Carl Setzer

  One of my favorite bloggers, Pooja over at Life's Fine Wine had a great post today: A VERY HAPPY APRIL TO EVERYONE . One thing she mentioned was getting a vegan cake for her birthday. Years ago, one of my team members who I was the admin, mentioned that he never ate any of the cakes I'd bought for the team celebrations. His commitment to his vegan principles was that important. So, for his next birthday, I made it a point to track down a vegan cake. Seattle had some vegan options, but they were pretty....inferior. I was not going to settle! I finally found a GREAT vegan bakery, with a carrot cake that even non-vegans loved. My friend was delighted; he appreciated that we valued him enough to do this. I was quite proud of it. 

I was reading an email newsletter sent by my friend and life coach Wendy Kranz , which talked about confidence. Got me thinking: what would I do with more self-confidence? Now, I've long struggled with low levels of self-confidence, manifesting as over-thinking, over-analyzing and over-planning. And I'm now thinking that it's manifested as a sense of dissatisfaction with my career. I've long been an executive/administrative assistant, and the similar roles that flow out of that. And with that a deep-seated "you can be so much more" mentality. Really, though, I've never been dissatisfied with my work, with the things I do, with my contributions. There's something deeper. Once I thought it might be a displaced sense of gender-roles. Being a guy in a typically female dominated role felt awkward at times. Never externally, no one ever said anything untoward about that to me. No, it's internal. Anyway, that doesn't seem so real any more. Esp...

Lately I've been realizing something about myself: I don't have these grand aspirations towards power in regards to my career. Confrontation is gloriously unpleasant. I love working in an admin role. That's what I've defaulted each time I've been laid off. I can't imagine doing anything else. I have tried a few things, but they generally come to naught as I don't have the massive drive such needs. It's delightful finally say "I'm cool with being an admin". I'm good at this. I add value to the teams I work with. I'm great at the administrative work needed on any project. I have no grand drive for acclamation and power. I'm quite comfortable being in the background. I like for my team to respect me and value my work.