Growth? That's on you.

This appeared on my Medium blog in 2017. Bringing it to life on my personal website.

I sat down with my VP Sales a few weeks ago to talk about my career. I told him I was frustrated that I hadn’t been developing as fast as I wanted to be. He gave me a stern look and said

“You want growth? That shit is on you.”

It’s a simple statement, but gave me a completely new perspective on how I approach my career. As the conversation continued, he told me this: “No one is going to ever give you a path or make a plan. It’s up to you to create it.”

As I thought about it more, no one is ever going to want me to develop as much as I want it. So I’m pledging to take a new approach.

Each month, I’m going to pick something I want to focus on doing a better job of, spend a few hours a week brainstorming new approaches, test them out, and iterate. When I feel I’ve improved, I’m going to document the change and review them a few months later to make sure I haven’t fallen back into bad habits.

What’s the one thing you can spend this month working on?