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It’s the End of My Ambition & I Feel Fine
On why it’s okay to play sweet and small
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing that something. Especially if that something sends you screaming into pillows.
As you know, I appreciate anyone who helps me avoid feeding from trash cans. An old friend pitched me for a CMO opportunity for a VC-backed start-up, which is a fancy way of saying I’d be working 18 hours a day for a percentage of my worth to further some rich guy’s exit strategy. But I set aside my deep skepticism for humanity because the founder was a person of color (we like) and the company, while targeting people who have cash for kombucha, actually benefits people who suffer from addiction.
The founder loved my background and we scheduled a chat. And believe me when I say I cycled through the gamut of human emotions leading up to the chat. I rewound the tape to when I worked for a sociopath founder. There I was was building Keynote decks at 2:30 in the morning, morphing into the kind of large-time asshole that makes my direct reports cry (I’ve since apologized and I’m no longer an asshole, just severe and alienating). And there I go again five years later as head of strategy for an agency working into the evening and blinding reaching for anything in a takeout container.
