Several months ago, Kelsey O'Conner gave the commencement speech at the Spring 2023 NC State ceremonies. In her speech she talked about overcoming a traumatic brain injury and how that experience forced her to take a different perspective on who she was when she could no longer play division 1 sports.
She challenged her fellow graduates not to focus on "what they were going to do" after graduation, but rather answer, "who are you going to be?"
Who are you going to be?
Kelsey's point is that you might "do" engineering, but what does that mean about who you are? You might "do" social work, but what does that mean about who you are?
And I think there are two bigger points here to Kelsey's question - Kelsey was a D1 athlete. Kelsey was a softball player. But if all of those things that we did are no longer the things we can do, who are we? And what, within ourselves, might be holding us back from becoming who we really are?
I am a runner, a nonprofit CEO, and an elected official. But all of those things are things that I do and if I am really being honest, they are all temporary. While I certainly hope that I will be in a position to decide when I am done doing all of those things, there are no guarantees.
So who am I, if I am not a CEO, an elected official or a runner?
I am empathetic, compassionate, ambitious, dedicated, goal-oriented, thoughtful, and intentional. I am also impatient, can be very particular, and I have difficulty delegating.
One really important thing that I have learned over my professional career is that the mind has a funny way of tricking us into believing certain things about ourselves or situations that may not be based in reality. For many years, I believed that I was not a runner. Even when I was running, I believed I was not a real runner. That was because for many years, I believed the world was telling me I wasn't good at sports. I was regularly picked last for kickball; I tried out for the basketball team in 7th grade, wasn't good enough to make the team, but was good enough to roll the basketballs out for practice as a manager; whenever I had the chance to play softball, the outfielders were called to move in. After a while, I stopped trying to be athletic. But the truth is that I just had not found my sport yet. All of the things that make me a good leader (ambitious, dedicated, goal-oriented) are also the same things that make me a good runner.
How many times in our lives have our beliefs about ourselves, that were shaped by our perceptions and experiences, caused us to behave in certain ways that weren't good for ourselves, our teams, or our organizations?
While my story about running really only impacted me, I made many mistakes as a young leader based on my ego that impacted others. When I was a young leader, I spent a lot of time in rescuing behavior. I had a belief that was formed somewhere in my childhood that I was the only one who could get the job done. Not only is that unhealthy, this belief put limits on my leadership, and was unhelpful to the organization. I did not know that that was what I was doing at the time - I believed that I was being helpful to my colleagues, taking charge and getting things done. But that was really just my ego. My behavior was allowing people to abdicate their responsibilities, not supporting others in their leadership growth, and I was holding myself and the organization back. Once I was willing to be open and look inward, I began to see more clearly that not everything was mine to take on, and as a result, my leadership began to grow, so did my team, and so did the organization.
Kelsey's question goes so much deeper and forces us to think not just about who we want to be, but also what, within ourselves, might be holding us back.
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