Mother’s Day in the U.S. is approaching. It’s a day to honor and celebrate what mothers have given us, but in this month’s issue of Curly Hair | Straight Talk, I ask you to examine what your mother may have given you that is less worthy of celebration--the well-meaning but terrible advice holding you back in your career.

Allow me to share some examples.

One of my client’s mothers told him: "You need to be humble because there will always be somebody better than you."

I’m a big fan of humility. It facilitates learning, cooperation, and healthy relationships, but my client’s mother told him it must be achieved by putting himself in a one-down position. 

He’s a successful professional, but he was frustrated by pervasive feelings of self-doubt. It was when we explored the origin of his doubt, that he recalled his mother’s mantra which had burrowed deep into his unconscious mind.

He shrunk whenever a peer disagreed or challenged him because to him, they were the “somebody” who was better than him.

He’d uncovered that someone had been stealing money. When he raised the issue to his boss, he discovered his boss was the culprit. My client was subsequently bullied into signing a non-disclosure agreement and hastily given a severance package.

It was astounding to me that he would characterize this as being fired for cause. When I asked him about it, he said, “If I’d had more value, I wouldn’t have been fired.”

I asked, “How much value would you have to have for your boss to prioritize your professional utility to the company he’d been stealing from over his own self-interest?”

While it was clear that my client’s termination was not related to performance, his mother’s words were hard-wired in his brain, so he was blind to another explanation. Anything else would be an excuse and “nobody likes someone who gives excuses.”

The beliefs handed to us by our mothers—and our fathers for that matter—are like software code. Once they’re written, we can't see them. 

I help my clients uncover their “buggy code,” so we can rewrite it. For example:

• We can be humble without being submissive.
• There’s a difference between an explanation and an excuse.

Need some help uncovering and relinquishing the terrible advice your mom gave you? I can help.

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