On Quitting

On Quitting…..

I almost quit today. It would have felt wonderful! I could imagine myself walking over to my boss’ cube and just laying out the facts and leaving. And what are those facts? Keep reading.

There are a few things I have known from day one. I love writing but I hate starting to write. Once I start, I fall into flow. Finding how letters falling like leaves on an autumn afternoon on the screen in front of me very amusing. Quite satisfying. I also like leading people. I love to see people progress from struggling like toddlers taking first steps to teens venturing on their own to seasoned professionals soaring into themselves. I love God and I love contemplating the divine and how people have found that which is the ultimate gift in many forms over time. And finally, I have a deep and abiding curiosity about how people succeed over time and how champions consistently win over time. 

And its that last part that has got me into trouble lately. Not at work. I perform as I normally have. I go to the office and forget that the outside world exists. Through my work I daily get to live out my curiosity in champions and how they differ. For example the person who makes barely middle class wages compared to the $1 million plus producer. What is the difference maker? I have always seen myself inside as a peak performer as a winner. I have always perceived myself as one of those $1 million dollar producers. And yet…

I let a young leader over the last several days question that belief in myself. Ignoring the fact that I have lead organizations in Fortune 500 companies. Ignoring the fact that I have lead political organizations to results. Despite all that truth and experience should have taught me to reinforce my core belief of being a winner…..I lost it today. Briefly, the feeling lasted only a few hours but it shook me. For the first time in my life I questioned whether I still belonged. I wanted to just leave.

My father instilled one thing in us as children. That we were to always see ourselves as young, proud, Black men. Now my father had good reason to expect this from us. He was a college graduation speaker at his Big Ten school. He was seen as a family, community, and church leader. People of influence quietly came to my father to seek out his advice. He was a man of abiding faith. He was this way as long as I knew him. When he died he even exuded power from his casket. Like a fiery ember finally cooling down. 

So I had high expectations. I fully expected to be a corporate executive like Dad. To be a successful entrepreneur like my Dad. And to be respected by my family and my community. What happened is I found myself being lectured to like a fourth grader by a junior leader. She is a new leader and everyone has to begin somewhere. But…..I didn’t expect to be in the audience. And I felt like a failure. I double majored!!! I went to Grad School!! I have a series 7!! How did I get here? 

Well I got here because I let that outcome slip away like snow falling on a driveway. It slipped away gently…. I felt like other. And for the first time in a long time I just wanted to quit. 

I remembered something at that moment from Tony Robbins. In Awaken the Giant Within, he describes sitting alone in his tiny apartment all alone and crying. Neil Diamond was playing extolling “ I am I cried, I am said I and I am lost and don’t even know why”. Now I was sitting in my even smaller cube questioning whether sacrifices were worth this. (Not Crying work is not worth that, I learned that lesson) Was the fighting worth this? Where did I go wrong that I was stuck mid career? Worse where did my ego go? Where was the desire to fight? 

I just wanted to quit. It was clear that for me at this point at this company there was no where else to go. 

But I didn’t quit today. I guess, I started to remember what this whole thing was about. I chair a citywide commission….even if council ignores us. I was CEO of my own media company….even if the current net profit was zero. And I still wrote daily….and even today I fought that same desire to not start to let the words fall like leaves on an autumn day. So maybe life for most people is a mixed bag. Maybe most people do just accept what others choose for them to have. But not me and not today. 

So I put to use my stronger writing skills. And I put to use a Six Sigma Belt earned with hundreds of projects of experience and I put to use my double major and my series 7 and I began the work that I know few people can do as well as I can. And that light…..began to flicker again. Am I committed to the craft of leadership, yes. Someone is going to need a leader. Am I committed to writing my 500 words that matter to me daily…yes I am. And am I committed to making the changes to never feel this way in this context again? Absolutely. 

At this point I guess you would expect a turn toward how God helped me today to come to these conclusions. I am supposed to cry out how faith caused God to open heavens and to respond. He didn’t. He didn’t hear my cry, he didn’t send comfort. He didn’t impact the situation at all. But faith is the substance of things hoped for, things unseen. Much of the Bible is not God doing mighty things but people having to get on with a God who can be very distant, unseen.

 I think spiritual maturity is coming to terms with this. And as we strain at the oars of work, personal lives, and faith God is present. Yes, we are straining and God sees this but he is watching. We’re supposed to be in prayer. Its important to pray. But sometimes, the words don’t come. Or we are too pissed off to waste our breathe with them knowing that they will not be answered.The praise is just not there. I am sorry pastors sometimes I just feel abandoned. But we must move on. Because sometimes our friend is over the horizon and every once and a while I catch up, we talk, we hug and we go our own ways. Mine to live and his to create. 

I am looking forward to meeting up with God in prayer or just through being. I want to talk about wanting to quit. I want to tell him that despite him not being there I ground on. And I want to tell him that my most important 500 words that day I gave away, because they didn’t belong to my work, they belonged to him. He needs to hear that I wanted to quit today. But I didn’t.