The Best Missed Opportunities (Bullets Dodged)
Early in my career I applied for a regional recruiter job for the company I worked for. The job would have taken me from recruiting for just a single location, to having a dotted line to every location in the division. It was exactly the kind of growth I had been looking for, and I was desperate to get the job. I was feeling burnt out and frustrated by my position and lack of growth in my role. The job felt like it was made for me, and I had my heart set on it. I went through three rounds of interviews, and I thought they went well. I had been with the company 8 years, and I had accomplished every goal and improved every imaginable KPI. I felt like the job was mine.
But they gave the job to a guy named Frank who was an external candidate. He had never worked for the company, and he had never recruited for the field we were in. I didn’t get the job.
To say that I was devastated might be an understatement. I had hung all my hopes on this job. Every frustration I had, every time I felt that I was dealing with the same old stuff that I had been dealing with for YEARS, I told myself that I was almost done, and that there were bigger things in store for me.
But, there weren’t. There were bigger things in store for Frank.
After losing out on that job, I was selected for a management training program that I wasn’t nearly as excited about. Day-to-day operations bored me. I wanted to be more strategic and less tactical, so the idea of coming to the same place every day and doing the same thing seemed terrible.
So I spent a few short years in operations, building my skills toward a future that I didn’t want, but then came upon an opportunity with my dream company. It was a manager of recruitment that paid more than Frank made, and it required several years of leadership experience. I took the job, and was promoted from manager to director only a year and a half after that, making even more money.
Losing out on that divisional recruiter job seemed like the worst thing in the world. But, looking back on it now, I would NEVER have gotten the job that paid what I wanted to be paid, doing the work I wanted to do if I had gotten that divisional recruiter job. The operational leadership experience I got instead was terrible at the time - but it was necessary for me to advance my career to get where I wanted to be.
Sometimes a move that feels like a step back is actually a step closer to your goal. The divisional recruiter job that I thought was my golden ticket was actually a bullet that I dodged. That job would not have provided any leadership experience, so I’d have been stuck as an individual contributor, unable to break into any kind of leadership role, because I would have lacked the experience. I couldn’t see it at the time of course, but the universe had my back. It sent me down the path I needed to go down so I could realize my potential.
I’m not the only one who has experienced this - here are a few other examples of people missing out on opportunities that weren’t opportunities at all, but dodged bullets:
Steve Jobs was famously fired from Apple in 1985. Devastated about being ousted from the company he created, Jobs didn’t quite, but founded NeXT and acquired Pixar, which would later revolutionize the animation industry. His experiences outside Apple deepened his vision and leadership skills so when we was asked to come back to Apple in 1997, he was able to make the company one of the most profitable in the world. He later said that getting fired was “the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Oprah was fired from a morning anchor job and called ‘unfit for television.’ Winfrey was disappointed, but the result was that the station asked her to cover a talk show to complete her contract, and it led to a smashing success for both the station and her career. Had she continued to struggle on as an anchor, she would never have made the fortune she amassed, nor would she have been able to touch so many lives.
Vera Wang wanted to become an olympic figure skater. She competed on the national level, but when she auditioned for the Olympic Team, she did not make it. She said: “I was devastated when I did not qualify for the Olympic team. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up doing a semester in Paris, where I realized I had a passion for fashion.” If Vera Wang had made the Olympic team, she may never have started the fashion line which ended up generating billions in revenue.
The moral of the story is to have faith. Think of all the times in history that someone didn’t get what they wanted, but it was the best thing for them. Have faith, be kind, and keep working your ass off. You will get what you want. I promise.
