When you're already killing it

Which is more important, the racing or the winning? (SDASM Archives)

My favorite, favorite thing to do is work with people who already incredible at what they do.

Sure, it's kind of cheating. It's not very hard to help someone great become even greater.

Superstars move quickly, meaning that results show up quickly, too. And they tend to make a big impact. They influence others, meaning that helping these leaders is a way of helping many people all at once.

It's deeply interesting, challenging work, and it keeps me on my toes. Accomplished people still deal with obstacles — the same obstacles everyone faces, like procrastination, imposter syndrome, indecision, comparison, and fear of rejection. As you climb higher, you gain better tools for dealing with these things and you will be confronting them at a very high level, but they don't go away.

In fact, new problems can arise. Sometimes, achieving higher levels of success raises issues of worthiness ("Who am I to be here?"). Shame can show up in unexpected places if you believe that you should already have resolved certain difficulties in your life or you already have more than you think you deserve.

And success or influence can bring with it a new vulnerability. You might not want to take risks because you have more to lose. You might feel exposed. You may no longer have a trusted group of peers who have been where you are.

Plus, you feel bad for having a hard time, and conceited for thinking you should feel bad for having a hard time.

Therefore, when you're already killing it, you need people around you who get it. You need people who can support you and celebrate you, not resent you.

You still want to grow, and you need to be able to see where else you have room to grow. There's no need to slow down to match what you see around you. There may be few examples to follow, but there are infinite possibilities.

In a marathon, a pacer can help a tired runner to keep their mind and body aligned with their goals. Even though the pacer can't run at the level of the marathoner for all 26.2 miles, she can keep it up for a couple of miles until someone else takes over.

This is what you need if you're a successful, high-achieving person: a team who can support you in attaining your highest potential at the very moment that you feel maxed out. They don't have to be people who are functioning at your level, but together, you can push past the barriers and get to the next level.

I don't mean for my use of the word "level" to sound elitist. It's really not. We don't all want the same thing. Not all of us have the same drive. That's why I'm happy to be a supporting player in someone else's story — I love being a pacer. There's nothing more satisfying for me than to help someone else to see, just a little more clearly, how amazing they are and what they might be capable of.

If you're an exceptionally high achiever (and many of my readers really are, though they might feel a little hesitant to admit it), there's a chance that you struggle with it. The advice you receive from the usual sources may not apply to you anymore. Perhaps you are on a trajectory that isn't shared by others in your family or from your hometown. As a result, your ambition stays small and secret.

But what would happen if you were to truly own your prowess and power? What if you were to surround yourself with people and ideas that forced you to dig deep and get better? What if you confronted not the usual challenge of trying to stay reasonable and relatable, but of being as audacious and ambitious as you really are?

If that sounds a little scary, good. Keep going. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow leads to another rainbow. Come back and tell us about it.