who you are, how you do what you do, and what you want, there is no end to where you can take your career!
You need only look at the most successful people in the world to see that this is true. Think Mark Cuban, the late Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Oprah, Lady Gaga, Michael Jordan, Jimmy Fallon, and Bobby Flay. Whether a business tycoon, an innovator, an adventurer, a media mogul, an entertainer, a sports giant, a comedian, or a chef, each of these individuals is known for extreme, single-minded passion.
Combining your passions with your experience is the ideal way to direct your career and fully engage in your work. That’s what Chris Shirley does every day as a global communications manager for one of the world’s largest banks. After ten years of working on Wall Street, Chris quit his job and began an intensive filmmaking program at NYU (with nothing more than a completed screenplay to recommend him).
Chris quickly realized that writing, not directing, was his passion, and that his screenplay might actually work better as a novel. While his agent was flogging his novel, a friend asked him to help write a financial plan for his publishing company—spurring Chris to wonder if there was a way to combine his finance expertise and his love of writing. Five weeks later, after a referral from a friend, Chris was hired as a global communications manager and gets paid to write every day.
Even if your passion isn’t exactly what you do every day, you can find creative ways to connect your passion to your career. If you’re passionate about the environment and work in accounting, you might develop a program to save the company money by introducing environmentally aware practices. If you’re passionate about healthy eating, you might work with your company cafeteria to come up with a healthy eating option every day, or initiate a health challenge program for members of your team—or even your company.
In a recent workshop, William asked participants to brainstorm ways they could bring their passions to work. Although initially skeptical about bringing his passion for cooking to his job as a finance executive, one participant had a breakthrough: He immediately scheduled his first Breakfast Brainstorm, after his workshop table partner suggested that he could combine his brand attribute of “collaborative” with his passion for cooking by preparing a breakfast or lunch for his team meetings. Another participant started a company choir and holds for-fee events, using the proceeds to benefit local animal shelters.
Your passion motivates, inspires, and guides you (and your teams) to extraordinary heights, propelling your career to the next level (even if your present career isn’t your calling). Spend some time brainstorming ways to inject your passion into everything you do at work. Fervor and energy are contagious!
How can you ignite YOUR passion?
DARE
Bring your passion to work. Passion makes leaders, and passionate leaders are inspiring leaders! Use YOUR passion to inspire!
My Sparks
Record your ideas, sparked from Chapter 2.
Chapter Three
Be Incomparable
KNOW
Snap 1
Don’t Be Fine:
Be Extraordinary
When it comes to succeeding in today’s competitive marketplace, the word “fine” is a four-letter word.
Fine, adequate, average, okay, acceptable. Do you want your work to be described with these words? If your reputation is fine, you’re in trouble. People rarely get excited in life about things that are “fine,” and they rarely have emotional connections to them. “Fine” doesn’t position you to win the Executive of the Year award.
Replace the word “fine” with “great” and strive for greatness by leveraging your strengths, rather than improving on your weaknesses. If you have a weakness that will impede your success, work on it, but if it won’t get in the way of your success, ignore it!
Maximize your strengths; become known by them and build your personal brand around those things that make you different and interesting. If you are the most creative CIO, focus on that. If you are the most ethical, efficient, and organized finance director, make that more visible. If you are the zany team leader who gets all of the company functions’ attendees talking and laughing, be more of that.
When William was working in London, a copywriter on his team was a real jokester—with an incomparable, amazingly quick wit. William noticed that although the copywriter’s humor was on display with his peers and enjoyed by all during team meetings, it was greatly subdued with internal clients and senior leaders. William encouraged him to share his witty quips in meetings with senior executives, and the copywriter soon became known for this attribute throughout the company.
Knowing your strengths not only builds your brand, but also helps you stay on course. Travis, a supply-chain executive, was deeply aware of his strengths (each tied to people and relationships) and how they impacted his performance and job satisfaction (aka happiness!). He was offered a promotion that required none of his strengths, and he convinced his manager not to promote him into the role, explaining that the company would be losing the greatest value he delivered. Shortly after his manager heard this rational business case, he found Travis a perfect-fit leadership position in another part of the organization. He’s now cheerfully working in his sweet spot at least 90% of the time-a win-win for him and for the company.
As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.” Be outstanding, be audacious, push the envelope. Never settle for adequate. When you apply your strengths to everything you do, you raise yourself far above “fine.” You become great, excellent, exceptional, extraordinary. And that’s how you want to be known, isn’t it?
What will position you to win the Executive of the Year award?
DARE
Deliberately ignore weaknesses that don’t impede your success. Identify your TOP strengths. Build on them. Your strengths are the drivers that excite you and propel your career.
Snap 2
Focus on One Thing:
Be Memorable
All strong brands focus on something, not many things.
In
