I was never going to be the guy\u2014the one people rallied around, the golden child, the anointed one. I wasn\u2019t the star quarterback of anyone\u2019s career fantasy draft. More often than not, I was the last pick in the schoolyard pick\u2019em. And it wasn\u2019t because I lacked ability. Quite the opposite. I had the talent. What I lacked was the pedigree, the polish, the politics. The things narcissists and gatekeepers latch onto when they\u2019re deciding who \u201cbelongs.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written before\u2014most recently in Full Circle\u2014that in the law firm world, maybe half of the people who make partner actually deserve it. The other half? Beneficiaries of the right lunch buddies, the right mentor, or the right last name. It\u2019s a club. And if you don\u2019t have the right handshake, they\u2019ll make damn sure you stay outside.<\/p>\n
There were moments in my life when that weighed on me. Watching someone far less capable than me get the job, the praise, the platform. It eats at you, if you let it. Makes you question if talent really matters at all. But here\u2019s the thing I learned: they can only keep you down for so long.<\/p>\n
Real talent\u2014paired with relentless hope\u2014is a force. Maybe not the kind that storms the gates on day one. But it chips away. It endures. It makes itself undeniable over time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something I think about a lot, and not just professionally. Hope is hard-earned when you come from a family where love is conditional and success is never your own. My parents had their idea of who I should be\u2014and spoiler alert, I didn\u2019t fit their mold. I didn\u2019t go to Harvard. I didn\u2019t climb the ladder they imagined. I built my own. And I climbed that. And it worked out.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a quote from The Shawshank Redemption\u2014one of the few films that gets the long game of resilience right: \u201cHope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the kind of hope I clung to. Not the na\u00efve, starry-eyed version. The kind born of disappointment and grit. The kind that gets up after the fifth, sixth, or fifteenth rejection and says, \u201cI\u2019m not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
So no, I was never their guy. But I became my own guy. And eventually, I became the right guy\u2014for the clients who valued what I did, for the readers who saw themselves in my story, and for the people who believed that merit still matters, even in a world that often forgets it.<\/p>\n
They may overlook you. They may underestimate you. But they can\u2019t stop you\u2014if you\u2019ve got talent. And if you\u2019ve got hope.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was never going to be the guy\u2014the one people rallied around, the golden child, the anointed one. I wasn\u2019t the star quarterback of anyone\u2019s career fantasy draft. More often than not, I was the last pick in the schoolyard … Continue reading