Last week I stumbled across a story I hadn’t heard in years. While I’m unsure of its origin, it reads like an Aesop’s fable. Remember those? Stories told to entertain while also teaching life lessons. This one beautifully illustrates the long-term cost of giving away your power and talent:
There once lived a bird and a fox. Naturally, the bird stayed up in her tree to avoid the fox’s fangs. One day, the fox made an offer to the bird. “Just give me one feather and when you wake up in the morning, a worm will be waiting for you.” The bird didn’t see the harm, so she went along with the deal. Sure enough, the next morning, a juicy worm lay out for her dining pleasure. The fox said, “I’ll continue to keep you in delicious worms,” and the bird didn’t see the harm, so each day she exchanged a feather for a worm. Until one day when she descended the tree, enjoyed her meal, and faced the fox’s fangs. To her dismay, she found that she was unable to fly away, as she had given away all her feathers, and the fox proceeded to enjoy his own delicious meal.
I’m sure you see the moral to the story, right? Don’t give up your “feathers” or you will lose your ability to fly.
Whether we realize it or not, we face similar offers and seemingly harmless threats on a daily basis. In our careers, relationships, and within ourselves. In today’s environment of uncertainty, it can tempting to fall into the trap of saying yes to people please, form a better relationship with senior leaders, give yourself a temporary sense of stability. The risk of becoming the “yes to everything” person, is you are no longer recognized for your talents, and what truly makes you shine. What’s worse is you could lose your own sense of self and grounding – your feathers.
In most of these situations, our intuition might be screaming to say “no” and walk away. Yet, we often rationalize our way into a “yes” by convincing ourselves it’s just this one thing. One time. One request. Because there is the promise of that big fat worm – a promotion, raise, title change – in exchange for this questionable compromise. Just in the last 12-18 months, this behavior by leadership has become so pervasive it’s been coined “quiet promotion” which is essentially super-loading your top talent with more responsibility and work, without a pay increase or title change.
As an executive burnout coach, I’ve coached dozens of clients who are suffering from three alarm fire, third degree burn, burnout. Why? Because they tackled the assignments no one else wanted, accepted the weekend meeting requests, traveled on Sunday nights only to return home after midnight the following Friday. They took very seriously the promises of getting more headcount, or an increase in their division’s budget. All the while, being told their career is contingent on their imminent success or failure with these added burdens and responsibilities. Most of which don’t play to their strengths.
What can you do to anticipate and prevent yourself from becoming one of the wounded warriors? One of the best strategies to save yourself from becoming a flightless bird is to get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. Lean into and learn the power of saying no. Allow that word to be a complete sentence – and own the consequences of holding firm to your no.
To that end, get very clear with yourself about your wants vs. your needs. How do they match up against what you’re being asked to take on? Do the requests align with your own set of personal values? Or are you being asked to compromise your belief system? If so, are the consequences of your no – whether they be good, bad, ugly – worth it to preserve your integrity? Most likely, yes.
I will share, from my own personal experience, that these check-in questions could save your life. It was only when I got honest with myself, while at the height of my corporate career, the depths of depression, and the edge of the burnout cliff, that I realized I had lost my own feathers. My family, marriage, mental and physical health were not worth any title, promotion, leadership exposure, newspaper headlines, speaking invitations, or golden handcuffs. My core values and beliefs led me back to my true north – which is now the name of my company.
Remember. Once you sacrifice a bit of yourself – work boundaries, life balance, belief systems – there are very few opportunities to take it back. Sometimes the worm is real, often it’s not. And it’s almost never worth what you’ve given away.
