The Garnet Rule: Stop giving yourself away.

Today I came across a BBC article about how workers over 50 years old could make themselves more appealing in the job experience.  Imagine a starfish laying on his back and attempting to create a snow angel. When he stands up, he looks back at what he has created–a perfect circle.  Wide-eyed, a look of disappointing clarity comes across his face.  His single-syllable punchline is brilliant: “...Oh.” 

The starfish is Patrick, and the show is one of the three episodes of Spongebob I ever watched, but to date one of my favorite comedic excerpts.  And it’s exactly what happened in my head as I stared at the title of the “how to be young and hip” article.  

Do unto

yourself as you would

a precious friend.

The Garnet Rule

We have bought into the notion that success, especially workplace success, is directly correlated to your ability to be who others want you to be. I know, because I am remarkably good at playing this game. 

Early in my career, I met an incredibly talented young man.  Key word: young.  I noticed he was exceptional and showing up, no matter the people he was around.  I knew he went to great lengths to be age-agnostic.  When he left our organization and a leader revealed at a company-wide meeting how proud they were for his next role as an executive, “despite the fact that he’s only 27!” I felt the pit-of-my-stomach betrayal as if the inappropriate public reveal was about me.  I became even more focused on how to be one of any group, how to appeal to the values of the masses. 

Age is just part of the picture.  We learn quickly to follow The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”  The statement perhaps for centuries helped people emphasize the collective good, acknowledging how one should act toward others, and that they themselves are peers of others who deserve to be well done-unto. 

But whatever game of telephone happened across centuries, by the time this maxim landed in my ear, it was very clear that it meant I should focus most of my attention on how I was treating others. 

Then came the Platinum Rule, a favorite gaff of leadership seminar experts worldwide.  In an attempt to upgrade, this one says you should treat others not according to your own preference, but according to theirs.  Certainly this pushes individualized management and open-minded service of others. That’s a good thing.

But I was missing a crucial piece to the puzzle. 

I never learned how I actually want to be treated.  Perhaps the Golden Rule was a radical shift for self-serving individuals with the cultural invitation to take up space.  But beginning my socialization lessons with this expectation to focus on the needs of others as if they were my own just set my sights to super-zoom on what anyone but myself was needing. And it worked. Like a fast-track toward corporate favor, the more I concerned myself with what others wanted, the more quickly I could become it.

I’m sure as an infant I wasn’t shy or concerned about the needs of my caretakers.  But I wonder if I made it out of diapers before apologizing for my ridiculous addiction to food, water, shelter and love.  I am positive I’m not alone in this, because when I ask clients to describe the ideal fertile ground for their talents to thrive, most draw a blank.  If I ask “when are you at your best?”, most see it as an opportunity to say they can overcome anything.  Not only can they adapt, but perhaps they don’t even have needs at all.  I am concerned that this hyper-focus on being what others need has stretched our weaknesses into opportunities, rather than the helpful truth of understanding “who we are not.” The need to be all things to all people, to overcome areas of discontent or disinterest has changed us from interesting individuals with sharp corners and potent attractions to shapeless blobs without distinctive interests, curiosities, or preferences.

Let me introduce a new idea I think we could all benefit from making explicit: The Garnet Rule.  It’s Red, like TSwift and the grounding chakra.  It’s a gem, not a metal, so as not to compete with Gold, Silver, or Platinum.  You need this one–sometimes all on its own.  Sometimes set in complement with other rules. 

The Garnet Rule: Do unto yourself as you would a precious friend. 

I began implementing this in my daily journaling, and noticed an interesting change.  I started to learn my shape.  I got curious about what I truly loved, and what I just liked because others liked it.  I gave myself more time to complete commitments, adjusting closer to the accurate resources a solution truly requires, rather than continually hustling to deliver under budget and before the deadline. I acknowledged the style of others, from the kind of music they enjoy to the key generational references they use.  But I stopped losing myself in them, and I certainly didn’t pretend to make them my identity.  I wrote better goals.  I realized, for example, that a specific style of hotel is meaningful to me and opens up a trail of creative strategy that I want in my life.  I realized I don’t love being in charge of sending summaries after meetings. Or pears. I started listening to myself, trying intentionally to see her as worthy of attention and preference. 

To be honest, I had to amplify the Garnet Rule for a while to something even stronger: Treat yourself like you would treat a celebrity you adore.  And then I got even braver: Treat yourself like you were hosting Beyonce.  That’s the truth of what it took for me to circumvent the guilt of taking something, and instead consider the beauty of giving to myself. 

I have further to go, but the journey is worthwhile.  If we fail to stop and study ourselves as worthy, powerful creatures full of unique potential, then we all circle around the half-saturated guessing game of what others want us to be.  When I was in my 20s, I lied to most people about being in my 30s.  When I was in my 30s, I learned all the pop-culture references I could to appeal to leaders in their late 40s.  And now I’m reading that people in their 50s should take advice on how to hang with the younger crowd.  It sure seems like we are in danger of losing our shapes altogether.  Instead of bringing our powerful, potential-filled selves, we become blurry mirror images of what we think each other want.  I can imagine a world where we build rules, recognition, and expectations on the shapelessness of guessing what is appealing, rather than the certainty of knowing what lights us up.  And that’s not a world where you’ll catch me sporting Gold or Platinum.  I treat my most precious friends much better than that.