My secret is: I don't give a fuck about marketing.
I know I know, weird flex for someone who works in a leadership role in marketing, but let me explain. Several years ago I was sitting in a 3-day annual planning session with my client. As everyone went around the room and talked about the campaigns they were excited to launch that year and the goals they were excited to hit, it struck me - I truly do not care about helping brands sell their products. The thought of creating campaigns doesn't get me out of bed every morning. And it's far from the most interesting or exciting thing about my job.
Instead, I've come to learn that what brings me satisfaction in my work is:
The feeling that I've done my best at whatever I'm working on, regardless of the project's success
Creating environments where the teams I lead collaborate well and don't hate coming into work every day
The pride that comes from solving a particularly complex problem, especially when it has to do with interpersonal dynamics
I used to think this would hold me back in my career - that because I don't eat, breathe, and sleep marketing campaigns, or because I don't have ambitions to win a Cannes Lion (though ok, that would be cool and I wouldn't be opposed to it), eventually I would hit a ceiling and find that my career path was not right for me.
But that hasn’t been the case. I've found that the things I do enjoy doing - like finding deeper points of connection and understanding others' motivations and pressures, or helping my clients and teams navigate tricky situations and excel in their roles - have given me a unique leg up in my career.
Too often I think we make the mistake of thinking that our careers define our identities, and if our career doesn't feel like a match, it puts our entire identity at risk. Who am I if I'm not good at what I get paid to do? I argue though that it's the opposite - if we know who we are, what our values are, and what we want to offer to the world, it's our identities that bring purpose and power to our careers.
For example, personal development and cultivating self-awareness is a huge part of who I am and pre-dates any job I've done. It brings me joy to share what I've learned in my personal life with my teams, and this is exactly what has made me effective as a leader.
So who cares if you don't identify with your job. It's a much more valuable use of your time to figure out why you identify as yourself.