My Leadership Thoughts

This might be controversial, but… Bad leaders need to go.  I was a bad leader at one point in my career. I wasn't doing a good job in leading my team, my company, or myself. So I did what any self respecting leader would do. I made a bold move—a hard, difficult, change. I fired everyone and started from scratch. But change is hard. It doesn't happen right away. It takes discipline. It takes multiple attempts. So I did it again. I said yes to change. I fired all the people I had just brought in. I continued this until I knew I had changed, until the change stuck. Where before I was only saying yes to change, I was now hearing yes all around me: in emails, in meetings, after telling staff my ideas. My hard work paid off. So if you're feeling like you may be a bad leader, remember: keep saying yes to change until change says yes back to you.

This might be controversial, but… You are not your career. I used to make decisions to achieve the career goals I thought I should be achieving. I was chasing a certain definition of success, a definition I had dreamt up in my own head. I was successful, but still deeply unhappy. I could not understand why. Then it struck me. You are not your career. Your career is you. Respond to those emails instead of a lunch break? Yes. 80 hour workweeks? Yes. Skipping time with the kids to close a deal? Yes. Here I was trying to budget my time to advance my career when all I had to do was allow my career to budget my time.  I made the change; I am no longer my career. So stop defining yourself by what you do. Allow your career to define you.