Years ago, I listened to a presentation by an executive at a major oil company titled, “Own Your Own Obstacles.” The executive told a story from his work experience that he thought would help guide young people in their own careers.
In this company, profit determined the vast majority of how much an executive made. In good times, executives did well. In bad times, which were common in the industry, they received much less than others in the industry. Fortunately, this executive did well and quickly gained the trust of the company’s ownership.
As one of the other branches began to tank, the owners approached him and asked him if he would take it over. He declined, citing the poor state of the branch and the long hours that would be necessary to turn that branch around. He just didn’t think he had it in him. But the owners persisted and convinced him he was the man for the job.
After just a month into running the other branch, it was time for the executive to receive his yearly bonus. To his shock, the owners decided to pay him based on the profits of the branch they had forced him to take over rather than his previous branch. It was the lowest amount he had been paid in years and the lowest any executive at the company had received.
Understandably, he was furious. He called up the owners to let them have it, and to inform them that he was leaving the company.
It wasn’t fair.
The owners reiterated that they valued him on their team and would be sorry to see him go. But, they said, as the person in charge of that branch, they couldn’t pay him more. It was his branch and it was failing. The executive turned in his resignation.
After spending a week thinking about it, however, he decided to get his job back. The owners had never let him down in the past, and part of him wanted to succeed to spite them.
He spent two long years turning the branch around. He shouldered the unpleasant task of firing his management team. He recruited top talent. His team devised a new strategy. And, slowly but surely, the branch improved.
At the end of his second year, he finally received the same pay he had before. At a meeting with the owners, he mentioned that he was glad to be fairly compensated again. “We knew you’d stick around,” one of the owners said with a wink. “But if we did it differently, you would’ve kept blaming everything on the previous management instead of fixing it. Now you know how to own your own obstacles…which branch do you want next?”
The executive told us that even though it may not seem fair, sometimes we must take responsibility for problems we didn’t cause. Otherwise, nothing gets done and we won’t go anywhere.
I’ve since heard the same idea from other people. And I’ve realized that although we should fight for fairness, sometimes our desire for fairness and sympathy, no matter how justified, can prevent us from achieving our goals.
In a graduation speech by Admiral William H. McRaven, a Navy SEAL, Admiral McRaven outlines the lessons he learned through going through SEAL training.
As part of the grueling training, the SEAL instructors conducted uniform inspections several times a week. Student’s uniforms had to be perfect: hats starched, shoes immaculately polished, shirts perfectly ironed. If the students failed uniform inspection, the instructors made them run into the ocean, roll around in the sand, and then wear the soaking, sandy uniform the rest of the day.
The thing was: the instructors failed everyone. Every time. No matter how perfect their uniform was.
As Admiral McRaven puts it:
“There were many a student who just couldn’t accept the fact that all their effort was in vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it was unappreciated. Those students didn’t make it through training. Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform.”
Compared to the other difficulties aspiring SEALS must endure, walking around in a wet, sandy uniform must be among the least challenging. I imagine that ironing a shirt or polishing shoes would be a welcome break for someone going through brutal physical training with little sleep.
But they did. The physical punishment didn’t break the students. The students quit because the instructors left open the possibility that they could pass uniform inspection and it wasn’t fair that no one passed. That understandable sense of injustice was enough to crush these students’ spirits and cause them to give up on their lifelong dream.
What’s the lesson here?
Although many of us are not Navy SEALS or oil executives, this sense of injustice, no matter how justified, can often get in the way of our own goals.
Take everyday examples. Your roommate won’t clean up her dishes, even though you’ve told her to do so many times. Your friend that is 6’8’’ easily makes the high school basketball team while you struggle to do so at 5’5’’. You navigate the college world while facing anxiety, and it feels like everyone else just seems to be having fun partying.
These situations can paralyze us—they aren’t fair and there isn’t always a way to make them so. Even worse, it’s usually painfully obvious that no one else appreciates the unfairness of those situations. “Just clean them up yourself,” they’ll say. “Just practice harder.” “Just relax.”
So, what do we do?
There are a few historical examples that I think may offer some answers.
One is Jackie Robinson. When Jackie Robinson entered Major League Baseball as the first black player in 1947, he received hate mail and death threats. Players intentionally tried to injure him.
Under these circumstances, Jackie Robinson had every reason to give up. Imagine you were performing on the biggest stage in the country with newspapers reporting on your every move. Imagine if you had the hopes of your people on your back. And finally, imagine if you had to go into your normal job with people threatening to kill you. That’s what Jackie Robinson had to do. It’s hard enough to play a sport professionally. It’s even harder when you must overcome obstacles other players don’t. It must have felt terribly unfair.
Instead of physically confronting the hateful actions towards him, which he had every right to do, Jackie poured his energy into being the best baseball player he could be. Outside the lines, he continued to fight for equal rights, but on the field, he was stoic, not even arguing with umpires over calls.
The point is that even though he faced greater obstacles than others, Jackie Robinson continued to fight on anyway. And in doing so, he won Rookie of the Year and had a .311 average across his ten MLB seasons. Jackie Robinson’s actions helped lay the foundation for the Civil Rights movement to come.
If you face a situation where you must overcome more than others to achieve the same result, that’s not fair. It’s deflating. But do the work necessary to achieve your goal anyway.
If you are short, you may have to be more skilled than a tall person to play basketball. Be more skilled anyway.
If you are less likely to get a job because of your ethnicity or gender, be so good that no one could reject you anyway.
I’m not saying don’t fight to make things fair—you should still do that, just like Jackie Robinson did—but don’t give up on your goal just because it is more difficult for you, even if that difficulty is significant and unjust.
Taking extra steps to achieve a goal in the face of unfairness is often one of the best ways to change the unfair situation itself.
Jackie Robinson changed baseball not just by being the first black player in the Major Leagues, but by being undeniably good, despite everything that was working against him. In the face of his talent, the country couldn’t ignore the fact that black players were just as good, if not better, than white ones. But if Jackie had decided not to play in the league given all the extra difficulties in front of him, that milestone may have taken longer to occur.
In a just world, J.K. Rowling should never have had to use her initials instead of her full name to hide the fact that she was a female author. But she did so anyway to achieve her goal of selling books. By taking that extra, yet unfair, step, she catapulted the status of female authors.
In your life, clean up your roommate’s dishes, even though you shouldn’t have to. You might find that in doing so, your roommate may feel compelled to start washing the dishes on her own.
Go to parties even though you have anxiety, and you might make connections with people going through the same thing.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fight to be heard. You should always do that. But it does mean that you shouldn’t give up on your own path in the face of injustice.
In the end, this advice might sound the same as ignorant people: “just clean them up yourself…just practice more…just relax,” but it’s coming from a place of sympathy rather than ignorance. And if you own your own obstacles with intention, you may achieve your goals and make the world a little fairer in the process.
