Chapter 32 — Rank, Recognition, and Quiet Afterglow

Rank can sharpen effort and can poison attention. Recognition can support growth and can feed vanity. The quiet afterglow is what remains when the belt stops being new: do you still bow with care? Do you still ask questions? Do you still correct yourself first?

If promotion changes how you treat people, the promotion taught you the wrong lesson. If promotion changes how diligently you return to basics, it might have taught a useful humility—or a dangerous story about arrival.