Letting Your Light Shine

This little light of mine I’m gonna let it shine….

When my younger voice first sang these words, I thought my light had to shine brightly so people could find me—my own little built in beacon of light – shining brightly. Hide and seek was my game of choice back in the day. No I-pads to distract. And hide and seek in department stores -- that was the best. Department stores like Yankees and Robert Hall were the absolute best, (Yes I know. I’m that old. They were Flint stores in my defense.) But I was told hide and seek in stores was an absolute no-no. I loved being in the middle of those old circular racks hidden among hangars; the clothes protecting me from the unsuspecting figures just beyond; listening in on conversations; I loved pretending I was Emma Peel from the Avengers. No one knowing where I was. But, ummmmm, right. Hiding in those circular racks was a no-no. My little light was supposed to shine – shine brightly. I was supposed to be able to be seen. To be found.

A few months ago, a friend of mine, Dawn, re-entered the formal job market after many years of raising her kids and after many years of being a major part of the village who helped me with mine. And with so many things in life, it got me to thinking yet again about that simple song, the message in that song and what it requires of you. It requires more than you think. It seems simple, but it is not.

It took a lot for Dawn to look for a “real” job. She settled on becoming a school bus driver. Dawn as a school bus driver makes total sense. Dawn loves kids. But who knew there were so many things to learn about driving a bus? She studied and she studied and she studied. She learned. She took the test. She failed. She took the test. She failed. But eventually she passed. Persistence. Her reward? She was now required to set an alarm, get up at an ungodly hour (Dawn is a night owl—so, yeah, not easy for her) and work a set number of hours each day. After a fashion, she decided to join the safety committee. Pretty darn cool, right? But do you know what happened? Co-workers started talking about her. They didn’t like that she was working so hard—that she was a go getter…that she was getting involved… that she was trying to make things better… that she was letting her light shine…

There’s no part of the song that warns us about others dousing our light with water, about the winds our light will have to withstand, how many times we may have to relight our flames….how we will have to be the keeper of our lighthouse ….how many times we may look at other lights and think why should we even try….how many times we may decide not to let our lights shine as brightly because we care about what others will think about us --- that we won’t be accepted.

So Dawn, like many employees, had a decision to make. Get involved, work hard and let her light shine but potentially be shunned by other employees or tow the line, go with the status quo, and not shine so brightly. You would think that she would choose what would be the best for her career, right? But how people make decisions isn’t as simple as that. Some people have what is called a high threshold of social acceptability. For those individuals, the number of other employees who are working hard, joining committees and are shining their lights brightly is crucial to whether or not they feel comfortable doing the same.

Malcom Gladwell talked about this phenomenon in a recent article for Business Insider. He cited Wilt Chamberlain as an example. Though an awesome basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain fared very poorly at the free throw line …. until that is he started shooting underhanded. His stats improved. Good for his career right? But no. He says he felt like a “sissy” shooting underhanded, so he returned to shooting overhanded. He made the decision to shoot the basketball in a way that he knew would result in lower performance at the free throw line. Acceptance by his peers was more important. For Rick Barry who shot free throws underhanded and had a low threshold for social acceptability, peer acceptance was not as important. He continued to shoot underhanded, and at the time he retired in 1980, ranked first in the NBA in free throw percentage rate (.900).

---It’s important, Dawn to let your light shine---I tell her.

And as Dawn thought about my let your light shine statement she said—

--My kids are proud of me. They tell me they’re proud of me.—

And there it is. The potential trump card. Our kids trump our peers. Maybe. In some situations.

For you kids out there who are now young adults and are old enough—all those years you were so happy your parents were proud of you—now that you are old enough to understand what your parents do for a living, it’s time for you to return the favor. You being proud of your parents means something. It’s their trump card. It’s their reason for letting their lights shine.

For all you employers out there, it’s important to determine what kind of employees you have. Do your employees feel like they can let their lights shine? What’s stopping them? Who is stopping them? Managerial employees? Co-workers? Themselves? And what, if anything can you do about it?

P.S. Go get’em Dawn.

Patricia Nemeth received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). She earned her Juris Doctorate and Masters of Labor Law degree from Wayne State University School of Law. She is the founding partner of Nemeth Law, P.C. which is celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2017. Patricia decided to start a personal blog because she wanted to write about topics other than the law.