These days I earn my living as an Executive Coach.  It’s a nice lifestyle – the hours are good – my work/life balance is terrific – but just recently I’ve  noticed that I’m repeating myself – and no, it’s not the early onset of Alzheimer’s.  What I’m really noticing is that so many of the issues I talk to my coaching clients about are the same issues that preoccupied me years ago in my executive career – which got me thinking – wouldn’t it be great if someone told you what you needed to know when you needed to know it, instead of each of us having to learn everything the hard way.

So in thinking about how I might add value to your evening, I thought I might share with you some ideas I’ve found useful, and which might spare you re-inventing the wheel whenever you’re confronted with a challenge and/or an opportunity.  

My purpose in doing this is to demonstrate to you how you can have more wins, more often, without compromising your personal integrity, or damaging anyone else along the way.

1.    Patience is not just a virtue, it’s a strategic tool.

I wish I had been born with this tattooed on my forehead – it would have saved so much time!  It’s the single most important thing I’ve learned.

Many people who are successful in business are driven, opinionated, impatient, type A, over-achievers.  Those characteristics make us successful, but very often, they’re also the things that get in our way.

Take patience, for instance.  I spent the first 25 years of my life believing that patience was an art form perfected by little old ladies purely for the purpose of irritating the rest of us who had more important things to do.

My first major career set-back resulted in my mentor giving me a long lecture on the importance of patience as a strategic tool.  At the time, of course, I was too impatient to listen, but alas, as I’ve demonstrated to myself repeatedly ever since, he was right.

My career began late, at 27, when as I single mother with two small kids, I had to take responsibility for getting off the secretary track, and finding a career path.

I found myself selling time on Channel Ten Brisbane in their Sydney Sales Office.  I was their first female ad sales representative, and I thought I was doing a crash-hot job, until they promoted a younger, less experienced male over my head.

I was profoundly shocked.  I’d done the work.   I’d turned a bunch of unproductive accounts into a profitable business, and I expected to be rewarded.

Being unacquainted with shrinking violets, I fronted up to the person responsible for this decision, and demanded an explanation.  
And he said, and I quote – “of course you’re doing a great job, but you have to understand that it doesn’t matter how long you stay, or how good you are, I’ll never promote a woman”.

Now when that unreconstructed Neanderthal said that, my initial desire was to punch his lights out, and storm out of the job.

Mercifully, I had the good sense to call my mentor who gave me the speech on  “Patience as a strategic tool” on the first of what would be a number of occasions.
 
His reasoning was that, while storming out would undoubtedly make me feel good in the short term, it would not deliver what I needed in the long term, and I should sit down and reflect on what I wanted my next job to be, and what I needed to do to get it.  

That process took 12 months, and it led to me leaving television, and joining the magazine industry.  Every good thing that’s happened to my career since flowed from that single decision.

As a coda to that story, I should say that the bloke who said he would never promote me when last heard of was bankrupt and driving a cab.  God gets them in the end, but it took a long time.

Now I would like to tell you that I experienced a Damascene conversion, and that these days I’m always patient, but it wouldn’t be true.  What I can say is that I’ve learned to tell the difference between those times when I should trust my instincts and forge ahead, and those times when I should just sit down, shut up, and be patient.