by ableadership | Jun 11, 2020 | Blog
Dear Leader,
It was a typical afternoon at work and I was going about my job as usual. Two years in my first corporate employment, part of my responsibilities involved preparing the payroll and distributing payslips among other things. I was supposed to hand-deliver the payslip to each staff member on a designated day each month. You can guess which era that was! It was before technology eased our lives!
One afternoon, I knocked at the door of one of the organization’s top managers. I walked in and handed John his payslip. He received it and thanked me. As I started to walk out, he called my name, “Annet”. I turned around mortified by the thought that I might have miscalculated his salary. I faced him with the expression of “what did I do wrong?” written all over my face.
He was swinging the payslip in his hand, and I thought “Oh oh here comes trouble!” “How long are you going to do this?” He asked me. In my head, I started thinking what sort of question was this? Was this a preamble to a long lecture about my shortcomings? This line of thinking could not have been further from the truth. For the next five minutes, we had a conversation that would change the trajectory of my career for good.
John asked me several questions. “What are your career plans? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” What impact did I want to have in my community? He went ahead to convince me that the future was bright for only those who kept growing themselves. Obviously, I had plans to go to graduate school but I had never put a date to it. I had ideas of what the picture of the future I wanted looked like but there was no clear path to get there. He concluded telling me not to settle; not to believe that working for one of the best companies in the country or earning above-average pay in the market, was as good as it gets. He warned me against being comfortable with the status quo and opened my eyes to the fact that there was so much more out there for me.
His pep talk inspired me to resign from the job that I had competed for, in a time of high unemployment rate. I went back to school, clinched a Masters and when I returned, I started reaping the benefits of taking off time to invest in myself. That “payslip” moment saved my life.
The purpose of this article is to share with you, my wonderful reader, the lessons I learned from this experience.
- We are a result of the quality of our thoughts. In other words, you can not perform beyond the level of your thoughts. This is why we all need someone to challenge our thinking, push us, and disrupt the deep-seated beliefs that hold us back. For instance, I had a belief that “this is as good at it gets”. How wrong I was!
- Everybody needs a mentor and coach. You can go further faster with someone walking alongside you than you do it single-handedly. For me, that talk with John was a sheer luck mentorship moment. How much more would you gain from an intentional, structured mentorship support system fully dedicated to your success?
Reflect on this.
What’s the best advice you have ever received? Who inspires you? What can you learn from them? How much intentional are you with your growth?
Remember, a mentor can make a world of a difference.
