Ready to be lucky?

And here we are again, right before the beginning of a new time, heading to a new horizon. Looking back over the year about to be closed and thinking about how to make amendments for the new year.

Working in a mostly rational environment, as I do, we tend to think that this kind of evaluation is only useful when it comes to numbers, balances and results. I used to think that too. But, lucky me, life taught me other way.

Now I know that making conscious decisions about how my life is gonna be, works. I know I can decide how to behave, how I’m gonna feel no matter how things go, who I’m gonna be surrounded by, what battles I’m gonna fight. And that applies to my job as well.

I also know that I get to choose where I want to be. Even if I still forget sometimes, that kind of freedom allows me to be brave. It gives me the push I lack some days to be the best version of myself with no regrets. Because, in a bad day, if the consequences are overwhelming and I feel like giving up, I just say to myself it’s still my decision to be there and try to make a change. And in a good day…whoa! It is so great to know that you are succeeding by being loyal to yourself and trying to make the best out of you.

This kind of empowerment is a challenge for the organizations. Companies need to attract and retain talent, but the way to do it needs to change. Against former believes, freedom will make some of us wanna stay, not fly away. Freedom to be creative, to have room for self-development, to express our opinions and to make our own decisions. Freedom to leave our traces, to feel somehow like artists and transcend.

Companies need to learn how to make advantage of that. They need to understand that there are new types of employees now, and learn how to turn it into their strength. Not everybody is looking anymore for a protective environment although some people still do - both kind of profiles can be perfectly valid and have a fit. It is a challenge to have an organization flexible enough to be able to answer both kinds of needs, to understand all kind of individuals and not settle.

On the other side, and this is something I am still struggling at, this new kind of profiles need to be patient. Coming from the culture of immediacy and paraphrasing the great Mr Mercury, we want it all and we want it now.  But we cannot forget that we work for a company which is a complex ecosystem that must work as a perfect assembly to achieve the overall goals. Our own objectives will never be put on top of the company’s so the challenge is to make sure they are aligned and be able to prove it so.

So once said so, it is clear that we all have great challenges ahead that we must be ready to embrace. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, Seneca said. And I believe that the preparation of our mindset can be the key to be ready to be lucky. So that’s what I am going to aim at in 2019. To be ready. Want to join?

Happy 2019! Let’s aim higher!