“Do the right thing and deal with the consequences.”
“So much good can be accomplished if nobody cares who gets the credit.”
I don’t know where I first heard those words, but I’ve carried them for decades.
Over the years, I’ve helped lay the foundations for several significant projects. Some are still growing. People have taken them further than I could have imagined when we began.
I joked with a friend recently that most people won’t remember my part in them. Maybe nobody cares.
I said it lightly, but there was some truth beneath the joke. We all want to know that our efforts counted. We want someone, now and then, to say, “What you did made a difference.”
There is nothing wrong with wanting that. Recognition can be a generous gift. But it may never arrive in proportion to what we gave.
That’s a hard part of a pivot. We leave a role, a team, or a project, and the work carries on without us. Others build on it. They make it their own. Eventually, our names may no longer be part of the story people tell.
Still, the foundation holds.
Perhaps one way to measure a contribution is to look at what became possible because we were there. Did we help someone find courage? Did we make a sound decision when it was costly? Did we build something others could carry forward?
We may not always know the answers. And I don’t think we need to pretend that being overlooked doesn’t hurt.
But when I look back, I want to be able to say: I did what I believed was right. I gave what I could. I helped make room for something good to grow.
PIVOT Point: What good can you see growing from work you once helped begin, even if few people remember your part in it?
