Hello libHERation Tribe,
Remember growing up? As a child you would be asked a plethora of questions. What’s your favorite color, how do you like school, and who’s your best friend? However, the question everyone concentrated on was…what do you want to be when you grow up? And the older you got the more in-depth the dialogue became. Especially if everyone in your family were teachers, doctors or lawyers. Your future career choice was one of the main topics of discussion. Everyone seemed to be curious about your future goals as a professional, as if they wanted to ensure you became a productive member of society.
With that, you too began thinking about it more and more. You would fantasize about working in your career of choice with much passion and vigor. You would make lots of friends on the job and possibly meet your significant other in the same office. You had everything mapped out, because you had considered everything…well as much as your inexperienced self could.
You had already determined that you would have great success! Promotions and upward mobility would not be an issue at all. Your salary would be the envy of all of your college friends. Vacations, nice clothes, a big home and a sports car would be the norm.
You would be responsible for leading your team into greatness. Being recognized for all your talents and treasures, you would spare no expense for the sake of being the new wonder kid in the organization.
Unfortunately, what many of us fail to realize in the beginning is this not so new concept called “learning.” In order for us to have the kind of success we dreamed of and deserve, it requires a certain amount of learning over time. Learning everything there is to know about our careers, the industry and trends. Connecting with and shadowing colleagues in key leadership positions that are modeling the way. Sitting at the table when the opportunity presents itself and sharing what you’ve learned. All of these necessary actions are to ensure you have all the tools needed to be lead.
The point simply is…before we can lead anything or anyone for that matter, we must Learn! Learning offers us the unique advantage of finding opportunities for creating better systems, logistics and a team. It allows us the space to seize every opportunity as we’ve done our due diligence in the learning process.
In Love and libHERation,
~TLM
