In case you’ve been waiting to be chosen, there’s plenty of great advice on choosing yourself (or picking yourself).
There seems to be much less advice about the natural next step: choosing someone else.
These days, you and I and everyone else is a gatekeeper in some way. That means we also have the ability to choose someone else; to shine a brief spotlight on them, to give them a stage and be seen, or to support and add energy to their work.
If you have a feeling that somebody else would prefer to avoid the spotlight, you can always offer your compliments on their work—that you think it’s worth sharing—and ask their permission to share it out.
You may think that you’re giving an opportunity away, but it’s more like you’re passing the ball in a team sport. You’re making a pass. You’re elevating team morale.
When you choose yourself, you practice thinking through how you can solve the problem.
When you choose someone else, you practice thinking who can best solve this problem. You’re dropping your ego; it’s whomever is best suited to solving the problem, even if it’s not you.