Phil and I are just back from Australia where we were attending the wedding of our Managing Director of the Australia office. Whilst I watched this brilliant individual give a truly inspired speech it made me reflect on how he has changed his environment from a career as a media specialist, where, although excellent at his job and a respected opinion leader, he felt chained to the day to day, uninspired, to become the leader and founder of the fastest growing promotional staffing agency in Australia, a company that is growing so fast that it’s first two months of revenue for this financial year have already outstripped the whole of last years revenue.
He’s achieved immense growth through innovative thinking, dynamic relationship building and sticking to his principle of being truly remarkable at what they do. In fact, he has so doggedly stuck to this principle, he’s actually forsaken further short term growth in order to ‘nail’ every delivery. In 15 short months, he’s had a complete paradigm shift, from employee to business owner, from his days being dictated to him, to becoming the architect of his own day, week, month. In return, he’s had sleepless nights, stress, fear, jubilation, sacrifice, joy, happiness and immense satisfaction.
My point? It’s amazing what you can achieve if you take a leap of faith, believe in yourself and commit to excellence. Neil decided that he wasn’t happy with the status quo and through immense self belief, and by understanding that he had complete control of how to influence his life, he made the change. It was no less scary, he had just as much to lose as the next guy, but the upside was just too great to ignore. He was prepared to fail.
Now not everyone wants to start their own businesses, but the principle remains the same. You can affect the change in your career by being brave enough to step out of your comfort zone and strive to be remarkable (my new favourite word).
As T.J. Watson (http://dyln.it/m46) said, “Success, is on the far side of failure”.
This was Toms war cry as he stepped onto the stage at our latest Dylan Thought Leadership Event. The same can be said of companies approach to what they spend their money on within the business to motivate their employees. It’s not enough to just have a great looking brand. If the company isn’t as authentic on the inside as it is on the outside then inevitably recruitment and retention will be a problem.
