Yesterday’s man
There was no meeting about this and nobody sat me down and explained that I had become less useful. No announcement, no email, no big ceremony marking the end of anything. It just accumulated, as life does of course.
People didn’t ask me the same questions and the ones they did ask were so bloody tedious to me that I wondered why the hell was I dealing with this nonsense.
So everything changes, naturally. Language, buzzwords, boardroom, direct reports, technology. But the confidence changed. They, and by they I mean, the ones who haven't yet discovered how much they don't know, speak with that youthful effervescent blind confidence. You know the type, eager to climb.
Meanwhile, I smiled, I nodded and I contributed, and somewhere underneath it all a question started to bubble under the waves. "Am I growing into yesterday’s man?”
Experience vs novelty
Now, on paper and on the outside nothing suggested this was true. I still had decades of experience. I'd solved problems they hadn't even encountered yet. I could see second and third order consequences before they had even recognised the first.
But the completeness of experience isn't as visible as newness. And that my friends is the world we live in.
Capability vs confidence
So, without fully understanding the wider context, I instinctively pushed harder. I read more, stayed later, learned the new frameworks, bought the books, watched the videos and tried to prove that I was still current.
The irony was that the harder I worked to prove my relevance, the more I felt like I was grasping for something in desperation. It started to solidify the idea that I must change because maybe I was becoming irrelevant.
Maybe you've experienced something similar. And let me tell you, it’s definitely not because you've suddenly become incapable. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact what I see is that you've become more capable than you've ever been, yet quite strangely less confident about your standing.
Let’s not forget the other influences too. At home it doesn't necessarily help. Your children no longer need you in the same way. Your parents probably begin to need you more and of course your relationship changes shape which you have to deal with.
The mortgage might be reducing but your responsibility isn't and the organisation you helped build is remodeled around newness and efficiency rather than wisdom and judgement.
You might wonder whether all this ‘newness’ is actually relevant for success or in the end is newness the only currency worth trading in.
The wrong diagnosis
Some people call this imposter syndrome, but I don't think that's what most men are actually experiencing because an imposter believes he doesn’t deserve to be there and will be found out soon enough. The men that I know have absolutely earned it.
The real sentiment is that they doubt whether there is still a place for them.
Those two are very different positions.
The first one asks, "Am I good enough?". The second asks, "Am I still needed?"
What fear makes us do
That second one is the real culprit because once it takes hold you begin making decisions from fear rather than grounded direction.
You stop saying what you really think. You avoid taking risks that might expose you. Or perhaps you do the opposite and become louder, more opinionated and impossible to challenge. More intellectual jousting and validation.
Some disappear whilst others become performers of certainty and both are trying to solve the same problem. The fear of becoming irrelevant.
The ground beneath the role
Our identity is deeply tied to the roles we occupy and if you take away or alter enough of those roles then uncertainty will chase you.
You’ve probably heard me say this before, but it’s worth repeating, it isn’t a malfunction, it is a structural condition that requires a regrounding of one’s position before vision and action.
So here are my three final summary points:
- Stop acting out of fear.
- Stand on solid ground first.
- Your experience has not expired. It just needs a direction that can make full use of it.
