Memory Monday: I don't have a killer instinct

I remember the time in high school when I was trying out for the girls' basketball team, and my future coach, after observing me, pulled me aside and said, "You have the tools, fix it." What he meant was that I had the skills, smarts, and the composition of a good basketball player, but I wasn't aggressive enough. I needed to fix my attitude, because I didn't have that killer instinct that Geno talks about his team having (his team being the UCONN women's basketball team: I grew up in CT and am a big UCONN fan). They don't stop at a lead of 6, 15, 20, or 50. They'll keep playing at that high level regardless of the score. I, however, just wanted to play because playing, and not necessarily playing to win, was fun. I felt bad if my team was up by more than 20 because I knew what it felt like to be down by 20 (we were down by 20 more often than up by 20 because frankly, we weren't that good). I guess that's why I spent a lot of time warming the bench.

Earlier today, I met with a new recruiter. (By new, I mean this is now the 4th recruiting agency I've met with since I became unemployed. Hey, it's always good to have people looking out for you!) Towards the end of the interview, when it became clear that they did not usually place people in marketing research jobs, I asked to speak with their temping department thinking that it would at least be a good idea to find some temp work in marketing for the time being. I met with the temping department and they seemed positive and friendly; everything went well. Then I left the office and remembered one time I had temped for a day at a humongous company downtown. I was charged with organizing and updating the never ending list of the CEO's contacts in Outlook. Looking around at his office, I realized that I lacked the killer instinct to become a CEO. It just didn't seem important to me. Now, I'm not saying being a CEO is a bad thing or putting down the people who are (or want to be) CEOs - those people are fantastic in their own right. But it just wasn't something that was on my list of things to accomplish. And it's not that I'm lazy, afraid of competition on my way to the top, or anything else you might think it is. On the contrary, I'm actually quite hard-working and I like competition. But I don't want to be a giant success, at least not in the sense that a CEO is a giant success. I want to be able to have a job where I can work to live, not live to work.

I'll let you know how that works out.