Surrounding Yourself with the Right People
20 Aug
Inspired by this week’s “From the Couch” via @cjdsie
I thought I had my career path figured out. I loved sports and physical fitness, so of course I would go into Kinesiology.
But then again I really do love working with kids (I always have been very maternal) – I’ll study early child development.
Oh but actually I’m really good at working with middle school kids, especially teaching them math – ok so I’ll be a middle school math teacher.
Thats what I stuck with until the second semester of my senior year, but yet again my interests began to morph. This time in a whole different way.
I nannied for a wonderful family since the beginning of my Sophomore year of college, and over time the mother and I developed a great friendship. A lot of our core values and beliefs were very similar which made helping raise her children very natural, giving us a very strong bond.
I recall at one point, she sat me down and asked me if I really just want to be a teacher. I replied confidently that its what I’m good at and what I love. She left the door open to continue the conversation at another time if I ever changed my mind. So I did begin to ponder it a little bit. I began to realize that there were various reasons why maybe I shouldn’t settle down to teach just yet. She seemed to have confidence in me, believed that I was capable of much more. It inspired me to believe in myself as well.
And so began a mentorship that would vastly alter my career goals, and it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me – both personally and professionally. Really it all started with the fact that we both had very similar core values and beliefs and the fact that I recognized she had a lot of knowledge that I could greatly benefit from learning.
I starting paying attention to everything she did, everything she shared and taught me. I took some advertising and marketing classes, and landed my first job out of college as an online marketing coordinator (of course the glowing reference from the successful advertising professional didn’t hurt).
From there I moved on to account service at an ad agency, and finally shifted over to digital project manager for the digital department of the agency. I feel like I have finally found my niche, applying all of my best assets and my passion for the work. None of this would have come to fruition had I not recognized the knowledge that this woman had to share with me and dove in full boar.
She and I have maintained our relationship, and she always provides great insight for me to this day. I have developed a few other contacts through her that I greatly value, and I notice that the people I connect most with professionally these days are the people that have similar core values, beliefs and knowledge I can benefit from. I realize that the more of these kinds of people I meet and remain in contact with, the more valuable I become as an employee because of the vast knowledge I acquire, and the happier I am as an employee as well as an individual because I have a strong base of people whom I can turn to for knowledge and advice.
I know that this relationship is one of a kind, as all relationships are, but as the saying goes, “sometimes its better to be lucky than good”. Meeting this woman was pure luck, but allowing that relationship to flourish and have the impact on my professional – and by osmosis – personal life was a conscious choice. A better saying for this might be “luck is where preparation meets opportunity”. It was happenstance that we met, but preparation and opportunity that allowed me to recognize the potential and further build that relationship.
We choose who we surround ourselves with and I am aware of this now more than ever. Each time we open ourselves up to meeting people of like mind and interests who have knowledge we can benefit from, we are feasibly opening ourselves up to a relationship that could have limitless impact on our lives.
I have also learned to be open to people who don’t have similar core values or beliefs, as long as they have a lot of beneficial knowledge to offer me – but these relationships I have to be careful to keep professional, as allowing them to impact me personally is likely to cause more harm than good.
