Getting far

If you’re a marketer and can only talk to marketers, you are not going to get far.

If you’re a salesman and can only talk to sales folks, you are not going to get far.

If you’re a developer and can only talk to developers, you will still have job security, but you are not going to get far.

If you’re a strategist and can only talk to business people, you are not going to get far.

Build networks instead, inside and outside of your turf. Learn to speak different languages and to talk to different people. Be a mediator and an initiator.

That’s when you are going to get far.

Your only focus

Your goal is not to avoid pain, always be brave, stay clear of risks, shy away from difficult conversations, always be positive, forgo heavy responsibilities, never get angry, be perfect.

Your goal is to learn how to manage all that, how to continue on your journey despite all that, how to fall, and say sorry, and say I did not mean to, and get back on track.

Most things are out of your control. The way you adapt to most things should then be your only focus.

Your turn

It’s your turn.

There’s no need for someone to tell you it is, no need to wait for the perfect situation, no need to take that training or listen to that podcast before you get to it.

It’s your turn, your turn is now.

You own this.

Follow through

The difficult part is not taking a decision. The difficult part is to follow through with the decision.

That’s why we end up in meetings to discuss the same things over and over again, to reassess, to reconsider, to go around the table. That’s why we feel stuck, incapable of progress, lacking development and purpose. And that’s why we feel frustrated, we frustrate others, and we eventually drift away in the wrong direction.

The greatest invention

Ask a historian, “What was mankind’s greatest invention?” Fire? The wheel? The sword? I would argue it’s history itself. History isn’t fact. It’s narrative, one carefully curated and shaped. Under the pen strokes of the right scribe, a villain becomes a hero. A lie becomes the truth.

Foundation, season 1 episode 9

You probably have no interest in writing or controlling history, but you should be invested in managing your own narrative. Who you are, what you stand for, what version of you is in your future, what goals will take you there, what people will you have closeby, what decisions you are making every day.

It’s easy to delegate all of this to others.

Be the right scribe to your very own history.