Walk the talk
Stefaan Amling
Responsible EU Institutes - Certified Trainer Micro Expressions & Bodylanguage
Couple of days back, a good friend asked me - hey, how do you make sure you keep up all the stuff you're doing? It took me a while to give him a good answer but finally I came up with 3 simple words - Walk the talk.
Then his next question he popped was even more difficult - how do you make sure you can walk the talk and not only have the talk? It took me even more time to find 5 easy steps to identify my view on this and how on a daily basis I stick to those principles.
1. Stay true to your own core values. Being around now for some years in a challenging business world, where you have to make complex and difficult decisions almost on a daily basis, the first most important thing is that you need to keep true to yourself and stick to your core values to make sure your mind keeps the balance and you feel at ease with the decisions so you can accept the consequences.
2. Embrace your fear because it feeds your courage. Choose to be afraid. At many occasions in life and career you have the options to take a step even being afraid or to stay and to choose for security. If everybody would go for the last option, we probably would still be living in caves trying to keep the fire going. The biggest and most important step forwards always came together with a big portion of fear. But it is during those moments that people are growing and becoming much more stronger. Feel the fear but do it anyway!
3. Respect experience & continue to learn. Your life in private and business is an ongoing journey. You are never too old to learn and to take advantage of the experiences (good & bad) of others. Share your knowledge as it let others and yourself grow to a next level. Learn of your mistakes but avoid them in future. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but have the courage to accept them. You are here in this place for a long-life endeavour. Accept this, don't be afraid to take the risk but respect the knowledge and wisdom of others.
4. Endorse diversity as it provides you a richness. Throughout my career and as executive I learned that diversity brings to your life and business a richness. It brings together a large set of experiences, approaches and views that make sure that you and your business can take advantage of and brings additional benefits.
5. Enjoy every day and have at least one daily laugh. Achieving accomplishments is not what fulfils me if you can't combine it with a good laugh every day. Although I always take seeking and completing my goals very seriously - I try not to take myself too seriously either. Make sure you enjoy what you are doing every day and that you work together with people who appreciate the value of a good laugh. If not I'm sure each day will be very long day to you.
So this is my 5 cent contribution for the start of 2019 and I would welcome comments or feedback.
Cheers,
Stef
Yes indeed Stef, and you never are too old to do so. I like to work next to 'strong' people. Thank you for working together.
Partner | Risk Advisory Services | BDO Belgium
6 年Hi Stefaan, great principles that I feel fully aligned with, although I did not make the effort to formalise them. Thanks for that! I especially like your number 2 that I personally phrased “Embrace Risk with Confidence”, tagline of my newly launched company :-). Fear as you call it is indeed something critical to confront oneself to in order to move on, and get the opportunity to evolve and learn, provided it’s not done blindly. Have a fantastic 2019!