Quick question – which is more professional, the ability to deliver a finely crafted novel in a year or a pulpy throwaway novel in a month?
The right answer? The right answer is not being sure.
Professional Development
Role Models and The Power Of Mistakes
Role Models. We look to them to guide us with the examples of their lives. We look to them to inspire us with their stories of success. We look to them to to remind us of our potential.
They also help remind us about screwing up.
If you have a good Role Model, it's important to look at them and learn from their mistakes. They probably have a spectacular amount of them if you only look.
The great blunders of our Role Models are important because:
- They remind us our Role Models are humans, just like us. Realizing that helps us see them as people. When we see them as people we relate to them better, learn from them better, and also treat them better.
- They teach us just how common making mistakes is. It's too easy to forget just how often all of us create absolutely spectacular messes of our lives. Remembering that keeps us from being to harsh on ourselves.
- They teach us how to recover from our foul-ups. In fact, they remind us of how it is possible to recover from truly wondrous blunders.
- They keep us humble. If those we admire can mess up, it reminds us how we too can make mistakes.
So next time you're looking up to that Role Model, look down a bit and see the mountain of mistakes, the fields of foul-ups, the sea of screw-ups, at their feet. It'll help you a great deal.
– Steven Savage
Build Your Own ‘Inside’
"I'm not on the inside."
Have you ever heard that excuse from some sad seeker of employment? Have you ever lowered yourself to employ the excuse yourself? My guess if you've encountered one if not both cases.
It's a common story – and a common excuse. People think they can't succeed because they're not part of the "inside" the elite group, the . . . well whatever elite or group or team of influencers that makes things happen. We fear we're not connected, never going to be connected, and are thus going to fail.
I won't lie – connections are important in career and life. Networking and being connected pays off in far more ways than just a job search. Decrying it however misses the point.
You're not "on the inside"? Then build your own inside. In fact, you're a progeek, you have an entire "inside" just waiting to happen.