Losing A Title. Finding Myself.
“I’m sorry, but you didn’t get the job.”
I sat in a small, quiet conference room opposite my team leader as she told me the promotion I’d been striving for and chasing for over six years wasn’t happening.
I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath, holding back tears of anger. Her words were meant to console, but they sounded like noise against the heaviness in my chest. The disappointment—and even disgust—would surface later.
This was the job I thought I wanted. The one that would make everything else make sense. I believed this role would finally prove my worth, that the title itself would open doors and erase doubt. Instead, the only thing it opened was a wound without healing.
The toughest part? My leader couldn’t tell me why. “Not the right fit,” was all she offered. No details, no explanation. Just…not you. I turned the phrase over in my mind for weeks. I thought about it constantly, like an unsolvable riddle. My teammates were racing past me, and I was stuck. It felt like a secret everyone knew but me.
Not long after, God gave me a new leader. He had a remarkable amount of perception, self-awareness, and deep care for his team. My check-in with him was the first and only meeting in my career where I shed an actual tear.
Realization finally hit. The problem wasn’t the company. The problem was me.
I’d been at the company nearly seven years and thought I knew everything. I answered questions with statements, dismissed ideas without curiosity, and rarely bothered to follow up. Confidence had become arrogance.
The moment felt like the scene in Scripture when the prophet Nathan told King David the story of a rich man who stole a poor man’s only lamb. David, indignant, demanded justice. Then Nathan turned to him and said, “Thou art the man.” In that instant, David saw himself clearly. That’s what this moment did to me.
I was wrecked.
For the next several years, I went on a quiet campaign against my own ego. I devoured books about humility, studied every Scripture I could find on pride, and practiced asking questions instead of offering answers. Slowly, painfully, I learned to seek understanding before assuming I already had it.
Ego has remained my thorn in the flesh. It resurfaces when I least expect it. But that rejection—what once felt like failure—became the mirror I needed. It showed me who I was, and who I could become if I chose growth over self-importance.
I now have something better: a deeper humility, a sharper awareness, and the knowledge that leadership is less about titles and more about how you treat people.
Humility isn’t a destination; it’s a practice. Some days I still slip, but I’ve learned the falling is part of the learning. That loss ended one season, but it planted the seeds for the next.