About a year ago, I was not selected for a promotion.
It hurt, and I was salty about it. Salty AF.
But then something remarkable happened. Taking that “L” was the final nail in the coffin of a toxic ego that had held me back for so long. I had been humbled, and while that sucked, it was exactly what I needed.
Because I got the right kind of mad.
Now famously, I told my VP they weren’t going to get any “poopie pants” attitude from me, and I got my ass back to work. I started following this dude on Twitter named Dickie that taught me some things compound quicker than others (he went to Princeton and is wicked smart). Fortunately, I caught onto his wisdom and started putting process before results, reputation before ego, experience before pride, and relationships over accolades.
Then I paid some money to start writing online with a group of badass people from around the world.
That’s where shit gets crazy. Immediately, I started getting drastically improved results both at work in sales and at home as a father to two young boys. Daily writing helped me develop discipline, clarity, and focus like nothing else before.
I learned that if you want to get noticed, there’s an easy way to do it: do things worth noticing.
As wrecked as my confidence had been, daily trips to the writing-in-public arena assuaged those wounds. I started working on my dreams instead of trying to convince the world I already did. My confidence started to grow as better and better results stacked up month after month.
Today I received an offer letter for the job I was denied those months ago.
The moral of this story is thus: don’t get poopie pants, just get back to work.
And if you know what you’re worth; go out and get it.
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