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I’ve always been a little too early.
Too early to flag the cracks. Too early to suggest the fix. Too early to be seen as anything but intense or overly critical. It’s a pattern I wrote about recently in a post called Always Right, Always Way Too Early. But I left out the next part of the story—the quiet win.
This one came months after I left my full-time role. The details don’t matter much. Let’s just say I was trying to build something sustainable, but not everyone values long-term scaffolding when the short-term optics feel more exciting.
But a few weeks later, I had a call with a former CEO. He knew where I was and what happened. (Small field. They all talk.) After some check-ins and polite small talk, he said something I didn’t expect:
“He’ll realize he made a mistake in a year or so.”
That stuck with me.
It wasn’t said with malice. It wasn’t a dig. It was just… matter-of-fact. And it reminded me that the people who get it get it. The rest? Well, sometimes, they have to live through the consequences first.
A year or two earlier, that same CEO had called me out of the blue. This was in the thick of COVID-19 when no one knew what was coming next. He told me his organization had grown—despite everything. Donations up. Impact solid. Staff still intact. And he said it wouldn’t have happened without the groundwork I helped lay when I was there.
It wasn’t performative. He didn’t post about it online. He didn’t need to. The thank you was quiet. Personal. Real.
That’s a quiet win.
Not the kind you frame for LinkedIn. Not the kind that gets you applause at the moment. But the kind that lingers. The kind that gets remembered when everyone else has moved on.
I think we underestimate how many of our wins fall into this category. The process improvements no one noticed until they saved the day. The strategy decks that got shelved—until someone else pulled them out and called them brilliant. The messaging frameworks that made a later campaign sing, even if our name was nowhere near the byline.
Quiet wins don’t beg for credit. But they deserve recognition.
So if you’re in the middle of a season where it feels like no one sees what you’re doing—keep going. Document it. Protect your peace. And remember that value isn’t always visible in the moment. Sometimes, it takes a crisis. Or a call. Or just enough distance for people to realize they were standing on something solid the whole time.
And when they do? Don’t worry about the credit. Just take the win.