🧱 The Day I Walked Face-First Into My Career
Jared Silverman
The Leadership Edit
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Story Lead
Before I ever gave strategy advice, led teams, or pitched global brands…
I walked face-first into a glass wall.
Literally.
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The Story
It was my first “real” job — temp-to-perm at Ogilvy.
I’d dropped out of law school.
Temped at offices I couldn’t wait to leave.
Watched my classmates pass me by while I sat with student loans and self-doubt.
But this?
This felt like a beginning.
Ogilvy.
Agency royalty.
The old chocolate factory building. Big steel staircases. West Side grit with Mad Men energy.
I remember riding the elevator like it was a chariot.
I stepped out onto the floor like I belonged.
And then—
BAM.
Straight into a floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
Full speed. Full face. Full body shock.
Nose bloodied. Ego bruised.
I clutched my face, found my seat, and didn’t say a word.
Didn’t get up. Didn’t explain.
Just sat there — red-faced, literally — willing myself to survive the day.
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Still showed up. Still shipped the work. Even with a bloody nose and a bruised ego.
Maybe someone saw.
Maybe no one did.
But I remember exactly how it felt:
To want so badly to be seen…
and still feel like I couldn’t be.
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The Leadership Lesson
We spend so much time trying to arrive polished.
Put-together. In control. Deserving.
But the truth?
Everyone walks into the glass wall eventually.
Sometimes metaphorically.
Sometimes nose-first.
Perfection isn’t the point.
Permission is.
To show up anyway.
To stay in the room, even after you shatter the image.
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What I Wish I’d Spotted Earlier
That the people who belong most aren’t flawless.
They’re just the ones brave enough to be seen.
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How I Wish I’d Handled It
I wish I had laughed.
Told someone.
Owned it, even a little.
Instead, I froze — afraid the truth would ruin the story I’d built in my head.
So I buried it in shame instead of owning it in humor.
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A Lighter Moment
Years later, I told a friend what happened.
She laughed so hard she cried.
Then she said:
“You were always that girl.
The one bleeding behind the laptop, but refusing to let a single slide look sloppy.”
And honestly?
She wasn’t wrong.
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Closing Reflection
If you’ve ever walked headfirst into something —
a new job, a new version of yourself —
and felt like you blew it before it even began?
You didn’t.
You showed up.
You stayed.
You kept going — nose, ego, and all.
Leadership doesn’t start when you feel perfect.
It starts when you decide to keep walking.
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This is The Leadership Edit — a weekly series on emotional intelligence, transformational leadership, and growth in motion.
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