I got really mad on Friday. In a previous blog, I spoke about the need to remove vampires from our midst (people who figure out how to financially leech off the success of others). Thankfully since that post, the main vampire has left town.

The reason I got mad on Friday was because I saw two separate instances where people were being celebrated for the ingenuity and achievement of the work of others. The accolades/awards were given unwittingly by people who had been fed bad information, so I wasn’t mad at them. But the “honorees” totally knew they didn’t deserve credit. One Pretender was actually the biggest impediment to the project’s success. But the Pretenders smilingly took the applause anyway.

What kind of person allows themselves to be publicly praised for someone else’s work? Most of the time I’d put it down to personal insecurity. Other times jealousy. But I’m more interested in the response of the Real Achiever. In both instances, the people who had:

• dreamed
• planned
• executed

actual amazing, ingenious projects had to watch others who were completely uninvolved take credit for their work. These Real Achievers are people I love and respect and admire. I wanted to climb the courthouse steps with a bullhorn and shout the names of the Real Achievers of those initiatives. Or spend the weekend hanging posters around town to honor their efforts. Instead I find myself writing this blog to encourage the Real Achievers on how to handle Pretenders and not get burned out or discouraged.

For years, my inspiration for situations like this is my Great-Great-Great Uncle Congressman David John Lewis. Uncle David started life as a coal miner then became an attorney. He served 14 years in Congress, focusing on labor and law. He won and lost multiple campaigns yet seemed to keep focused and found ways to attain his goals.

I work to model his resilience but even way more importantly, I try to follow his example in dealing with people who take credit for my work. Uncle David wrote the Social Security Act of 1935. When he submitted the bill to Congress for a vote, another congressman copied the bill and submitted it under his own name. (In honor of Uncle David, the Pretender will remain unnamed in this blog).

When Uncle David found out about the Pretender’s bill, he “sputtered and swore”¹ and then went to work lobbying for the bill’s passage. When it came time for the actual vote, he walked to the House floor and made an impassioned speech for the bill’s adoption. His speech ended with a standing ovation from House members. Despite the Pretender’s name being on the bill, all of Washington D.C. knew it was Uncle David’s.

For the official photo when FDR signed the bill into law, the Pretender stood on one side of FDR, and Uncle David stood on the other. Other photos show Uncle David directly next to FDR with the Pretender further away.²

Here’s the bottom line: Uncle David’s priority was getting the work done. He let history work out the rest. The good news is I haven’t seen an account of the Social Security Act yet that doesn’t acknowledge Uncle David as the Achiever and the Pretender as just that. While doing research for State reports, I’ve been surprised to find Uncle David’s photo in both Hernando and Citrus museum archives. Uncle David was a big deal and history knows it.

But even if history had made a mistake and named the Pretender the hero of the story, would it really matter? I’d like to think Uncle David would say, “Achievers: Pretenders will always be lurking among you but they don’t deserve attention. Focus on doing good work for your community.”

And he’d be right. Real Achievers do what they do for the benefit of their community. Pretenders do it for personal glory. We have a choice everyday which we want to be. So go ahead and sputter and be mad for a second and then go Achieve.

1. https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1960/08/206-2/132560106.pdf ↩︎
2. https://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrsign.html ↩︎