Everyone wants to be bigger. Until they are big.

Take my son.

"Mammy, I'm a big boy, not a baby."

He's not even 3, but he's kind of right.

He has hit a few milestones of late, no more nappies, and has the confidence to ride a bike with only 2 wheels. I can see why he would claim to be a big boy. Cue Mariah Carey, It's true. He will always be my baby.

But last Tuesday morning, it really hit home. This desire to be bigger, to be at the next stage when we haven't even enjoyed this one. He stated, quite a matter of fact:

"I go to work today, no nursery, I work."

There are lots of examples of this:

• Tom Hanks in the movie BIG, realising fast-forwarding your childhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
• People who finally get to go on their dream holiday. 1st night on the balcony and saying to their partner, 'we should come back here next year'.

In a desire to be bigger, he wants to do what the big ones do. Which as we all know isn't all sun and roses.

It's one of the things we wrestle with the most as founders of Unthink. It's the advice clients give us. Don't lose your specialness. But it's hard. How do you keep the secret sauce?

To be clear, we at Unthink, don’t want to do what the big ones do. But as we grow, I think the biggest challenge is preserving the Unthink of today.

That is, ensuring we preserve what is special about Unthink and our approach to building learning experiences: They are fun, impactful, and stay with the participant for a long time is key.

At Unthink we are re-imagining how leadership development is done.

We pride ourselves on doing experiences fuelled by a strong belief that workshops alone aren’t enough. The way we learn, the limited time we have, and the way we anchor the learning in a way we can access it later, has changed. This is why we had to reset the standards on how learning is experienced.

Do we know of any leadership consultancy that has been able to preserve its secret sauce as they have scaled and grown? It's the kryptonite.

Yes, there is some innovation, new thinking, and maybe research, but… Name one that has preserved the essence, and that essence is at the heart of the business and drives business decisions, 20 years later.

Think of any big consultancy, 10 years ago, 20 years ago (if they were around then) - they were very different, much more innovative, took more risks, got shit done quicker, and had an unshakeable belief in what they did.

Maybe you will argue, it’s not possible to preserve. Just like any transition, you must let go of stuff, to excel in the new role or era.

For example, Taylor Swift once had to play on a sidewalk to anyone who would listen to her. Now she’s been described as the modern-day Shakespeare and whether you are a swifty or not, she is a worldwide phenomenon.

She clearly doesn’t say yes to things now that she used to back in the day. I get that wouldn’t make sense.

But there is an argument to say the thing that made you special now, will make you special in 10 year’s time. Maybe the key is saying no to the things that take away from what makes you special.

And getting clear on that can truly be your competitive advantage.

Some of the things we drumbeat in conversations:

• Do the hard work today, so we don’t have to firefight tomorrow.
• Enjoy the Journey, (and we are lucky enough to do that with people we want to enjoy the journey with).
• Ensure we CTRL.ALT.DELETE not COPY.PASTE our experiences.
• Workshops alone aren't enough. Do better.
• The world of Leadership & development is broken. People deserve more.
• Winning a programme that has 100 days of delivery, would be our worst nightmare.

But the point is: know what your boundaries are and do everything to keep within them. Try to preserve that secret sauce. No matter what.

I think Paul Smith said it brilliantly:

“Whatever it is you do, find a way to keep your best and favourite work pure. Keep that purity even when you need to pay the bills.”

A reminder to stay true to what we believe in and to not sell our soul.