Masks

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not."

— Oprah Winfrey


In a week full of heated meetings with various directors, physicians, and VP's, this quote really struck me. Are we the same people all the time or do we put masks on when we want to be perceived in a certain way? In my own journey, this is something to which I aspire- to be the same person all the time, inside AND outside of work.

I used to talk about how I had several hats. My "home" hat, my "executive" hat, my "moral" hat, my "I'm a cool person, see?" hat. Etc.

It's time to consolidate the hats and stick with one "all-time" hat.

One of my colleagues provides a stellar example of this. We don't work for the same organization but our ongoing mergers often bring us together in difficult, high-stakes meetings. I watch her behave in these meetings and she just is who she is. There's no fluff, no masks, no ego. It's so refreshing and so weird.

I've got to learn how to do this.

Conveniently, this colleague and I go the same church and cross paths often in the community (you know, when you run out REALLY quickly for eggs and bread and you haven't showered yet after just going for a run and/or doing 2 hours of sweaty yardwork and see someone important? Yeah, like that). I took a risk and feeling like that geeky kid in middle school asking the designer jeans-wearing, popular, student council president to ride the school bus home with me, I invited my fascinating colleague to lunch.

I waited until I had an business reason to call her and then popped the question. She was gracious and lucky for me and my pride, immediately accepted.

It's funny, I'm not really sure how to make friends anymore. The friendships I have just sort of happened. There was no explicit effort involved; they just evolved. This was different, though, it was the first time in a long time I've seen someone in action and just wanted (needed?) to know how they do what they do. It was an interesting foray out of my comfort zone...but it would help if people operated with fewer masks and less pretending.

So that's what I'm going to work on next: dropping masks I know I wear and trying to expose those I'm not even aware I'm using. It might be geeky and I might be that unpopular kid still riding the school bus, but I don't care.