We know that in order to be successful, we must first be brilliant at doing the work. We spend a lot of time training, learning, working with clients, working hard, etc.. There is an enormous amount of time and energy that goes into developing, honing, refining the skills to do the job. That is the WHAT part of becoming successful.
However, the second part of success, and something much less talked about, is the HOW. The way you work, how you conduct yourself, your emotions and behaviours when working with others. The way you make others feel when you work with them.
And nobody’s going to teach you how to do this, but the second part is where real success lies, and it’s the part that most people fall down on.
Your future depends on the quality of your relationships, and not just client relationships, but internal ones. At some point, even quite early on, all the most important things you will achieve in your career, will happen together with, or partly because of, other people.
We are thrust into a world of individual stories and individual wins, but nothing is ever achieved by just one person. Building great culture doesn’t just happen by buying table tennis tables and offering office fruit.
It happens in honest conversations, the difficult ones, speaking the truth and resolving issues while maintaining dialogue. The gritty bits, and the awkward bits, and the being vulnerable. Because that is the beautiful part, although it’s difficult at the time.
The pot at the end of the rainbow isn’t gold, it’s acceptance, of yourself, and others, and dropping perfection in return for the dream.
Successful people are not powerful because of the influence they have over others, they are powerful because of the influence they have over themselves.
