The Knight in Shining Armor Isn’t Coming

Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed the same story.

A princess. A problem. And eventually a hero who arrives to save the day.

The message was subtle, but it stuck.

Someone else will show up. Someone else will fix things. Someone else will move the story forward.

Preferably a knight in shining armor.

If we’re honest, a version of that script follows a lot of us into adulthood.

In our careers. In our leadership. In the moments when we’re trying to build something new.

We wait.

We wait for someone to notice our work. We wait for the opportunity to appear. We wait for the client, the sponsor, the leader, the moment that finally makes everything click.

Over the past year, during my own reinvention, I caught myself doing exactly that.

Waiting.

Waiting for validation. Waiting for momentum. Waiting for someone else to open the next door.

At one point I had a slightly uncomfortable realization.

A small part of me was still waiting for a rescue storyline.

Not a literal prince on a horse.

But maybe: the perfect client, the magical referral, the speaking opportunity that would suddenly make everything easier

You know… the professional version of a fairytale ending.

And if I’m being honest, this wasn’t the first time I’d caught myself falling into that pattern. In an earlier Big Girl Panties Diaries entry, I Stopped Waiting for a Hero and Adjusted My Crown Instead, I wrote about the moment I realized I had spent too long waiting for someone else to step in and recognize what I was carrying. That lesson apparently needed a sequel.

Because somewhere deep in our childhood programming, we absorbed the idea that if we were patient enough, brave enough, or nice enough, eventually someone would show up to solve the problem.

Preferably on a white horse.

Or at least with a really good LinkedIn introduction.

Or maybe, in today’s version of the story… a prince landing in your DMs with the perfect opportunity and a signed statement of work.

But life has a funny way of adding plot twists.

Sometimes that knight in shining armor actually does show up.

He sweeps you off your feet.

And then… promptly drops you.

Turns out shiny armor isn’t always a reliable strategy.

The plot twist adulthood eventually delivers is this:

The horse never shows up.

And if it did, you’d probably still have to do the work yourself.

What I’ve learned this year is that momentum doesn’t begin when someone else shows up for you.

It begins the moment you decide to show up for yourself.

Sometimes that looks like writing the article even when you’re not sure anyone will read it.

Sometimes it’s putting an idea into the world before you know how it will land.

Sometimes it’s simply continuing to take the next step on the days when your confidence wobbles a little.

Reinvention would be much easier if it came with a soundtrack, a montage scene, and a fairy godmother handing out business development leads.

Ideally, she’d also show up with a beautiful ball gown, a pair of glass slippers, and a carriage waiting outside to whisk you off to the next big opportunity.

Instead, most days it looks more like caffeine, a laptop, and the decision to show up again anyway.

And if we’re being honest, even if the fairy godmother did show up, we’d probably still be watching the clock… because at midnight the carriage turns back into a pumpkin and the glass slippers start to feel a lot less magical.

What I’ve discovered is that confidence rarely arrives first.

Consistency does.

You show up. You do the work. You keep going.

And eventually something shifts.

People start to notice. Opportunities appear. Momentum builds.

Not because someone rescued you.

But because you stopped waiting.

I’ve written before about what it means to keep showing up anyway. In So… How’s the Consulting Thing Going? Currently Wearing Industrial-Strength Confidence, I talked about the very unglamorous middle of building something new. The part where you keep going before the evidence fully catches up. That lesson still holds.

I see the same pattern play out inside organizations all the time.

Leaders launch big initiatives and hope engagement will magically follow.

They wait for employees to lean in. They wait for momentum to appear.

But employees aren’t waiting for the strategy.

They’re watching the behavior.

Are leaders still showing up months later? Are they reinforcing the why? Are they visible when the work gets harder?

Because trust doesn’t grow from announcements.

It grows from consistency.

Fairytales taught us to wait for the hero.

Real life works a little differently.

At some point you stop looking for the knight in shining armor.

Mostly because you realize two things:

The armor usually dents.

And you’re perfectly capable of carrying the sword yourself.

And even if the carriage occasionally turns back into a pumpkin… you still show up the next day and keep going.

BGPD Rule: Don’t wait for someone else to show up for you. First you have to show up for yourself.