Achieving Career Success: Lessons from My Personal Journey
In the past four weeks, I’ve met with 6 people. We talked about mentorship and their career development; surprisingly they all asked me the same question:
“How did you get to where you are, in your career?”
Each time I heard the question, I asked myself, “why do they want to know? what are they looking for?”
One person almost seemed as though they could read my mind, or maybe it was the expression on my face that gave my thought away, provided me with some context. She said, “you were once in sales, just like me. You made a shift in your career, and now you’re in an amazing role. I want to know how to get there, how do I move up in my career.”
We had a great discussion and she’s excited about the next steps in her journey.
I on the other hand, spent some time over the holidays thinking about the question: “How did I get to where I am?” It made me realize, even though there are hundreds of posts on Leadership on LinkedIn, thousands of podcasts on career advancement and development, people want to learn from people they know. They want to learn from people who they’ve physically seen accomplish the same (or similar) goals they envision for themselves, in reality.
I’m happy to share my story with anyone who’s interested. But, what got me to where I am today, may not be the secret sauce that will work for you. My story won’t get you to the next phase in your career. It’s the learnings from my journey that will. I prefer to cut to the chase and highlight what I’ve learned, and share them with you, so you can make the best decisions for yourself with the information you have. This is why mentorship has been a strong part of my own success. Even from before I knew what mentorship was, I had mentors.
As a National competitive swimmer, I had a coach. My coach taught me everything, they highlighted my weaknesses, focused on my strengths, discussed the strategy for my upcoming race. My coach was my mentor. While I was in University, I started applying to roles in the corporate world. I stumbled across some recruiters. Two of these recruiters (from separate organizations) not only put forward my resume to companies, but they took time to teach me how to interview. They didn’t spend hours telling me how to answer the questions, they guided me and I took it from there. I knew what to expect in the interview, and therefore I knew how to prepare. They coached me, and I got several offers. In almost every company I’ve worked for, I had a coach. Which I later learned, was a mentor. Some may say this is pure luck. They’ve never had a mentor at work. No one ever volunteers to mentor, how come I was able to find ‘all the mentors’. This part is true, it’s unusual for someone to come out and offer to be your mentor. That’s why you have to ask.
Here’s the answer: no one has ever offered to mentor me. It was always a natural progression.
How?
Here’s a little about me, and then my approach.
I’m a curious individual who’s not afraid to be vocal when the opportunity presents itself. I also have a strong desire for genuine relationships. As early as elementary school, I was a talker. My agenda always had notes from my teacher to my mom that I talk too much in class. I crave relationships, discussion, and like I said, I’m curious. In any company I’ve worked for, 98% of them never had an onboarding plan, or a training guide. I was given a computer and then told to start working on what I was given, if I got stuck, just ask the question. So that’s what I did. But being an athlete gave me an edge. I was resourceful. Mixed with curious, I sought to understand, found answers and before attempting on my own, raised educated questions, backed by follow-up questions (usually futuristic what-if scenarios).
Here’s the approach.
Because my Manager was the person I worked the closest with, I built a strong relationship with them. Strong enough that I would eventually feel comfortable asking them if I could help them with any projects or take on any other work. Because I had built the strong relationship with them, the question was never seen as a threat. Naturally, they passed along ‘special cases’, or ‘bigger clients’, or ‘larger contracts’ and in the process I continued learning. To the point where, my Manager ended up becoming my coach (mentor). They would provide me with insight, competitive intel, company progress, etc.
Now, this approach started over 15 years ago. It’s old. But it worked and I leveraged it several times leading up to my most current employer. But I learned more and more every time I leveraged this process I created for myself. Building relationships, once seen as a weakness, was my strength. Being curious, asking questions, was also a strength.
My biggest learning: Those who don’t ask, don’t get.
Because I was curious, I always asked. Maybe not right away, but I would ask.
That’s how you move up in your career.
One of the ‘worst’ outcomes of leveraging this process was a Managing Director looking me directly in the eye and saying, “absolutely not!” The best case scenario was a VP looking me directly in the eye and asking, “so, how would you map everything out?” That was the start to how I got to where I am today: Relationship Building, Curiosity, Courage.
My story doesn’t matter. My process. My curiosity. My relationship building. My courage. That’s what mattered.
I’m here to help you in your career advancement, when you’re ready.
