“You have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she declares,
when speaking about the journey to a paid seat on the board of a Fortune 500
company. It’s been one
of my goals for years. Early on I was
afraid, like most of us are when we feel we have audacious aspirations, to say
it out loud, afraid I would be dismissed as obviously joking because of my
glaring lack of qualifications. As the pages
have turned in the book of my career, I find myself about 75% complete. It’s time to
get serious about this piece of my exit strategy. And from what I learned on a women-led
30-minute call this week about how to make this dream a reality, while there is
a huge demand to put my gender in these roles, the road is long. I need to get cracking.
I walked away from this download of new information feeling
super hopeful and immensely qualified. As usual, in my attempt to race up whatever mountain is in front of me, I’ve blown right past the rest stops of reflection to savor and slot all the experience I’ve amassed, and more importantly, to take stock in who I am as a person, what I value, and how this impacts my professional life.I’ve
accomplished a ton, made visible to me as I dust off my resume, dripping in
cobwebs spun over the past eight years of neglect, and sit down to redact a decidedly
good story that has only become richer with the twists and turns of every
season.
Somewhere among my belongings, packed up more than three years
ago, is a piece of artwork created for me by my mother, in cross-stitch, one of
her favorite mediums. It’s a frog
with a crown on its head and the words “you have
to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your prince.” At the time this was given to me, I was
squarely focused on its fairytale meaning:
Where was my prince, I wondered, and when would I find him?
Frogs pepper the adventures of our lives, beckoning us to give
them a smooch, to see if we’re a match. They are the attractive
people we date, the sanguine managers we work for, a hobby requiring technical proficiency,
a dangerous sport that makes our hearts race, a new city to live in. They sparkle with charm and intrigue, they
can say all the right things, all the words we want to hear to lure us in. Frogs
croak and hop in every corner of our lives, lips pursed if we’re willing
to pucker up.
The courage isn’t in kissing the frog, eyes
squeezed tightly shut, its in embracing the idea that your kiss wasn’t wasted
when you open your eyes and you’re still staring at the frog, not
the prince you hoped for. It’s in being
brave enough to get out of a relationship that’s fizzled,
to leave the secure job you’re really good at but no longer
excited about, to jump out of an airplane over Moab, and admit to the group of
juiced friends who just leapt with you, “I didn’t really like
that, it’s not for
me”. This idea manifests itself in me when I say I
“wanted” to like
something. I tried it, expecting it
would be great for me, and it wasn’t.
Your prince can look like the ugliest frog in my book or vice versa.We decide for ourselves if the frogs we kiss really are
princes, no one can do it for us, whether it’s overtly
with an immediate rejection, or dubiously as a slow leak of unhappiness over
time.
We all possess magical powers that will frogs into princes. When
we’re young,
and in the shallows of wisdom and patience, this happens frequently, but it’s blessedly
not exclusive to youth. Who would want to know it all? As we get older, we hope to spot frogs more
easily and steer clear of what experience tells us is not a match. But I submit, if we stop kissing frogs, are
we really living?
Yes, this journey to a board seat will take time, and no, I
will not be a fit for every opportunity that crosses my path. But it won’t be
because I’m unqualified,
more like the frog of the moment simply isn’t my
prince. There is a place for me on a board;
knowing that makes it abundantly easier to keep seeking, as it is for anything
in life.
SWAK. An acronym for the ages.
