and Brent W. Roberts. “Social Investment and Personality: A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship of Personality Traits to Investment in Work, Family, Religion, and Volunteerism.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, vol. 11, no. 1, 1 Feb. 2007, pp. 68–86., doi:10.1177/1088868306294590. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868306294590

[4]Gates, Dominic. “Boeing Issues New Layoff Notices to 429 Workers in Washington State.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 21 Apr. 2017, www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-issues-layoff-notices-to-494-workers-in-washington-state/.

[5]Boyle, Alan. “Boeing Will Send Layoff Notices to Hundreds of Engineers, and More Job Cuts Lie Ahead.” GeekWire, GeekWire, 18 Apr. 2017, www.geekwire.com/2017/boeing-layoff-engineering/.