If someone offers you a coat that doesn't fit—take it anyway.

A new role. A new identity. A new way of being. These are clothes you can put on and take off. And if you want to grow, you should wear an identity that is bigger than you. When the coat is too big, when it hangs loose on your shoulders—that's the calling. That's the opportunity. It's the signal that you can wear this, but it's not quite tailored to you yet.

So when someone offers you the coat, the role, the promotion, the opportunity—take it. Even if you're not qualified. Even if you might fail in the striving. You will grow.

growth over genius

Maybe I've got a blind optimism here. Maybe I'm over-indexing on the growth mindset and scoffing too readily at the idea of innate talent, our over-emphasis on God-given genius. But the empirical evidence is clear: most great artists, most great workers—anyone who's great at their craft—got there as a function of focused hours spent.

Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule. Studies on Picasso, The Beatles, Mozart. Even gifts left uncultivated don't turn into genius. But fertile soil with the right seed, enough water, and a big enough pot allows the plant to grow.

Most leaders I see are not leaders because of merit or genius or incredible ability—even though we tell ourselves a narrative about meritocracy, that those who rise earned it through hard work and the American dream. More often than not, they were simply given an opportunity to wear an identity beyond them. Again and again.

And they accepted.

the coats I didn't take

When I look back at my own journey, I see missed opportunities to step into bigger identities.

I was working as an engineer and was offered an engineering manager position—twice. I turned it down both times for seemingly sensible reasons. I was optimizing for time and flexibility to pursue my artistic passions. But it was under a mistaken premise: that the engineering manager path was somehow less flexible in the long run.

I see now that taking those opportunities could have given me far more growth. In the corporate world, management experience alone—simply saying you've managed a team—gives you a huge advantage in upward mobility. You're de-risked, at least theoretically.

Now, as I enter new organizations, I may have management capacity—innate skill, even—but I didn't foster that talent through experience. I didn't gain the wisdom and practical knowledge that comes from actually wearing the coat in the field.

Now I seek opportunities to wear bigger coats. And when one is presented, I seize it—even if there's a chance of failing.

coats as signals

Not all coats are bigger. Some are just different.

The nice thing about this metaphor is that it's not just how the coat feels on you—it's how others see you. It's both a felt reality and a projected one. When you have a certain title, for better or worse, people treat you differently.

We are hierarchical beings by nature. Deeply rooted in our psychology. Even lobsters—more hierarchical than you might think—share the parts of the brain that assess each other based on rank. A title is a quick, easy abstraction.

These coats are signals. Similar to how animals project whether they're venomous, dangerous, or strong through bright colors—the identities we wear signal what kind of animal we are.

a different coat

Recently, I've taken a role adjacent to engineering where I manage large enterprise accounts in a post-sales capacity. Not necessarily a bigger coat, but certainly a different one. Growing different skills. It's taken adjusting to learn how to fit into the role.

It's not moving upward in a traditional career sense, but it's offering growth. Maybe a lateral move that makes it easier to step into bigger coats within this trajectory.

vestiture, not viscera

The broader point: if we see opportunities as identities we can wear—things that can be put on and taken off, external vestiture rather than internal organs—it becomes easier to seize them.

These roles are not who we are. They're what we wear.

Just as easily as we don one identity in one season of life—a winter coat for winter, a summer one for summer—we can change identities depending on what life demands. Each one gives us an opportunity to grow spiritually, to grow who we are.

That's the difference. The opportunities we take can grow who we are. But the identities themselves are not who we are.

They're simply things that we wear.