Lessons Learned from Working With and Interviewing Top-Level Executives and Entrepreneurs
As the saying goes, the best way to learn is to teach. When I was planning my content schedule and saw that we’re approaching the big 150 milestone, I couldn’t help but create a ‘best of’ episode to celebrate not only having this show for three years but also to highlight some of the most incredible clients and guests that I’ve had the pleasure to work with or interview. In today’s constantly changing world of work, there isn't the one answer, but there is the right answer for you where you are right now. And that might change later on - and that’s ok.
LESSON 1 - You Can’t Stop The Ways But You Can Learn To Surf
Now, onto the first lesson I learned from someone who has pivoted careers three times and achieved incredible results in each of them - always starting from the bottom, facing adversity, and plenty of doubts along the way. He was a professional athlete, started a tech business, got booted out from his first startup, started another one, and sold it for nine figures. Talk about adversity and resilience. Not only that - he also ran out of money a few times during his second startup, but what stood out to me most is that he continued to stay calm, didn’t let any of the stress affect his team, and continued making the right decisions under pressure.
For me, I still catch myself responding too emotionally to events, which is amusing because in my personal life, I don’t have many emotional episodes, or they don’t affect me as much as they do in my professional life. Let’s say getting a rejection if I ask someone for a date was never a big deal, but getting a rejection from a potential client - it always stings, even after nearly 10 years of doing it. So what I take away from his strength is to be data-driven and focus on facts when making decisions. Knowing that rejection or negative experiences will come, succeeding has a lot to do with the right timing rather than just the best offer or opportunity.
LESSON 2 - The Power of Making Hard Choices for Future Success
This leads me into my second lesson learned, and that is decision-making. Another client of mine is a CEO of an NFP, and she’s taken the organisation from nearly going under to eight figures with a big goal of further growth. When I asked her what’s the one skill she’d like her son to learn and she wants to teach him and her team, it is decision-making. In the end, you can always navigate from making the wrong decision, but indecision puts you already on the backburner. And she made some very courageous decisions - from changing the entire board to a new leadership team as she knew that the skill set and experience those directors brought to the table wouldn’t get her to where she wanted to take the organisation moving forward. But the way she did it was so gracious and thoughtful - she spoke with everyone individually, supported them in the transition, made introductions for them, and so on. Like making the hard decision is one thing, but then being so calm, collected, and caring in the execution is another thing. She also told me in our brand strategy session that she always looked for the hard things to do first that others avoided doing.
From doing tele-marketing as her first career to thinking of innovative (for the NFP space anyway) ways of growing a business. You name it - she would do it, and that’s incredibly inspiring. The lessons learned here are that doing the hard things first makes your life easier later because you’ve done the reps and have built the muscle, whereas others choose the easy route, may it be to not make the hard decision, face the consequences, or a rejection but have to deal with the consequences of it later in life. In the end, it all comes down to delayed gratification because anything of substance takes not necessarily time but reps to do it. If you do let’s say 3 cold calls and get 3 rejections, it will take a lot longer to build the resilience muscle compared to if you do 30 calls a day but again, this is where most avoid the uncomfortable situation of possibly be rejected so it takes them longer to get the result.
LESSON 3 - Power Of Being An Original And Innovate To Create An Economy Of One
Another lesson comes from a podcast guest, a friend and someone who I learn so much from every time we catch up - lucky we are also friends in real life so I get my regular fix of ideas and inspiration. She is a trailblazer and is constantly - one step ahead. She also turned this slogan into her value proposition and what fascinates me most about her is that she - despite going against all the best practice approaches - makes it work.
On a peer mentoring call which we have every few weeks, someone in the group asked her what her actual business model was and what she actually offers (even though she had known her for years at that stage) and she said- that’s the best question she can be asked because it starts a conversation.
I think she is the Go-To for people and organisatons who want to push their boundaries and try something completely new. In whatever shape or form it comes - may it be through facilitation, coaching, training or keynotes. In the end, it always comes down to communication and she certainly masters that. The big lesson here is that you can play your own trumpet despite all the odds and always trying something new before someone else tries it gives you a competitive edge. Because it’s easy to copy someone but you can’t copy someone’s energy and the ripple effect that has on others. And this is exactly what authenticity means- being original to what makes you you and if that’s organised chaos - embrace it and full step into it.
LESSON 4 - Communication to build connections and with that, competitive edge
There are 3 episodes that go head on head with the downloads and they are all about communication as competitive edge, partnerships as leverage for growth and strategic networking the right way - to get ahead which tells me that this certainly strikes a cord with many of you.
And it also doesn’t surprise me given that those soft skills which are more essential skills are hard to learn but make all the difference between getting ahead or not. To summarise the learnings from the guests in 3 overarching takeaways:
Relationships are key: always think of what value you can provide before you ask. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of so if you can add value first, people are more inclined to return the favour and long-term investment always trumps short term wins. Also - there is a reason we have 2 ears and 1 mouth so listening to understand rather than listening to respond is also what we need to keep in mind.
Preparation is a non-negotiable: The more confident and familiar you are with the content you are presenting, the more present you can be for the connections so make the most of any networking event you attend, any conversation ou have and any presentation you give as an opportunity to make a long lasting impression by being fully present and more interested in people than trying to be interesting for them.
Speaking of - this also brings me to the final reminder when it comes to cut through communication as well as connection building: get rid of industry jargon, technical language and abbreviations when you are not talking to peers because it can lead to confusion, people may feel silly because they don’t know what you mean and since they feel bad about that and the person that caused this feeling is responsible for that, people have a negative association with them so we can easily avoid it by speaking in a language that resonates with people because it refers to familiar situations and events for them.
LESSON 5 - Your best thinking yesterday quickly becomes your biggest baggage tomorrow
Working with a lot of leaders, one thing is apparent: everyone is under pressure to deliver more with less. From budget cuts for additional staff, to reduction of training and coaching to higher expectations when it comes to delivering the bottom line results. This is where futures thinking comes in handy because it forces us to rethink what success looks like in tomorrow’s world of work and how we can reshape the way we deliver value to stay relevant. It’s about stretching conventional thinking and the ‘best practise’ approach because the world doesn’t stop, technology doesn’t slow down advancing and competition certainly doesn’t rest on their laurels.
Whilst we can’t control what happens tomorrow, we can control how we respond to it and taking the time to think and look around the corner, prepare for the eventualities with risk and project management plans as well as challenge the current way of work is what already puts us in a more competitive place. Making a decision with the best knowledge of today is key because we can always change direction as long as we are in motion.
___________
Want to become the Trusted Authority in your field by building and monetising your expertise?
Here are a few ways you can get started with my resources:
1.) Get your copy of my my book - Trusted Authority - From Technical Expert To Trusted Authority
2.) Check out the *brand new* 32-min on-demand masterclass
3.) Get your personalised Authority Score with the free Scorecard
4.) Book your complimentary 20min Strategy Session
5.) Connect with Petra Zink on LinkedIn
Check out all show notes and further resources over at https://www.impaccct.com