As we look back on 2018 we have worked with so many women (and some men) who are in search of being their best selves. This is something many of us are always in search of… playing at a different level, generating work that changes things.
The thing is, it’s not about more effort. It’s about more insight.
Warren Buffett is one of the wealthiest and most successful investors in the world. He says the very best investment you can make is one that “you can’t beat,” can’t be taxed and not even inflation can take away from you.
This one investment supersedes all others:
Invest in yourself.
Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself, and everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.
So how can you follow Buffett’s advice and invest in your skills? For the last three years we have worked with over 3000 women (and again some men!) in our Elevate programme and throughout the programme we cover the four areas that take your career to a new level. We call this the EPIC leadership model.
1) Exposure
The more visibility you can give your work, the more likely you will win. It doesn’t matter if you’re more skilled or have more talent. The most visible people are those who have more opportunities come their way. Most people fall into a trap where they believe that if they focus on the work the rest will come. If you think this way, we’ve got bad news for you. No one is going out of their way to discover you. Being great at your job isn’t going to be enough. If no one knows you exist, being the best at what you do isn’t going to save you.
2) Performance
We often have the wrong idea about what performance really means.
-Hard work is not performance: performance is not activity
-Being busy is not performance: performance is not the amount of activity.
-Being ‘smart’ is not performance: performance is more than just hard skills.
Performance is about achieving the right end result. There are always ways to boost your performance so that you achieve the right end results. It is important to take a step back, think about what you’re doing and learn and embed the skills that achieve this
3) Impact
Whether we like it or not – every action we take, every behaviour we show has an impact. But that impact can be positive it can be negative or it can be neutral
So how do we know the effect our actions (or perhaps inactions) have on other people? Sometimes we know right away. Sometimes we never know.
Life is full of opportunities and choices to have positive impact. Or a negative impact on others. We have the choice. And what we do or don’t do can be the difference between soaring to new heights and plateauing where we are.
4) Conscious
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg – 10% of an iceberg is above the surface and 90% below – and like an iceberg only 10% of the mind is obvious to us and is our conscious mind whilst 90% of our mind is subconscious – and most of our influence comes from the subconscious that we are often not aware of. That is why it is critical to be self-aware – be conscious of your working environment, be conscious of your skills, be conscious of your strengths and weaknesses.
As we start to look to 2019 how are you going to be ‘EPIC’? How are you going to invest in yourself to really maximise your potential? How are you supporting more of the women in your organisation to unlock the potential they haven’t used yet?
If we don’t invest, then how can we ever expect to move the dial?
