Questions from Beyond by kellen manning

Wait. Why am I here? 

For those of you who don’t know, I actually don’t work at MIT anymore. I actually haven’t worked at MIT for a whole week. So, again, why am I here? Well, there’s really only two reasons.

The first is I’m three days away from my first day at my new job⁠01 someone decided i should be a director. what?! and I was just curious if I still had access to things from my old job. Because you’re reading this now, it seems like i do.

The second reason is actually buried in the first reason. I’m less than three days away from my starting my new job, and I’m kind of nervous. Well, kind of is KIND OF an understatement here, I might be a tad…scared?

It’s literally everything I’ve been building to since I was 19-years-old and decided I wanted to work in communications. The problem is, I’m starting to think that getting to this point might have been the easy part and what comes next is when the work really starts. 

Seriously, for better or worse, I’ve spent basically every waking moment of my life since I was probably 12-years-old being anti-authority and anti-conformity,⁠02 Think of a mix of Audrey’s angsty vibes mixed with Cami’s willingness to call anyone out only to wake up one day and realized that I’m going to be the authority. I know I’ve written a lot about leading a secret team of talent individuals, but this seems different.

I approached all those projects with the idea that we can do it better than everyone else. I approached everything we worked on same way I’ve approached anything I’ve ever done, with a hint of delusional confidence, audacity, and a healthy chip on my shoulder. 

Does that approach still work the further you go? Or, do I have to change who I am and how I do things in order to keep advancing? I mean it got me here, but is it good enough? Am I good enough?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know what I’m going to do. Like I said earlier, I’ve worked for this since I was 19. Every up and down, every choice, every loss, every lesson, and every victory has theoretically led me to this moment. Which means, all I can do is trust myself and do what I can to the best of my abilities. That doesn’t mean I won’t change a bit. Ideally, people continue to grow and with growth comes different perspectives and new approaches, BUT there’s a reason I’ve made it as far as I have. There’s something that I bring that people saw value in. So I owe it to them, I owe it to the people who have helped me get to this point, and to myself continue to trust myself and be myself.

And whatever happens after that, happens. 

Good luck, everyone. See ya!!