By Matthew Hill
1. Forgive Yourself!
Later in your career you will find yourself “driving with the brakes on”, slowed by that childhood incident that happened when you were 5 or 7 years old. Do you remember? It involved pain, humiliation, failure or shocking that was strong and you could not process usefully at the time. And what did you do with it? We all tend to make it MEAN something for us. And that leads us to a strong disposition as we attempt to protect ourselves from harm – “I am unlovable / I am bad at X / Avoid attachment / don’t take risks.”
A therapeutic story – Imagine you are walking along a familiar street and there is a sunny gap between two buildings that you know well. Strange this light space was not their last week. In between is a green park and you decide to walk in. In the distance is a tiny figure coming towards you. You have a good feeling about this person. They approach and you really feel a connection. Suddenly you are shocked, as you recognise this amazing person. Maybe you have been waiting for most of your life to meet them. Wow, you know this meeting is deeply meaningful, personal and significant. What will you say to this high potential person? Because, that person is the young…you.
Meaning – Releasing yourself from the baggage of the past is a gift we can all give ourselves, freeing us to inhabit the present with more energy, optimism and confidence. Remember – It is never too late to have a happy childhood.
2. Perfect Preparation Prevents P*s Poor Performance
A casual approach will not cut it when playing and doing business with the adults. When you fail to plan you had better plan to fail.
I had a high stakes 2 day training session set up for the Hilton Hotel in Prague tasked with entertaining and teaching something valuable to 550 engineers. This was a big deal. I was going to be asked to leap onto the stage & have to rally 550 people including getting them to negotiate with passion, using real money? (That is a lot of money.) I was to run around with a mic, entertain and teach in this amazing space – the corporation had taken over the whole of the hotel. PRESSURE.
But I had a bad back and it had popped out 2 days before. For my birthday I had cancelled all celebrations and just rested. The next day, I had somehow made it to Prague and by youngest son was there to help me too.
Because I had planned contingencies, the hotel staff could sort out the money, the technician could announce me and I made a secret space on the stage to work around the leap onto the stage.
My son did the mic running and the adrenaline kicked in acting as a natural painkiller.
Enough planning avoided disaster for my reputation and got me through and 90% of the people did not notice my issue.
Now I embrace chaos – It engineers chances to impress with agility.
Lesson – Preparation inoculates against last minute changes in real life.
3. Do Your Best – Not more, not less
When you meet someone on an energy saving setting it is so disappointing. You wonder how they survive. Alternatively, the cost of constant perfection is time, disappointment and, eventually burn out. The price of accumulated sloth and minimalism is the living a below average life and the building of a subpar career.
Story – A little and often – I had a role that allowed me to note down the cultural traits from 1000s of Central European Executives as I interviewed them – I took this as a unique opportunity to formulate a thesis and models that allowed me to pursue a rewarding Intercultural career centred on “Who are the Central Europeans and how do they work?” This became a significant extra income stream.
Meaning – Put in the medium intensity work in, a little and often, and do it consistently. If designed well it can open doors for you later.
4. Network like a crazy person
It is never too soon to start networking AND, remember to service those relationships.
If you are an introverted wallflower there is a super complex phrase you need to learn and use – It will take you 15 years to learn but it will be worth it. The phrase when meeting people at a mixer, social, conference or before sitting for a lecture is… “Hello. Are you here for the networking?” I know it is complex but give it a go.
Story – When I left the Czech Republic, I gave up 4000 hard won contacts – 2 are now heading up top 100 companies. How may 100s of 1000s did I leave on the table?
Meaning – Be nice to them on the way up. You never know…
5. No Health – No Wealth
What are the symbols of wealth that you are looking to acquire? That 200,000 £/€/$ car will produce a “Wow” the first time your connections and friends see it. Great. But they will say nothing the second time you turn up with a roar. That is 10,000 per “Wow” – Expensive!
A friend moved out a huge house in one of the very best areas in London into a flat. “Why did you do that?” I asked. “Because I never went upstairs! The place was too big.”
Cash in the bank – You have 5 million – Great. You have 20 million – who cares about the extra? And how many extra hours did you put in to get the extra?
Fitness – That is worth everything, every day. Being pain free, breathing silently, have muscles, balance, lungs, heart that deliver physical endurance – That becomes worth so much more than wheels, bricks and cash. The status symbol these days is fitness and form.
When you take care of your physical and psychological resources when you DON’T think you need to, you will reap the reward later. Boomer status is not cars, cash and houses – It is a fully functioning and fit mind and body.
Do something consistently – from sat down chair stretches, to cycling, tennis, golf, walking, running, Pilates, etc. – Habit – see it as a break from work, with a new potential friendship group, -> gaining resilience, strength, and long-term play.
Meaning – By 55 you will be unbelievably grateful that you started before you had to.
6. Always have a STORY – Ready to tell
The other day I was at a group lunch and politely asked what was going on in someone’s life – They came back with such bland responses that I immediately regretted the whole interaction. Why? Why did they choose to suck all the oxygen out of the room. That person is an intelligent hard worker. Why are they sabotaging their social reputation and putting everyone off when new people approach?
A better way is to plan for encounters and flesh out something that happened to make a compelling and interesting story. Some silly (and true) examples…
Socially – I have a stalker at the gym.
Bar staff – They are all so slow these days – I remember when…
Business – I met someone who told me something shocking…
These are real, profound and outlier incidents that stimulate without being so out there that no one can relate to them.
Credibility and liking – People will either be drawn towards you or mildly repelled. This method will ensure the former.
Prepare a parable, tale or experience that is relevant to the audience you are about to encounter – a presentation, meeting, business event or panel. What can you think of that is relevant and useful / funny / memorable for your audience?
Meaning – Reuse experience, upgrade it to wisdom and share it for lasting impact.
7. Be Creative (and determined)
Overcome your bias against creativity (that creativity is reserved for artists or females only, not for real men!) to deploy some great creative methods to actually solve real business problems. It is not wet, woke or silly – It works.
I like the Flip Technique – 1. Scenario – Imagine a bad future outcome as you begin to plan a project – e.g. producing a book for publication with the aim of selling a decent number of copies. 2. Project forward in time and imagine yourself into a deliberately bad outcome = our newly published book did not sell well. Now note down a vertical list of failure points on the left-hand side of the page – “I did not …” and so on. 3. Then the magical bit – Flip the failure list on the left to its opposite – I did not become I will do. I failed to… becomes I succeeded by doing X, etc. I.e. write down the reasons for the failure and force reverse them to come up with a high energy action plan for success – HINT – the worse the left is the better the plan will be – e.g. No marketing, no foreword from a famous person, no social media presence, poor cover design etc., – This is then FLIPPED from didn’t to a strong do list. The actions on the right will work – Do everything on the righthand action list to experience success.
Meaning – We need to be creative to break out of our self limiting beliefs SLBs and reprocess our past experiences, to go on to win.
8. Have 3 Solutions to Every Problem
When you generate alternatives, you give yourself options.
I knew a great Czech CEO who had a strangely positioned office on top of some external concrete stairs up a couple of flights. In winter it could be -10 C. His mantra was that anyone could come to him, knock on the door and present any problem, but they had to have done some prework on that issue and propose 3 possible solutions. He started this in winter and the team soon learnt to take the process seriously as he would make them go down the freezing steps, think some more and come back – Not good.
When you learn to automatically generate 3 solutions to each problem, you are training yourself to be a problem solver and not just a passive self-blocker. You are accumulating a wide variety of answers that can be reapplied later. You are curating problem types and becoming a solution-o-pedia.
Meaning – Change up to associate solutions with problems, start early and learn pattern recognition to become a hyper effective executive.
9. Einstein’s favourite human invention – Save Money Early.
When Albert Einstein was asked what was the single cleverest human invention, he did not hesitate – “Compound interest.”
So many of us suffer at the passing of time – We miss deadlines, under achieve or simply grow older and weaker.
Compound interest is one of the best examples of making time work FOR you.
Method – put aside 10% of your income in a compounding (and preferably tax free) environment, early and let the magic of compounding do its thing – 5 to 10 years will make an amazing difference to your stash – Result – You will have learnt an adult habit and never be poor.
Meaning – Take responsibility for your own wealth creation. Be consistent, be consequent, and be disciplined.
10. Do the Other Side’s Work Too
Have you been shut down by a genius in a public exchange and made to feel foolish and ill prepared? We all have. You kick yourself and ask, “Why didn’t I consider that extra point X or Y? I am an idiot.”
When negotiating, debating or presenting your case / argument / claim, why not put in the focused graft to uncover the essence, advantages and flaws of the OTHER side’s argument or point of view, P.O.V.?
That is part of the Socratic method and represents the right amount of effort to generate quality outcomes, show respect for the other side and maintain working relationships for years.
The bonus is your reputation will not take a massive hit in public because you saved 15 minutes during the preparation phase. Careers are made and lost from moments like this.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this, taken away 2 or 3 ideas that you can implement and will have a BETTER LIFE.
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