In the movie Black Panther, there’s a foundational moment when the character Zuri explains why he left a child behind to fend for himself in inner city Oakland — after watching the king kill the child’s father.
And to add to that, the man the king killed was his brother…
… and that abandoned child grows up to be the ruthless yet relatable villain known as Killmonger.
The best explanation Zuri could come up with is “we had to maintain the lie.”
He told himself that every day until it ultimately caught up with him and he met his end at the hands of Killmonger.
Now why on earth am I talking to you about a comic book movie?!
For one, my son dressed as Black Panther yesterday for Halloween (Wakanda forever!), and we watched the movie since they don’t have school today.
But the bigger thing is it got me thinking about lies I’ve told myself over the years. Maybe you’ll recognize a few of them:
- You’ll get promoted if you do a good job. Doing a good job matters but you have to do WAY more than just that.
- You’re happy at your job. The truth is job searching is work and you’re not unhappy enough to outweigh the complacency keeping you from seeing what else is out there.
- Writing your resume is just a formality to check a box — they all are the same. Wrong!
- Your job is safe because you’ve been unconditionally loyal. LOL. Expecting reciprocal unconditional loyalty from your employer is a fool’s bet— like betting “00” every time in a game of roulette. You have to make yourself indispensable.
I could go on but you get the idea… No more maintaining the lie. Whatever yours is, let’s agree to let it go today.
For an extra dose of truth serum, hop, skip, or jump on over to the link for a belated halloween treat:
1- “No one will find that small mistake you made” was a pretty major misconception I had. Being upfront and owning a mistake is part of learning and growth.
2- “keep it yourself” – hahaha like that ever works!??!!
3- “Won’t see that person ever again because I’m leaving my job and moving towns” – Yup, professional world is indeed smaller than we realize
#3 definitely is a killer. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve run into people in other cities, companies, or boomerangs coming back to a company. It’s wild.