When it comes to moving your career forward, it’s important to set aside your pride. In Reinventing You, I profiled a successful retired HR executive named Deborah Shah. She had decades of experience behind her. But when she became interested in political campaigns, she was willing to start at the bottom, where the campaign needed her. She made phone calls so reliably and effectively, they soon recognized her abilities and asked her to become a regional field director, launching a new career.
You also need to weigh the opportunity cost. A consultant friend of mine spent months building relationships, doing research, and preparing a proposal to work with the UN. It’s a slow process and — if the contract failed to come to fruition — would have to be viewed as a massive waste of time and money. She was perfectly aware that time spent chasing this contract was time she wasn’t spending on other new business development. But she was willing to take that risk, because she knew that being able to claim such a prestigious global entity as a client would dramatically elevate her firm’s reputation.
We hear all the time from innovation and startup gurus that we have to be “willing to embrace failure.” What that really means is you must be able to afford to fail. Failure is expensive — in time, reputation, and money. But over time, the willingness to take chances (that may fail) is an investment in your future success. If you want to move your career forward, a long-term orientation, a willingness to subsume your ego, and a clear understanding of the choices you’re making will help you advance, even if — temporarily — it appears you might be falling behind.
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