I didn't have an answer.

A couple of years ago I drove up to Ohio for an interview. At the time I lived in Indiana, so I drove up with the whole family. Hubby and the boys scouted the area while I spent the whole day interviewing. This was the final round of a long process and my second trip there. I was excited about this one. I walked in that day ready to close the deal.

My final session was with the CIO. We were having a great conversation and it was going really well. Then she asked me a question that caught me off guard.

What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies?

I froze. Sat there like a deer in headlights and realized I did not have an answer. My whole life at that point was work and family and running the corporate race. The scary part wasn't that I couldn't name a hobby. It was that I couldn't remember the person who used to have them.

There's a version of you the world approves of. She's competent and easy to work with. She doesn't rock the boat. People trust her with the hard things and hand her the big projects.

Every time she gets rewarded, she gets a little more real. A little more you. Until one day someone asks what you actually want, and you realize you've been doing what was expected by others for so long that you don't remember what you want.

I was good at her. I was good at her for decades. I could walk into almost anything and become the person that situation required. I thought that was range. I thought it was maturity.

It doesn't happen all at once. It happens one micro trade at a time.

You share a great idea in the meeting but it doesn't land the way you hoped, so the next time you wait to see which way the room is leaning and follow suit. You get the feedback that you come across a little strong, so you start opening with "this might be a dumb question." You stop saying what you think and start saying what moves things along. And every one of those trades gets rewarded. The meeting goes smoother. The review is glowing. You get handed the bigger thing.

So you do it more. Of course you do. It's working.

The hobbies went first, then the opinions, then the wanting itself. Nobody forced any of it. The approved version just kept getting the applause and she was happy to take the wheel and run the show.

There's a name for this. Psychologists call it self-monitoring. Some people are wired to read what a situation needs and adjust themselves to match it. The ones who do it best tend to do well. A lot of it is just good emotional intelligence. It's a great life skill that’s needed. The catch is what happens when you run it for years without a break. The adjusting stops feeling like a choice and becomes the only setting you've got. You get so good at reading what everyone else needs that you stop checking in with yourself. Somewhere along the way your own answer quietly drops out of the equation.

And here's the part that makes it stick. The version of you that keeps getting rewarded is the one that keeps showing up. That's not a character flaw, it's just reinforcement. You repeat what gets applause. When the approved version continue to get the applause she continues to run the show.

I coached a woman last year with an impressive career. She'd built her business from the ground up and was now thinking about succession. In our first session I asked her what she wanted. She answered before I finished the question. Sharp, clear, three priorities and a timeline. All of it for the business.

I said, no. You. What do you want?

The question left her speechless. This is a woman who could command a boardroom, but she couldn't find a single sentence for herself. She finally said no one had ever asked her that. She'd gotten so good at having the right answer ready that she'd never noticed the one question she couldn't answer was the most important.

I'm not telling you the approved version was a mistake. She got you here. She kept you safe and kept a roof over the people counting on you. Respect her for it.

However, she was never the whole story. She's just the part that made it through the edits.

Somewhere before all the trading, there was a version of you who wanted big things. Who was too loud and too curious before you learned to turn her down to a volume other people were comfortable with. She isn't gone. She's been quiet because for a long time quiet was the safer bet.

So here's the question I want you to sit with this week.

Because she's the one who knows what you actually want. She always did.

So what are your hobbies? What do you like to do for fun? Hit reply and let me know.

Until next Tuesday.
Ceaneh