When I Didn't Get Promoted, I Promoted Myself

When I was 25 years old, I was working as an account executive at a well-known public affairs and communications firm in Washington, D.C. It was fast-paced, the people I worked with were super smart, the client work was engaging and I was paid a fair wage for my work. 

But I had drank the Kool-Aid so many young professionals, especially those of us starting out in D.C., drink and unintentionally steeped myself very deep into what I now realize was the rat race of working for others and seeking a promotion as validation of my worth within the company.

I told myself that I had damn sure better get promoted that year when end-of-year reviews came. I was routinely putting in 10 to 12 hour days, I was using every one of the hard and soft skills I had learned at various jobs and internships prior and in college, I was working harder than I'd ever worked before, I was traveling for clients - often on little notice to places that weren't nearly as entertaining for a 25-year-old - and I was contributing to the culture of the company in a way that I think would be valued even more today now that there's been a more concerted conversation about the importance of diversity in the workforce.

Of course, during this time, I was also not as adept at tactful communication, humility as I've painstakingly learned to be over the last decade or so since. 

Still, I wanted that fucking promotion, and I worked my ass off to earn it.

Then end-of-year reviews came and I found out I didn't get promoted.

The cliche would be that it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it forced me to quit that job and start my entrepreneurial career.

But that's not exactly how it went down.

What happened was I quit the company the next month, I moved back from Washington, D.C. to Austin, Texas, to help one of my college lecturers launch his own communications firm as his first employee.

I did this full-well knowing that I did eventually want to launch my own business, but not getting promoted taught me something. It taught me that I didn't just want to jump out on my own. I wanted to find a way to get a job that my main focus wasn't going to be on getting promoted, but on preparing me to own my own business.

I worked for my college lecturer for about 8 months before I was approached by several communications executives at various companies, both clients and prospects for the firm I worked for about taking a job with them. But I didn't want another job. I wanted to own a business.

Eventually a communications executive at a Fortune 100 company that was not a client approached me with an opportunity to act as a consultant and adviser to her department and team. This was a real building block for me professionally, especially as an entrepreneur.

Within a few months of leaving the second communications firm, I had a number of my own clients and was doing work similar to what I would be doing at an agency where someone is billing my time out at 3X or 5X what I'm being paid on an hourly basis. More importantly than the money, my new company put me in a position to learn about business not from being in a position where every small mistake I made or risk I took would hinder my ability to get promoted, but where those mistakes and risks would serve as lessons for me as an entrepreneur someday.

Fast forward nearly a decade and each of my first three clients - the founder of a liquor company, the owner of several well-known bars and restaurants in Austin, and the executive from that Fortune 100 company - are all investors in my startup, Localeur. Bonus: four of my former bosses from the D.C.-based firm are investors in Localeur, too.

I didn't get promoted, but I found a way to turn that situation and disappointment into a turning point in my career and my approach to building the kind of professional life I wanted.

I promoted myself.