Environment Matters

 

Whether or not this article is true is irrelevant, the message is important.

If you are talented, special, have a passion, whatever, and your environment isn't cultivating your skills, you need to leave as soon as you are able. That last part is important: As soon as you are ABLE. Don't leave your job unless you're financially stable enough to do so. 

I've seen this more times than I can count while serving in the military. The military, actually ANY bureaucracy, does not recognize, promote, and often dismisses and goes through great length to get rid of talent and skill. I've got dozens of theories and ideas as to why this is, everything from incompetence to jealousy, but the why doesn't matter, just the fact that it does.

Don't take it personal, don't whine, just realize what you have and make a plan so you can cultivate it, grow it, turn it into something you can support yourself with.

The inverse also happens a lot, where unskilled, terrible people believe they're special and talented, then whine and complain and say the system is keeping them down. Instead of recognizing they aren't talented or special, and it isn't the system isn't keeping them down, but rather their own self entitlement spawned through some type of delusion, they just whine and wallow and complain.

How can you tell if you're the first type of person or the second? You need to pressure test EVERYTHING. Get feedback, honest feedback. I knew I was good at boxing when I kept winning, and not against sorry people, but against top people in my weight class in the state, in the whole country, that's when I knew I was good, but it started by being self aware.

I knew I was good at my last job, not because of my gut feeling, not because of the awards, not because people told me I was good, but because I saw objective, undeniable results that my methods worked, which confirmed my gut feeling, the awards, and what people were saying about me.

Follow your gut, make sure you really are special and talented, then, when you're able (notice I did not say ready, because you'll never be "ready"), leave your environment and flourish.