Is it time to put down your sword?

On two separate occasions within the past month I have been given the same message from two distinctly separate sources, but with identical language: “put down your sword.” The first came from a friend who was giving me support as I admitted struggling with this season of my life where I am shifting my identity to be more aligned with my soul purpose and values, while also feeling hesitant to let go of my former identity, particularly as it pertains to my career life. She gave me permission to not rush into the future right now and to “enjoy pure love when it finally meets us.” Then she added, “put down the shield and the sword for a while.” 

When I read those words I immediately felt my shoulders drop, my body soften and a sense of clarity that I had not felt in quite some time. Just a few weeks after this exchange I was listening to The Mel Robbins Podcast when all of the sudden those same words came resonating out from the car speaker: as Mel described how to stop fighting against our own happiness–she said, ”drop the sword.” From her experience she realized she was always waiting for something to happen that she needed to fight, so she always had her “sword” ready instead of just allowing herself to enjoy life.

If we’re paying attention, we will start to hear the lessons we need the most, and they will start showing up everywhere and on repeat. This was a lesson I had heard before, but clearly I needed to revisit it.

I have always carried a proverbial sword and shield, and worn a full coat of armor to protect myself from who-knows-what. I have embraced the moniker of “warrior” with pride. As a young gymnast I had a pattern of speaking up on behalf of others and fighting for those who felt they couldn’t speak for themselves. I was the one who would confront the coach if one or more of my teammates was upset or needed support. At one point my coach said to me, “you know, you don’t have to fight everyone’s battles for them.” I ignored this piece of advice and kept my hand on the helm of my sword. 

During my time on my college gymnastics team I noticed one of our top performers was in tears every day at practice because the assistant coach was constantly admonishing her in front of everyone. I set up a meeting with him and told him his approach was clearly not working, that this athlete was not going to respond to the tough approach and that he was creating an unhealthy environment for her and for the rest of the team. He pushed back saying that athletes respond to getting yelled at and I should mind my own business. I did not listen to that advice either. 

About a decade later I took up my sword again for the most important battle I’ve ever fought. Ten years before the Larry Nassar scandal, several of my teammates and I reported the long-term sexual abuse perpetrated by our gymnastics coaches. In the midst of that battle, which took 5 years from first reporting the abuse to police to the first trial, I had people telling me to “let it go and move on.” I vehemently opposed that counsel as well. The coaches were arrested and ultimately convicted based on our testimonies.

“WAR MUST BE, WHILE WE DEFEND OUR LIVES AGAINST A DESTROYER WHO WOULD DEVOUR ALL; BUT I DO NOT LOVE THE BRIGHT SWORD FOR ITS SHARPNESS, NOR THE ARROW FOR ITS SWIFTNESS, NOR THE WARRIOR FOR HIS GLORY. I LOVE ONLY THAT WHICH THEY DEFEND.” 

–Faramir, The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

I have no regrets about any of those instances where I stood up for what I believed in with the purpose of supporting “the greater good.” But there were still important lessons for me to learn regarding when to put down the sword, discard the armor and open my mind to situations that weren’t as black-and-white as those described above.

Even though I was a competitive gymnast for 15 years, which required my body to be very flexible, I had a pretty inflexible mind for a very long time. I like to use the excuse that being trained as a scientist left me seeing the world in black-and-white with no room for gray. As scientists we are supposed to eliminate the nuances and find the evidence and the truth. My corporate career has been instrumental in helping me to see the “gray,” mostly due to several managers or leaders who took the time to provide tough but necessary feedback that has fundamentally changed the way I view and approach situations that don’t necessarily require me to carry a weapon. 

A yoga teacher of mine once told me that when you are being taught a much-needed lesson by the universe it may first feel like a little shove. If you don’t respond, the next time it shows up as a push, causing you to stumble a bit. If you still don’t respond, you’ll get a kick that sends you into the river. And if you’re determined not to listen at that point, the universe will hold your head under water until you have no choice but to surrender. 

The first “shove” I can recall from my corporate journey was when I advocated (rather strongly) for a candidate who I thought had been given an unfair assessment during his interview to join our team. I knew he would be an incredible asset to our team if he were given a chance, so I badgered the hiring manager about giving the candidate another shot. My passion has often been interpreted as forceful and even abrasive (as I’ve been told…) so I’m sure he was exhausted listening to me rant for several minutes. When I was finished he asked me if I watched football. Confused by the lack of context, I told him I did. He asked if I knew what a “blitz” was. I again confirmed that I did. Then he calmly said he’d like to give me some advice: “Try not to blitz every time.” I only partially heard this lesson because in my mind I was doing the “right” thing, standing up for someone and advocating for them, and I thought that I needed to do it in a way that made it impossible for my opinion to be ignored. In the end I “won” that battle, and the person was hired and was a complete rock star for our team and company, but I actually lost because I completely missed an important lesson that would have saved me from getting my head held underwater later on.

The second lesson, the “push,” came after I had given a passionate pitch of one of my ideas to a vice president of the company I worked for. I had the poor guy trapped across from me at a work dinner and gave him no respite as I took advantage of the opportunity to bend his ear about why our company should review our data to look at potential sex differences in our medicines. I was high up on my soap box talking about my favorite topic and how women were historically excluded from clinical trials and that we could really make a difference by reporting these data, etc, etc. Once again, I lacked the self-awareness to match his energy and essentially made it impossible for him to listen to me. I was later told by my direct line manager that I should not talk to the vice president about this idea ever again, as I was viewed as being “pushy.” Once again, I didn’t listen. I pushed more, and eventually the idea was adopted and was very successful. The vice president even acknowledged me and my idea on a team call and thanked me for being a “bulldog” on the topic. This did not help me learn my lesson, as once again I felt that my approach must have gotten me the “win.” But the universe knew it was only a matter of time before this approach caught up with me. As I continued to march with my sword held high, I got the “kick” that sent me into the river.

About a year later at the same company I was helping with a team training by role playing with a senior leader on how to present some new data to physicians. In between the training sessions the senior leader asked me to change the language I was using to describe the type of research study we were reporting on. I had been using the language that was on the slides prepared by our internal team, so I didn’t understand why I was being asked not to use that language. I pushed back. He calmly tried to redirect me again to not use a particular term. I pushed harder, saying “but it’s literally the language used on the slide.” Again, he calmly said, “yeah I know, but just don’t use that term.” I felt the temperature in the room rising, my face flushing, and my jaw clenching. I was preparing for battle. All of the people around us in the conference room became a blur and my focus was lasered in on the leader in front of me. I wouldn’t let it go, but we were at a standstill. There was a small, rational voice inside of me that was trying desperately to get me to back down, a part of me that was finally seeing the lesson, that this was not productive and was actually harming my reputation and image. The senior leader squirmed uncomfortably in his chair and I finally realized how much tension was in the air and the deafening silence of the others in the room, all of whom were superiors to me. I finally let it go. I remember leaving the room after the next training session and feeling something really off inside me. I knew that I had made a mistake, and potentially a big one. I asked myself why I couldn’t let that scene go even hours after I’d left the room, and more importantly why I couldn’t have accepted his comment and just done the role play the way he wanted me to. Or, why didn’t I just ask him to explain to me why we needed to change the language?

The next day I had a meeting with another senior leader, one whom I also admired tremendously. I was so grateful to get time to speak with her one-on-one and share my ideas and get some mentoring. She sat down across from me and immediately started speaking to me: “I think you have a lot of potential and could really go far in this company and industry…” My ego flourished at hearing these words from one of my idols! Then she continued…“and because of that I’d like to give you some feedback.” I shrunk back down to size, a quick, terrifying shift from pride to fear, from praise to blame, from fame to disgrace. She relayed her impressions of the interaction in the conference room the day before, what it looked like from her perspective and the other senior leaders in the room (not good), and gave me advice on how I could have handled it differently, including what I needed to do to keep that “fight” side of me in check.

It made all the difference in the world that she had opened up our conversation not with the “shit sandwich” approach to feedback where you tell someone something good about themselves before the real “meat” of the constructive feedback gets buried in the middle and then hidden again by a second slice of niceties on the other side, but instead with the REASON why she was giving the feedback. She believed in me. She believed I could be better than I was, and that there were some “career-limiting behaviors” that needed to be addressed for me to reach my fullest potential. Because she came from a place of support and genuine desire to help, I really listened this time. It was the best feedback conversation I had ever had. Even though I still felt terrible inside (my ego was bruised) and regretful of the way I had handled the situation, her feedback stuck with me in the best possible way and I’ve always been grateful for that moment. I also use that approach when I’m giving feedback now, too.

And yet…I was not immediately able to let go of those tools/weapons that had served me in so many prior circumstances. It turned out that I still needed to have my head held underwater to really get the lesson that encouraged me to finally drop the sword. 

For my next career move I took an ambitious, “growth opportunity” at a small company and found myself with a seat at the table amongst the C-suite where, to no surprise, I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind at every opportunity. Unbeknownst to me, this was not always appreciated, as I was often pushing back on non-evidence-based ideas/conclusions without leaving any room for nuance. I was also still carrying my giant sword because I didn’t really know any other way to show up than to be prepared for battle, particularly as I was trying to prove myself in a new role.

Similar to my previous experience, I was at first praised and publicly lauded for some of my ideas, which reinforced my natural inclination to speak up and advocate for my beliefs without tempering my approach as I had been warned about in previous feedback. Then one day my pedestal was knocked out from under me and I was sitting stunned in my manager’s office as I received a poor performance review that cited mostly personality and behavior issues that were indeed “career-limiting.” The universe was holding my head under water and I had no choice this time but to wake up and listen. 

One of the things I’m most proud of in my career was the way I handled this massive blow to my ego and my self-perception. I sat in stunned silence while I listened to the summary of criticism that had been passed on to my manager from his superiors and then calmly asked for time to process before revisiting the comments with him and discussing next steps. I went home that night and debriefed with trusted, long-time friends with whom I’d previously worked and asked for honest reactions to each of the points that had been raised in my review. I wanted to own and address what I needed to be successful, but I did not want to blindly accept everything that had been said about me, particularly when much of it was inconsistent with prior positive feedback. Additionally, I had received zero constructive feedback in the 10 months of my tenure at the company until the day of that performance review so I had no history to support any of these claims. My trusted circle mostly dissented with the report, but I also recognized that I run in circles of other sword-wielding warriors who aren’t exactly known for subtlety or restraint, so I probably had a somewhat-biased sample.

In the end I sat down with my boss and addressed each item with a “yes, I can own this and would love your help addressing it,” or “I don’t think this is a fair assessment of my performance/character and here are examples to support my argument.” He listened, agreed with my assessment, changed several things on the review and then we met at a separate time to talk through some of the career-limiting behaviors that had been previously called out and were clearly still something I needed and wanted to address.

I’m so thankful for his approach – he sat beside me, literally and figuratively, acknowledging that he himself had also been the recipient of feedback during his career that was instrumental in him being able to continue to progress, and without which would have derailed his career as well. He helped me understand why I felt the need to see things in black-and-white and taught me to see more of the “gray.” He offered the suggestion of asking more questions before making conclusive statements that tended to put people on the defensive. He also taught me the “50-50 rule,” which involves taking the time to acknowledge that we never know what’s going on in someone else’s world because we can’t see their 50%, only our own 50% and this can lead to serious misinterpretation and miscommunication and overreaction (all of which I was definitely guilty of at times). I use the “50-50 rule” on practically a daily basis and I now teach it to others (spoiler alert–this will be a future blog post!).

I threw myself into remediation mode for the next 2 months and then was blindsided again when my boss invited me to a meeting with HR. I was getting laid off due to my position being eliminated. I hesitated to accept that as the reason and I asked my boss directly whether this was performance related. He swiftly replied that it was not, and told me he was incredibly impressed with the way I had handled that tough performance review and leaned in to the feedback to turn things around. Then he told me he’d be more than happy to help me find my next role and would gladly vouch for my character and work quality. He stayed true to his word and we have stayed in touch ever since. It is a true gift to have people in your tribe who have seen you at your “worst” but who believed in your potential to change and were there to stand beside you when you were ready to take ownership and action to implement those changes.

Do I wish that I had addressed some of these behaviors sooner, when I received feedback from other well-intentioned colleagues who tried to tell me that my communication approach needed a course-correction? Yes, I do wish that, but I’m also keenly aware that I was likely not ready to fully receive that message until I hit rock-bottom and was forced to really assess some of these issues. Why did I feel the need to fight all the time? Why did I have so much trouble seeing nuance? Why was I so attached to external validation and so terrified of criticism? Why was I dragging around all of this armor and a giant sword?

I had time to delve into all of these questions during the longest month of my life when I was laid off and reflecting on how I got there. I will share the answers in my next post.

I’m eternally grateful for the people who cared enough to give me feedback intended to make my life easier and provide me with the insight to become the best version of myself. If you’re reading this, I did hear you and I have kept those moments and your words in my mind for years. I use them to continue my own inner work and to pay it forward by mentoring others. 

For the record, I’m still an advocate for owning a sword, and for using it when it’s truly necessary to defend rights, beliefs and safety for ourselves and others. I will never stop being a warrior, but I’ve learned to “not blitz every time,” and to “drop the sword” occasionally. 

If you feel like you’ve been carrying around a sword and shield, or if you’ve armored up at some point in your life but haven’t recently considered whether or not that armor is still necessary, maybe try putting down the sword, shedding the heavy layers of armor, and see what it’s like to get back in touch with those parts of you that have been covered up for so long. You could be limiting your own potential and fighting against the very things that could bring you more love, joy and peace. And you could also be depriving the world of your unique gifts. Find a safe place to practice surrender; it doesn’t mean you’re not still a warrior at heart.