Are You an Affirmation Junkie?

Affirmation. I love it. It's like a drug to me and I'm a totally junkie. That's not a good thing. And that's what we'll be talking all about this week. But first, make sure to check out this week's epic episode of FOMO Sapiens with David Allen, the creator of the Getting Things Done method of productivity.

And now on the the topic of the week: Affirmation.

I feel pretty sure that I know a thing or two about affirmation.   I consider myself to be a bit of an affirmation junkie.  After all, I spent two years in an MBA program, specifically at Harvard Business School, a place that is nothing if not an orgy of affirmation.  It is a place where you are constantly reminded that you will become a leader that will change the course of the world through a heady combination of talent and sheer will.  The contrarian view, that you will not achieve much of anything, is not tolerated.  It is the kind of place that invited all of its second year students to experience a fundraising presentation that was traveling around the country to update alumni on the school’s accomplishment.  After a thirty-minute multimedia presentation highlighting the global accomplishments of the school and its alumni, a well-known professor took to the stage.  She told each and every one of us how we would transform the world for the better in the coming years.  She then invited us to look under our seats where each of us found a medal inscribed with the mission of the school: “To educate leaders who will make a difference in the world.”  As I put on my medal, and against my will, I felt tears crowd into the corner of my eyes, the sense of affirmation complete and overwhelming.    

Lots of our daily decisions are driven by affirmation.   We buy certain cars, wear certain clothes, or pursue certain hobbies all in hopes of gaining the approval of others.  It’s human nature and anyone who claims they don’t care about gaining affirmation from others is either a psychopath or a liar.   There is, however, a specific type of human being that is particularly susceptible to seeking affirmation from others along multiple dimensions of life.   This particular species seeks affirmation almost reflexively thanks to the years of rejection that plagued its childhood and adolescence.  This species, somewhat rare outside of elite universities and the narrow range of professions that these universities feed, is known as the overachiever.  

It’s no surprise that most of the students at America’s elite universities are massive nerds.  It’s hard to get into the best school and in the absence of a strong family legacy, you need a combination of intellect, high test scores, stellar extracurricular activities to make the cut.  Sure, there’s the occasional smart quarterback or cheerleader who slips through the cracks, but the vast majority of America’s “Best and Brightest” are nerds at heart.  These are the kids that were teased by playground bullies from an early age.   From the earliest days of their youth, they faced one of two choices.  They could try to conform, or they could study their asses off secure in the knowledge that someday the rules of the game would favor them and they would come out on top.   If their bet played out right, they would climb up the social ladder while the very kids who hurled insults at them would ring up their groceries or serve their drinks. 

For some of these kids, the future plays out just as they had hoped during all the years of social exclusion.  They move on to top schools, get high powered jobs, and outperform the people who treated them so badly all on the playground or at the school dance.  The problem, however, is that they still care.  Even though they convinced themselves not to take abuse from the losers in their hometown, they also know that they have made a tremendous investment in the markers of success that separate them from the more ordinary lives they might have known.  The Blackstone business card, the Cornell sweatshirt, the Harvard Club membership, the JP Morgan tote bag, or the Stanford Business School umbrella, now matter how subtlety displayed, serve as markers of the struggle.  They signify of membership in a special club, a tribe of similarly successful people.   They all send the same message:  I am part of something successful. 

This can deeply affect how we think about making choices in our careers. A person's expectations, passions, and financial requirements are personal determinations that are shaped by their past experiences, their values, their aspirations, and their environment.   Yet they are also influenced by our interactions with other people and by the very human tendency to seek affirmation when choosing and shaping a career.  We care about what others think about us and we want others to validate that we are smart, or successful, or important.  So what happens when that validation is suddenly gone?  Decisions that seemed attractive, even exciting, in the formulation phase, can feel quite the opposite once they are exposed to the harsh light of public scrutiny.  

I got a call one day from a friend, I’ll call him Max, who had just left a high-level government job working for the Obama legislation on his landmark healthcare legislation.  Max had worked for The White House straight after graduating from an elite university and he was burned out.  He wanted to take time off and forge a new path, ideally in the private sector.  He also wanted to move cities for personal reasons.   Once he settled in San Francisco, he’d find a job and resume his successful career trajectory.  A few weeks after Max settled into his new surroundings, he gave me a call.  He sounded a little traumatized.  On his first weekend on the West Coast, he went to a dinner party with a bunch of his contemporaries.  When one of the girls sitting at the table asked him what he did for a living, he didn’t’ know what to say.  He sort of fumbled for words and then explained that he was in between jobs.  “Oh,” she responded, “so basically you’re unemployed.”  In the space of just a few weeks, Jake had gone from working in a high level position in a city that lionized the political class to sitting with a bunch of people who looked at him as some sort of sad and unemployed migrant.  He went from hero to zero. 

Max’s story isn’t particularly unusual, but it’s hard to know what it’s like for successful people to lose affirmation until the hatchet drops.  When a person leaves a high-powered job, all of the little creature comforts disappear.  The blackberry and the email address are gone.  So is the office building filled with expensive office machines and plentiful assistants who pick up phones, make copies, greet guests, and generally plump up their superiors’ egos.  There are no more business cards to pass out at conferences to wide-eyed college students.   The expense account that covered 5-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants is now gone as well.  Of course, none of these things were initially related to vocation or direct compensation, but they create the lifestyle that surrounds a job.  They are hard to give up because they are far more sensory than a paycheck or a desire to make a difference and they fall squarely within the world of affirmation. 

Are you an affirmation junkie?