You did the work. You designed the environment. And then you looked around at everything you built and something felt slightly off. Not completely wrong. Just not quite right. Like wearing a coat that fits well but belongs to somebody else.

That feeling has a name. And it is not imposter syndrome.

What This Episode Is Really About

You have been measuring yourself with somebody else's ruler. And if you are using the wrong instrument, it has no bearing on how well you build, because you will always optimize for the wrong outcome.

Adam Grant opens Originals with something that landed hard the first time Jess read it: the hallmark of originality is rejecting the defaults and exploring whether better options exist. Defaults do not feel like choices. That is exactly what makes them dangerous. A default feels like fact. Like the way things are, not the way someone decided things should be. And so most people never question them.

This is the third episode in a trilogy. Ep 12 named the borrowed identity. Ep 14 named the borrowed North Star. This one names the borrowed ruler: the measuring stick with somebody else's name written in Sharpie on the corner that has been quietly running your definition of progress, success, and whether you are enough.

You can do all the identity work in the world. Name your thread. Audit your North Star. Design a beautiful environment. But if you are still measuring the results with somebody else's tool, you will always come up short. Not because you are short. Because that ruler was never calibrated for you.

In This Episode

• Why defaults feel like facts, and why that is exactly what makes them dangerous
• The borrowed ruler effect: what happens the moment you walk into a new room and pick up its instrument without realizing it
• Three specific ways a borrowed ruler shows up: wrong job, wrong stage, wrong kind of person, and which one does the most invisible damage
• What Adam Grant actually means when he says originals reject the default, and why recognition has to come before rejection
• The teaching arc: across toddlers, middle school math, and high school social studies in charter, private, and public schools, the same measuring stick kept getting heavier, and it was never measuring teacher efficacy, it was measuring compliance with a predetermined sequence
• The KW story: choosing a measuring stick, internalizing it, and continuing to pick it up long after it stopped fitting, without noticing
• Why the move is not finding a better ruler or borrowing somebody else's: it is building your own
• The one question that traces any instrument back to where it actually came from
• Why consciousness is where choice lives

The Big Idea

Someone handed you a framework for evaluating yourself somewhere along the way. Maybe it was an industry. Maybe it was a family. Maybe it was a room you walked into that had its own system already running. And you picked it up. Not because you were passive or naive, but because that is how socialization works. The question now is whether you are conscious of it. Because consciousness is where choice lives. You cannot reject a default you do not know you have.

Memorable Lines from This Episode

"If you are using the wrong instrument, it has no bearing on how well you build, because you will always optimize for the wrong outcome."

"Your measuring stick has somebody else's name written in Sharpie on the corner."

"They were measuring not my efficacy as a teacher. They were measuring compliance with a predetermined sequence."

"It's not about finding a better ruler or borrowing somebody else's. It's about building your own."

"You can't reject a default if you don't know you have one."

"Consciousness is where choice lives."

Resources

Book: Originals by Adam Grant — https://amzn.to/4u6Mf3F

Your One Thing This Week

One question. What are you currently using to measure your progress? And can you trace where it came from? Not where you found it. Where it came from. Those are very different things. You might have found it in your industry, your family, or the comparison you do on a Tuesday morning when you are already behind. But whose definition of success does that instrument actually reflect? If the answer is yours, keep going. If it belongs to someone else, name it. You cannot reject a default you do not know you have.

Connect with Jess

If this one landed, come find me at BigIdeasMadeSimple.com. That is where the newsletter lives, where everything I am building is taking shape, and where you can connect directly. One idea in your inbox every week, nothing else. And if you know someone who has been quietly optimizing for a version of success that was never actually theirs, send them this one. The right idea at the right time changes everything.

Follow Jess: @thejesswebber on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook

Key Themes

• The borrowed ruler effect vs. borrowed identity vs. borrowed North Star: the trilogy complete
• Default metrics and why they register as facts, not choices
• Originality as recognition before rejection
• Three ways a borrowed ruler shows up: wrong job, wrong stage, wrong kind of person
• The teaching arc: compliance vs. efficacy as two completely different measurements
• The KW story: internalizing a ruler long after it stopped fitting
• Consciousness as the bridge between recognition and choice
• ment vs. finding a better one

Welcome to Big Ideas Made Simple.

2

I'm Jess Weber, and this show exists for the people who are full of ideas and somehow

still feel a little bit stuck.

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Not because they don't know enough or haven't done enough, but because somewhere along the

way they picked up a lens that wasn't theirs, and they have been filtering everything

4

through it ever since.

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So just like

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Every other episode, this is one big idea stripped down to what actually matters and

handed back to you in a way that you can take action on it as soon as we're done.

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So last episode, I told you something that I wanted you to sit with for just a little bit

before we keep going with other ideas.

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What I said was you can't build a new life in an old room.

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And I meant it.

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Environmental design is not a productivity hack.

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It is identity infrastructure.

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the room you're in either reinforces who you're becoming or it quietly pulls you back into

that person who you used to be.

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And here's the thing that I didn't say last time.

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What if the room you just finished designing is optimized for the identity that wasn't

yours?

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So remember, you might have done the work or cleared out the space or restructured the

calendar or changed the spaces that you show up in.

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But then you looked around at this beautiful, intentionally designed container that you

just created, and something felt off.

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Not

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Completely wrong, but just not quite right.

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So, like wearing a coat that fits well, but you know it belongs to somebody else.

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That feeling right there has a name.

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And it's not imposter syndrome or resistance.

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It's not even fear of success wearing some sort of clever disguise, but rather it's

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This idea that you've been measuring yourself with somebody else's ruler.

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And if you are using the wrong instrument, it has no bearing on how well you build,

because you will always optimize for the wrong outcome.

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And so that is this concept that I really want to talk about today.

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So let's look at defaults for a moment.

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Adam Grant.

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In his book Originals, opens with a concept that of course got stuck in my brain somewhere

when I first read it.

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And he said that the hallmark of originality is rejecting the defaults and exploring

whether better options exist.

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And so that's the thing.

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That's that's the whole move.

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And it sounds really simple, but I know that it's not because.

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Defaults don't always feel like choices.

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And I think that is what makes them so dangerous.

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A default feels like fact to us.

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It feels like just the way things are, not the way somebody decided things should be.

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And so because of that, most people don't ever question them.

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Not because they're not curious or because they're passive.

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But because questioning a default requires you to first slow down and recognize that there

even is one.

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And that recognition is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

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So Grant makes the point that much of modern life is built around conformity and the

structure of schooling, uniforms, career tracks.

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Social recognition of status and accomplishment.

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Don't even get me started on, you know, participation trophies here, right?

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But these systems were not designed to measure human range or capacity, they were designed

to measure efficiency.

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And they do their job well in that.

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But the

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Issue here really is that some of us were never going to be sorted cleanly into the

buckets that they created.

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And that's not because we're broken.

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It's because the measurement tool, the instrument, wasn't even built for who or what we

actually are.

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And so here's the reframe that I keep thinking about and I want to share with you today.

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I talked about

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Borrowed identities in a previous episode.

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I talked about borrowed North stars versus having your own.

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And so here again, I'm keep going back to this idea of using somebody else's defined ruler

for how you measure yourself.

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So your tool, your instrument, your measuring stick that you picked up along the way that

you've been using to track all of your progress, your success.

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Or even whether you're enough has somebody else's name written in Sharpie on the corner.

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You can do all of the identity work in the world.

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You can name your thread, audit a North Star, design beautiful environments.

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But if you're still measuring the results with somebody else's tool, you will always come

up short.

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Not because you are short, but because that ruler was never yours.

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It was never calibrated for you.

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So let me give you another way to kind of think about this.

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Every industry, every institution, every professional community has a default success

metric.

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And it's usually unspoken.

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So nobody hands you, you know, the document, the SOP on it, right?

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You absorb it, you collect information from the culture or the people around you.

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And you recognize patterns of what is getting celebrated versus what's getting ignored.

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So this is the thing that I've noticed is that moment when you enter into a new room, you

start measuring yourself against whatever instrument the room is using.

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Even if that has nothing to do with what you were trying to build, even if it was designed

for someone else completely different, even if

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When you look at it honestly, it doesn't measure anything you even care about.

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It's what I think of as the borrowed ruler effect.

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Stepping into some other place causes us to pick up the wrong ruler.

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And I think it shows up in a couple of different ways.

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So, firstly, I think it shows up for us when the instrument was designed for a different

job than the one that you're actually doing.

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So

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Someone decided what a good educator, a good teacher looks like, or what a good agent

looks like, or a good entrepreneur looks like.

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And then they built the system of measurement around that definition.

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And then you showed up doing something that maybe didn't fit in quite as neatly.

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And instead of questioning the tools for measurement, you questioned yourself.

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Secondly, I think it's when the instrument is designed for a different stage than the one

you're in.

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And so this is where we see a lot of people struggle with comparison traps because you're

measuring your chapter two against somebody else's chapter eight using the chapter eight

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ruler, not the chapter two ruler.

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And of course, the math is gonna be wrong.

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Not because you're behind, but because you're using the completely wrong scale.

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And then so, so again, like I said, there's using the wrong tool, the wrong scale.

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And I think the third place is when the instrument was designed for a different kind of

person.

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So maybe it's a different role or a different operating system.

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And I think this is the one that's the worst because it's the most likely to be missed.

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The ruler doesn't.

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misrepresent your progress, it misrepresents potential because it sits there and puts the

ceiling at a space that doesn't match you.

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It might be way lower than you actually need.

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And because you decided that default was fact, you believe that that's where your ceiling

is.

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So the question becomes not whether you are able to measure up, but it's whether

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The measuring stick was ever the right one for you.

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And again, Adam Grant's point about originals is that people who changed things were not

the ones who perform better in an existing measurement system.

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They were the ones who looked at the tool, the instrument, and decided it wasn't the right

one.

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So they picked a different one.

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Not out of arrogance or ego, but out of

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An abundance of clarity for themselves because they understood what they were trying to

measure, and they refused to let somebody else's definition be a substitute.

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So that's the move right there.

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It's not rebellion, it's literally just having more clarity.

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And so it makes me think of, you know, personal stories as well.

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And I've got.

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Two that come to mind when I started thinking about this episode.

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They're, you know, decade plus apart, but it shows you how stubborn a ruler can be when

you borrow it from somebody else.

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So the first one was starting in a classroom.

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I mean, every classroom I taught in, and I taught for years.

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And I taught everything.

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I taught toddlers, elementary school, middle school math, high school social studies, and

English.

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Different grades, different subjects, different districts, different types of schools.

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But yet something that showed up as a pattern in every single one of those, without

exception, was that there was a standard of measurement for the success of a teacher to

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help the students be able to meet the criteria defined by the state.

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And what was crazy is it got heavier each year that I taught.

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So

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I started out in a charter school where there was a little bit of flexibility.

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Moved into a private school where I actually had more room to teach, but I had way more to

teach at the same time because it was a different grade level, different subject matter

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every single class period.

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Finally, I ended up in a public system that had not only several weeks of state testing

every year, but they did a week of quarterly testing for the district level as well.

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So by the end, my students were spending almost a sixth of their time each year doing

standardized testing.

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In a 40-week school year, they were doing one-sixth of it just in testing.

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That was nuts to me.

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So there was a massive gap I felt as an educator between what the administration said I

should be teaching, in what order, at what pace.

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And what I felt like those students needed to actually understand the material,

internalize it, apply it to their own lives.

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And let me tell you, those are not the same thing.

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They were rarely ever remotely close.

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So in every environment, I fought battle after battle, person after person, year after

year, because I could feel the mismatch and

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I didn't know how to name the fact that the instrument they were using to evaluate my

effectiveness as an educator had nothing to do with what I knew my students needed.

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The more I pushed, the more I explained, the more I showed up as the problem child.

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And here's what I know now is I didn't know how to articulate all of that.

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What they were measuring was not my.

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Efficacy as a teacher, it was compliance with a predetermined sequence.

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And I was non-compliant, not because I was trying to be difficult, but because I was

paying attention to something that their instrument was not designed to capture.

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And that distinction for me is what really matters.

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Because the story I told myself for years is that I was probably not great at working

within somebody's system.

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Or I had a problem with the idea of administration and authority, not because I was some

sort of rebel, but because I just didn't feel like I fit.

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And yet now, in hindsight, I realize none of that was true.

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I was just using the wrong ruler to evaluate what was actually happening.

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And and

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Here's what's also interesting, because you would think that once you left that

environment, that classroom, you would leave, you know, the measuring stick behind.

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I I truly did leave, you know, many yardsticks and rulers behind when I quit teaching math

and was so excited about it.

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But here's the thing: you don't.

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When you internalize that, it stays with you.

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And so years later, when I was

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you know, operating inside of a real estate brokerage.

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And the one that I was working in was the largest nationally with tons of clear

definitions for success at every stage.

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Whether you're a real estate agent, there's, you know, a production path and a growth

ladder.

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There are numbers that you're supposed to hit.

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There's leadership tracks and expectations with

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Sequential titles and milestones.

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And from the outside looking in, it's a beautifully well-built system.

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And it does work for a lot of people.

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I'm not trying to argue the model, and I still have my real estate license inside of that

organization.

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But the model was not built for what I was trying to build for myself.

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And I remember that I

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you know, fell in love with what they had to offer and believed that their unit of measure

matched my unit of measure when I first started working there.

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And I maintained using that unit of measure along the path because I didn't think I had

any other option.

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So at first I chose it and then I internalized it.

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And I kept picking it up time and time again, even when I started feeling

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A lack of alignment when I started feeling a little bit frustrated or behind or like I was

doing something wrong.

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And I I think that's what I really had to, you know, slow down and get honest about.

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That ecosystem was great for measuring its defined outcomes.

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But I personally, as Jess, was not trying to build that defined outcome.

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I was trying to

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Create something that wasn't even meant to be measured by them at the time.

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And no amount of expertise or optimization was going to get me closer to what I wanted

when I stayed in their world and on their scale.

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So it took a long time to understand that and set aside their units of measure.

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I literally had to.

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Take off the goggles and understand that it was time to put their ruler down and figure

out what I wanted mine to be.

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I mean, I didn't sit there and dramatically announce it or write a manifesto.

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It was just one of those things where I had to start evaluating what I was using to

measure myself by and ask different questions and understand what metrics actually

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mattered.

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And so when I could sit there and change my questions, I could then start to see the

patterns of all those previous episodes that I was talking about.

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So the borrowed identity, the borrowed North Star, the borrowed ruler, they're all part of

the same thing.

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They were a framework handed to me for evaluating myself and my success and my goals.

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And yet I picked it up and owned it.

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Recognizing that it wasn't actually mine.

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I was, I was renting their ruler.

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And so I'll push you today, if you're listening to this, to understand that it's not about

finding a better ruler or borrowing somebody else's.

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It's about building your own.

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So here's here's what I'm gonna push you to do today.

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One question, again, not a massive assignment or a worksheet or a 10-step process, but a

question.

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What are you currently using today to measure your progress with?

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Can you trace back where that came from?

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Not where you found it, but do you know where it came from?

185

Because those are very different things.

186

You might have found it in your industry.

187

You might have found it in your family unit.

188

You might have found it in the comparison you do on Tuesday morning when you're already

behind.

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But whose definition of success does the instrument?

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Actually reflect.

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If the answer is yours, great.

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Please keep going.

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But if you have an answer that belongs, it belongs to somebody else, I'm gonna tell you

right now, it's not because you're weak, you're not naive.

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It's it's the most human reaction.

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We all pick up things from the room we've been in.

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That's how socialization, relationships, community works.

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And the question is now.

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Whether or not you're cognizant of it.

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Because consciousness is where choice lives.

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Remember, Adam Grant said the hallmark of originality is rejecting the default.

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So I want to add something just a little bit more to that.

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You can't reject a default if you don't know you have one.

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So the first move is always actually recognition, naming it, tracing it, and then

understanding whether or not it's something you actually want to use.

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So remember, if the answer is no, do the thing that takes more courage than any metric can

measure.

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Put the dang thing down and build your own.

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Now that's it for this episode.

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If this one landed for you or you feel like somebody else in your world needs it and

they've been quietly optimizing a version of themselves that wasn't actually in alignment

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with the definition of success they have for themselves.

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I would be honored if you shared this with them.

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And, you know, if you want to go deeper on the book I referenced today, feel free to pick

up originals by Adam Grant.

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The link's always in the show notes.

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And chapter one alone is honestly worth your time.

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Everything that I do, again, you can always find at big ideasmade simple.com.

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So my newsletter's there, the frameworks are there.

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If you want to connect directly with me and talk about one idea, let's do it.

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Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.