All The Ways This Could Have Gone

All The Ways This Could Have Gone

John Paul Derryberry

This past week, a group of people decided I was worthy of being the next Executive Director of my agency. Years worth of education in and out of the classroom has culminated at this moment. While it is just a moment because if I do not do the job well, I won't be in the position long, and the tricky part about landing the job is then doing the job.

Before I set out for my next professional adventure, let's chat a little about someone who ends up at this place. What occurs for people who end up opening their own business, reaching their professional goals, and finding success? This is the spot where usually someone goes on and on about all their hard work, resilience, perseverance and grit.

There are a zillion ways the path leading me from Orwell, Ohio, where my first job was painting the town's fire hydrants, to leading a non-profit, could have gone sideways.  And while few will admit it, most of it has little to do with my effort. What if my sister doesn't get a job in my school to help with my fragile mental health? What if my brother, then in his early twenties, doesn't feel the pull to come home from college to spend time with his struggling brother? What if my first college doesn't close and I don't find my way to Des Moines and create lasting bonds with a group of guys? What if a professor, who had no reason to, doesn't pull me aside and say he feels I can do big things? What if my first boss boots me for a less than a stellar attitude instead of pointing my passion the right way? What if my now wife took one look at my apartment when we first met and said, too rough around the edges?

If any one of those events goes differently, maybe the worst parts of my personality grow and the good ones shrink. Perhaps I become jaded and self-destructive instead of hopeful and driven. A thousand interactions amongst thousands of people led to this moment, not me alone, not just my hard work, not just my driven attitude, not just my passion. Everyone had a hand in this; I'm just the lucky guy who reaps the benefits.

It's a fact that is not lost on me, but numerous people in our American culture refuse to see the help they have received to get where they are. They close doors behind them as they ascend the ladder. The best of us realize that we need to keep those doors open for future generations to walk through. The cream of the crop people make the doors accessible for newer people.  My life could have gone many ways. I'm here today because so much of it went right. And the percentage of it that went right was mostly out of my control. I'll spend the rest of my professional career trying to educate people on this fact. I want to be hopeful that it will work out if I pass on hope to the people in my orbit.  After all, so many people I interacted with approached me as hopeful, and it turned out great for me!