Reading this story brought to mind something that happened to me. My boss back in the day, asked how I liked working with B. The guy was new at the job and in the profession but his attitude was great and I enjoyed working with him. Instead of keeping it at that, I took it upon myself to talk about how I needed to work harder to getting in perfect synch with him on our engagements.
The reason I did that was not from a place of insecurity. Instead, I wanted to project a high degree of self-awareness, willingness to go beyond the call of duty and demonstrate to the boss that I strove for perfection and not merely being good enough. The truth of the matter is the moment someone is called a "rock-star" at work, its game over for them. That person will be the reason many careers get made but it will never be their own.
B may have been younger and greener than me but he did better on the same question when it was posed to him. He was just high praise for me and that was all. Presumably, as a man he did not feel the need to prove all those extraneous things that I was trying to. I wish I had a mentor back then who had pulled me aside and told me that was a career-killing move that I had just pulled. Today, I fully understand the affect of such self-aware, self-effacing remarks have on how I am perceived. But it has now become second nature and therefore naturally defines where I can and cannot go professionally. These habits need to be broken early if at all.
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