46 Things I've Learned About Work.

I started a new job last week. It’s a big gig and took some time to land, but I think I'll always feel like the imposter who will be discovered at any moment! It doesn’t feel like that long ago that I owned a design agency in Manchester which went bankrupt after growing too fast.

At the time I was devastated. It felt like my career was over. No degree. No Masters. No MBA. No "professional" experience to fall back on. Just a few half decent GCSE's and some good stories to tell.

I had no idea what I was going to do next. I always presumed I’d be self-employed and make a fortune as an entrepreneur.

But it wasn't to be. (And I couldn't be happier).

Some famous tech guy once said, "The journey is the reward". I couldn't agree more. So, aged 46, I thought it might be useful, interesting (maybe) and helpful (?) to share 46 pieces of the best advice and observations I’ve learned along that journey.

See what I did there? ;)

Here we go.

46 Things I've Learned About Work.

1. “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want”. I write this quote from Zig Ziglar on the first page of every notebook. It’s the best piece of advice I have ever received. And I go through a LOT of notebooks so there's no danger of me forgetting it!
2. Chase big companies not big job titles. Advice I over-share with anyone starting out in their career. The first business card I had said "Creative Director”. I went for a big title in a small company because I was 22 and didn’t know any better. I should have (not that I have any regrets) taken ANY job in one of the big ad agencies I admired. Better to be the tea boy at TBWA than creative director of the local family printing company. Perhaps.
3. “The goal in business is not to sell to people who need what you have. It is to work with people who believe what you believe”. Amazing advice from Simon Sinek. (Culture eats strategy for breakfast as Drucker used to say). Everybody needs to buy your stuff. But that's not a good enough reason for working there. People obsess over sales and what keeps their customers up at night. I prefer to focus on what gets them out of bed every morning. It's a much more positive perspective.
4. You can be an entrepreneur and work in a large organisation. A couple of entrepreneurs I admired upset me once by insinuating that I had sold out by going to work at a big company. They said I needed to be in control of building something. But you can have both. I see at IBM as a 108-year old start up, full of entrepreneurs who are trying to change their businesses units and those of their clients. And if you do it well, you can also make some good bank. (If you work in a big company and need to develop more lean-thinking, read The Startup Way by Eric Ries).
5. Get informed and educated in the mornings. And inspired and entertained in the evenings. The non-negotiable part of my day is learning new things 9am-10am every morning and going on Masterclass.com to de-stress and get inspired 5pm-6pm every evening.
6. Work life balance is everything. #HustlePorn is not a badge of honour. I prefer Tim Ferriss’ 4 hour work week than Gary Vaynerchuk’s 80 hour week. Not to be lazy. But because the secret to a successful life is working smarter (not harder), so you can spend more time on your health and well-being and with people you care about. (If you haven't already read Lifescale by Brian Solis and subscribe to Bruce Daisley's podcast Eat, Work, Repeat.
7. “What the smartest people do for fun on the weekends is what the rest of us will be doing for work in ten years time”. A strong prophecy from Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon.
8. And while we're talking about smart people consider this. "At the end of the day, people are not persuaded by what you said, but by what they understand". My mentor and leadership coach John C. Maxwell told me that. Too many people try to prove to others how smart they are. Or they overshare. Especially with too much technical information or acronyms. Understand your audience. Don't apologise for being clever. And Talk to them (with empathy) on their level. But remember what Uncle Albert said, "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler".
9. The secret to building a profile on social media, for your business or personally, is to follow the 90:10 rule. Spend 10% of your time creating content but 90% of your time (energy and money) engaging with your community, fans, followers and subscribers. Hardly any organisation, including the one I work for, weights their resources anywhere even close to this number. The ones that do (or come close)? TOMS, Patagonia, Burberry, LEGO, Red Bull, Missguided, Domino's, Nike, Dove, NFL, Man City, KLM, Paddy Power, Virgin Media, NASA, Nat Geo...
10. Your audience isn’t always who you think it is. I had an epiphany when I realised that my audience was not necessarily the marketing industry or tech community, but all the other IBMers who I have the opportunity to help and support in some small way. Over 370,000 people work at IBM so it has become my mission to try to inspire other people to do what inspires them. And then to share that with their teams and customers. That simple pivot dramatically changed the way that I used social media, and seriously helped me to manage my expectations of likes, RT’s and favourites!
11. Since we’re talking about the company I work at, I have always tried to remind myself that “there are more smart people out there than in here”. Great advice I received from Twitter founder Biz Stone when he told me about his 6 Rules for Building a Happy company. It’s easy for me to lose sight of that when IBM has thousands of research scientists (with 6 Nobel prize winners among them).
12. I believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule. It’s not for everyone. But most of the people I know who are amazing at what they do, experienced a tipping point in their career after dedicating around 7-10 years of their life to it. (It really does take 10 years to become an overnight success).
13. Get an MBA if you have the time. And money. And are under 40. Spend as much as you can to afford the best school. Where you get your MBA from is more important than simply having one. Not everyone will agree on this one. All I know is, for the most part, most of the people I know who have one seem to have more tricks up their sleeve and a bigger pay packet at the end of each month.
14. Dropping out of university is over-rated. The odds are stacked so heavily against you, unless you have an unquenchable desire to be an entrepreneur with an idea (and investment) chance are you may delay your career success. I dropped out of doing Investment Banking at City University and think it probably set my career back 7 years. I wouldn’t have had the same career if I went to uni, but there’s no doubt I have been on the back foot ever since I didn’t go.
15. Confidence is everything. In Dead Poets Society (my favourite film) Robin Williams reminded us as Mr Keating that words and language are everything, but in most business environments, it only account for around 8% of how people perceive you. Body language, dress, tone, empathy, speaking with passion and presentation style are the things people’s brains remember.
16. Everybody should write a book. Everybody. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be published. Writing helps you to make sense of your thoughts, tell better stories and to craft your point of view. I've written 4 books. 3 of them have been published. But Ten Words is the only one I'm relatively happy with. But each of them helped me to develop a better point of view professionally.
17. Always have a clever piece of research up your sleeve. You can be the youngest and most inexperienced person in the room, but if you have a killer piece of research up your sleeve, and you drop it at just the right moment, you will be the one everyone is talking about after the meeting.
18. Go into every meeting more prepared than everyone else. We are all busy. And being smart can lull you into a false sense of security. But if you prepare for each meeting and look to what others really want to get out of it (not just what they say they want) then you will make a lot of friends and grow your network much faster than you expected.
19. And speaking of networks, don’t forget that the value of your network is greater than the value of services that you provide.
20. Jack Lemmon once said, "If you've done well in business, it's your responsibility to send the elevator back down". It's important to educate and inspire the next generation of leaders. Over the last two years I have given lectures and hosted a fifteen part masterclass every Friday for marketers who want to become CMOs. It's up there with one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
21. Research shows quite consistently that four out of every five executives are overwhelmed and under-prepared for the challenges their organisations will face over the next five years. Don’t think just because someone is older, wiser (?) and more experienced than you means that they know what they’re doing. If you have a good idea, don’t ever be afraid to speak up.
22. Around 75% of business leaders make major strategic decisions with their heart. Even when the data often encourages them to act to the contrary, executives make emotional decisions with their gut (or limbic brain). This is why it’s more important to tell stories than share information and statistics. Follow Brene Brown’s advice and remember that “Stories are just data with a soul”.
23. “Follow your heart” and “do what you love” is often bad advice. Just because you love something doesn’t mean you’re any good at it. Make sure you get strong advice from people who know better than you. Not just your friends who “just want you to be happy”. I really love math and programming. But I would suck as a data scientist. I love golf. And tried to make a career out of it with a golf clothing company called Bogeyman Golf in 1997 and 2001. I loved it. And was really passionate about it. But it failed. Twice.
24. If you want to see what the future looks like, just watch what really smart people do for fun. Most inventions were discovered by accident while their inventors were playing. And don’t forget that all the best ideas usually happen in the bar not in the boardroom. (Or at 3am when you’re staggering down the road with a kebab).
25. If you want to be a better writer (on any platform) buy a full subscription to Masterclass.com (￡170) and do the courses hosted by Aaron Sorkin, Malcolm Gladwell, David Mamet and Neil Gaiman.
26. Learn from people who are great at their craft. I don't care too much for Jerry Seinfeld's comedy, but I adore the way that he scientifically deconstructs comedy and audience reactions. Comedians in Cars was great. And his Netflix special was cool. But check out him talking about the art of science and comedy on "Talking Funny" with Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais and Louis C.K.
27. If you want to be a better speaker, read everything that Carmine Gallo has ever written. Commit to watching at least one TED talk every day. And subscribe to YouTube Premium (￡15 p/m) to download a stack of ad-free keynotes to watch off-line whenever you have a spare moment.
28. I am mildly obsessed with TED and what Chris Anderson has done to build a great conference and a strong community. When speakers are particularly nervous, he reminds them that presentations are “presents”. It even contains the word. And everyone likes giving presents. And who doesn’t like receiving them? So just treat any presentation as if it is a gift you are sharing with the audience. I guarantee that one piece of advice will make a huge psychological difference to any nerves who may feel, no matter what size your audience is.
29. E.A.S.D is a thing. Executive Attention Span Disorder. Humans apparently have an attention span of under 8 seconds. Google thinks executives searching for B2B content will give you 75 seconds if your content is good. But whoever you are talking to, you need to make sure that you can land your point VERY quickly and effectively.
30. I once (arrogantly) turned down a big keynote because I only had 12 minutes and it involved a lot of traveling. After some negotiation and pressure from my boss I went. I'm glad I did. I learned more from trying to tell a big story in 12 minutes than I ever had during any 35 or 45 minute presentations.
31. I presented to our CEO Ginni Rometty one year ago. With help from speechwriters I spent 8 hours on the first two sentences. 18 seconds. In total we spent 18 hours on my 3 and a half minute speech. I thought it was excessive and ridiculous at the time until I saw the impact it would have and peoples reactions to it. 12 months on people still talk to me about that presentation and I think it is probably the best one I have ever given.
32. “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you never get it wrong”. A killer piece of advice Tony Robbins gave me at Dreamforce 2015 when we were talking about preparing for presentations.
33. Whenever I am building a new presentation I have found that I need 1 hour per minute, to design, prepare, create and rehearse my keynote. If someone asks me to do a 30-minute presentation on something new, I immediately think about where I am going to find 30 hours from to do it justice. I wish it was faster. And I wish I could wing presentations more often. But I can’t. Your number will be different. But whatever it is, you should know it.
34. Read a book a week. Or at least one every two weeks. Yes. Even if you don’t think you have the time I guarantee that you do. Seriously. Learning to speed read is not difficult and just takes a little discipline. I have been reading one book a week for the last four years and I know that time wasted reading a book is never wasted.
35. Take Friday’s off! Not literally. Unless that’s possible?! But the first private investor to support my business 14 years ago made me promise that I wouldn’t be available anytime on a Friday morning. He wouldn’t invest until I agreed. He insisted that I hide with a notebook and a pen (and no devices) in the lobby of a posh hotel somewhere to just write and process everything that I’d seen and heard that week.
36. Your co-workers are smart and they have good intentions. People often do silly things. They make dumb decisions. Or they say things that are wrong and you think they should know better. But if you treat everyone as if they are really trying their best, it’s amazing how less stressed you become by their actions. I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown and everything that she has to say about empathy and vulnerability. Buy her books.
37. Have one win every day. Humans love to remember bad things and forget good things. Even if one great thing happens in the day, you may remember the nineteen challenges, problems, sarcastic remarks or issues you face. Twenty steps forward and one back. So the key is to write down your one win each day in a journal. Just one sentence. I've been doing it for a couple of years now. I could be having the toughest month ever, but when I look back and review my "wins", it reminds me of how many positive things I actually experienced or achieved that month.
38. 8% of business leaders have ADHD. I’m one of them. That means that every management meeting of ten people you attend has one or two managers who are struggling to focus, communicate effectively or regulate their attention. (They probably don’t know it’s ADHD because most health professionals don’t diagnose for it). Just knowing this makes a HUGE difference.
39. Entrepreneurial schools of thought suggest the best people are “T” shaped people who know a few things about a lot of things but go deep on just one topic. I prefer “π” (Pi) shaped people who go deep on two topics. I put most of my success down to the fact that I studied maths and theology. I love people and numbers. So it’s no surprise I had landed in jobs in companies which exist at the intersection of humanity and technology.
40. Read lots of magazines. And challenge yourself to read different ones that you wouldn’t usually buy. It expands your mind and breeds more creative thoughts. I mix up Fast Company, Wired and Harvard Business Review with Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Breathe, National Geographic and DJ Mixmag.
41. Once you have read cool stuff, cut it out. Make a scrap book. Buy coloured pencils. Treat yourself to a sexy pen and go notebook shopping. Draw and scribble. You don’t have to be artistic. I’m not. But I post photos of my notebooks on Instagram to slow my brain down for long enough to process new information. Writing long hand or colouring in forces you to think things through more deliberately.
42. Make ‘One-pagers’. Chris Hadfield is one of my heroes. He is one of the most successful test pilots of astronauts of all time and ex-commander of the International Space Station. In order to learn complicated new things very quickly he used to take reams of information about all the different things he needed to learn, and boil them down into one page documents that helped him to make decisions “in one breath”. I am working in a new job where I have a huge learning curve to get up-to-speed with the energy, environment and utilities sector, so I am currently building a notebook of one-pagers.
43. “Your life is not about grandiose statements. It is simply the sum total of all the small things you choose to do next”. Chris Hadfield speaking at IBMs THINK London event in 2017.
44. Embrace shiny things but focus on today. Coca-Cola has a strategy for innovation that they call “Now, New, Next”. They encourage teams to spend 70% of their time on projects that will deliver immediate results over the next 6 months. 20% of your time should be then spent planning projects that will mature of the next 6-18 months. Leaving 10% of your time to dream about moon-shots. Too many people seem to get carried away with long-term projects and they forget to spend enough time on what we can do today.
45. Speaking of which, President Woodrow Wilson once gave some killer advice to a group of people who were waiting for more people, more budget and more resources. He told them to “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”. I would encourage you to go and do likewise and act accordingly.
46. Finally, don’t have any regrets. As reflective as this post has been, I wouldn’t have the career I have today if I had changed other things earlier in my career. I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason. There is no point in looking back and wishing that we had done things differently. We are where we are because of our experiences. And just because something works for me, doesn’t mean that it will work for you. But maybe a few of these nuggets of advice will spark something in your brain and inspire you in some small way.

Feel free to continue this discourse in the comments. I’d LOVE to hear the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received.