The value of our work is not our worth as people

I used to believe these were the same thing: how valuable someone's work is, that's how valuable they are as a person. It was one of the most flawed viewpoints I've carried.

What broke it was a meeting. I got the chance to meet someone whose work I deeply admired, and the person I met didn't match the work at all. The meeting didn't give me what I'd hoped for, and it taught me something instead: someone can be extremely talented in their professional field and still not be a good person. From then on, I started separating the two - a person's worth, and the value of their work.

Here's the interesting part: that separation is easy in one direction and hard in the other. Realizing that great work doesn't make someone a good person? Quick. One bad meeting was enough. But the reverse - realizing that unimpressive work doesn't make someone a worthless person - took me much longer to truly accept.

And that reverse direction is the one that matters, because it's a silent blocker for so many people. They hesitate to speak up, to try something new, to be a beginner, because they're afraid a poor result won't just be judged as work. It will be judged as them. Of course the two aren't completely unrelated - your work says something about you. But it doesn't define you, and the gap between those two ideas is where courage lives.

For me, this mindset paid off in three ways: I can be more honest in my work environment, I have more courage to be a learner, and I understand my teammates with more empathy - which is exactly what a team needs to build something great together.