I loved Dolly Parton. The voice. The hair. The rhinestones. The humour. The generosity. And perhaps most of all, the complete lack of interest in becoming a more acceptable (to others) version of herself.
Since Dolly died last week, I’ve shed a few tears, but I’ve also been thinking about something that captures so much of what I admired about her: be unmistakably yourself. Not the quieter version. Not the more acceptable version. The whole glamorous version.
It also speaks beautifully to the heart of my new book.
So much of the career advice we receive is about becoming more. More experienced. More senior. More strategic. More visible. More qualified. More polished. And there’s nothing wrong with growth. I love it and I’ve built much of my life around it. But somewhere along the way, I think a lot of us start confusing growth with becoming someone else.
We learn how to fit the organisation. How to sound more executive. How to behave in the meeting. How to dress for the next level. How to say the right thing. How to become the version of ourselves that seems most likely to succeed. And often, it works.
Until one day you have a pretty impressive career and find yourself wondering: Where am I in all of this?
That question is a big part of why my new book begins where it does. Not with “What job do you want next?” but with “Who are you?”
What matters to you now? What are you brilliant at? What gives you energy? What do you care deeply about? And what version of success actually works for the life you want to live?
These might sound like softer questions than “What’s your five-year career plan?” but I think they’re much harder, and much more useful. Because once you know yourself, you have a much better filter for everything else: the role, the promotion, the opportunity, the money, the organisation, the working hours, the people you choose to spend your days with, and even the things you decide you no longer want.
This is what I mean by designing your career from the inside out.
Dolly was perhaps one of the greatest examples of someone who understood the power of this. She knew who she was. She knew where she came from. She knew what mattered to her. And she seemed wonderfully comfortable owning all of it, including the bits others might have suggested she tone down.
In a world that is constantly encouraging us to fit in, there is something incredibly powerful about someone who chooses instead to become more fully themselves. I think the same is true of our careers.
What comes next for you may not require a completely new you. It might actually require more of the real you - more of your strengths, more of what brings you alive, more of the work you find meaningful, more courage to say no to the things that no longer fit, and more confidence to design success on your terms rather than simply inherit someone else’s version of it.
That’s where the work begins in my new book. Before we design anything, we discover. We get curious. We pay attention. We find the clues that have been sitting there all along.
Because the goal isn’t necessarily to reinvent yourself. Maybe it’s to become unmistakablyyourself. Thanks Dolly!
Rhinestones optional.