Who You Gonna Be?

When RJ was little, really little, sometimes visitors to his house would tickle him under his chin. Which he totally hated. Then they’d ask him that same old question.

“Who you gonna be when you grow up?” they would ask him.

He’d heard other kids being asked that same question.

Some kids said silly stuff. Some said they’d be an airplane pilot, which was OK. RJ thought that was a good answer. But some kids said they’d be a butterfly, which was a really dumb answer.

Or they said they’d be a superhero. Which was silly because superheroes were only in movies. Nobody ever walked around in a superhero costume. Not in real life. Superheroes were only pretend.

RJ knew that even when he was a little guy in daycare.

Some kids said they’d be a king or queen. Which was not a smart answer. RJ was sure plain ordinary kids could not grow up to be a king or queen.

Every time RJ had someone ask who he was gonna be when he grew up, he gave the best answer he could think of. He told them, “I’m gonna be me when I grow up.”

Grown-ups always laughed when he said that. Which he did not understand. Why did they laugh?

The grown-ups would ask him another question. “What do you want to do when you grow up? That was the next question.

RJ always told them, “I want to do the right thing.”

Some grown-ups laughed again.

But a few of them gave him a very serious look. They seemed to like that answer. RJ liked it when grown-ups treated him like a real person. Mom always treated him like a real person.

As he grew older, people still asked those same questions.

And RJ’s answers stayed the same.

As he grew up, he always answered those same questions in the same way. He always assured anyone who asked by saying, “I want to do the right thing.”

And as he got older, he talked it over with teachers, with guidance counselors, with professionals in so many different work areas.

He explored his options. He dug deep. He searched all the possibilities. So much he could do. So many options. So many potential directions he could go.

Exploring dozens of choices, he carefully weighed his options. He even did some work/study jobs in breaks from school.

Mom backed him up. She encouraged him to keep searching until he found what fit him best, what he could care about, what would genuinely matter to him.

RJ considered law school. He explored options in that area. He consulted leaders in the field. He explored endless possibilities.

He discovered a field connected with law, a field he could enter through law school if he wanted, or even by studying management. It was a field that involved the law, but in different ways helping people to do the right thing.

Not law in a courtroom. Not as a trial lawyer. Not in a law office.

This was different. This was broader even than courtroom law. This was law spread out across the world. Law inside corporations, inside businesses of all shapes and sizes, inside the heart and soul of commerce.

RJ discovered corporate compliance. It meant doing the right thing in businesses of every size and shape. It meant helping others see, understand and do the right thing. It meant doing the right thing when it might be tough to do.

RJ had found his future, who he would be, what he would do, how he would live his life. He would be the person he’d always intended to be, doing the right thing.

© 2024 K. Leet

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These are stories (usually fictional, but not always), based on insights and experiences from the world of compliance & ethics.