Replaceable, yes. Replicable, hell no!

As you may know from a recent post, I’ll soon be leaving what is likely the last full-time job of my career. But before I take things down a notch, I’ve been asked to lead the search for my successor.

In other words, my job is to replace myself.

Of course this has me thinking. About interchangeability and the ways we slip in and out of roles. And how other people come and go to fill them. This happens not only in work, but also in life and in love.

My task—though a whole lot cheerier—reminds me of a 2017 “Modern Love” column in the New York Times. In You May Want to Marry My Husband, a dying woman wrote an engaging description of the man she would soon be leaving behind. A sharp dresser. A dreamy, let’s-go-for-it travel companion. The guy who comes out of a gas station and offers his wife a surprise gum ball from the palm of his hand.

The writer—who died just 10 days after the column was published—hoped that someone, someday, would swipe right on her husband’s profile.

Now as I reread that love letter of sorts, I notice that she neglected to describe herself. No physical attributes. No skills. I wonder if that was because she couldn’t bear to think there was an exact copy of her out in the world.

The writer could deal with being replaceable. But replicable? Hell no! No one on the planet could be exactly like her. So why waste her dying breath seeking? Which brings me back to the job at hand.

Here are a few things I’m noticing as I search for my replacement and prepare to turn over the reins.

There’s no room for ego. We bring our own combination of skills and traits to whatever we do. So sure, someone new can sit at our desk. Or slip into our side of the bed. But there will be differences. And that’s a good thing! It’s liberating for everyone to start fresh.

We can only teach so much. I’ll share my passwords and train on the tools. I’ll explain my processes and make introductions. After that, the rules and the tools will keep changing. The new guy or gal will learn to read the room. They’ll figure things out or they won’t.

Let go. A hottie falls hard for your former beau after you cut him loose. A blonde drives off in your convertible after you trade it for a sedan. The new employee who is half your age makes your hard job look easy. For a minute, you feel like chopped liver. Then you remember: You’re the one who bought the knife.

Seeing a hole close up behind us is never easy. And the older we get, the more likely it is that our replacements will be younger than we are. They’ll have more energy and fresh perspective. And even if they respect us, they’ll ignore half of what we say.

But still. We will have left our mark.

And hopefully, we’ll leave things a whole lot better than we found them.