Show notes
Reality is not reality. Perception is reality. When it comesto your career you must always keep this in mind. In other words, people will create a perception of you, andit may not be justified or fair in your eyes. They may create a perceptionabout someone else that may not be justified or fair either. Have you ever noticed people play favorites with people whodon’t deserve it? Maybe it is your parents with your sibling, or maybe it is asports coach, or teacher….or worst of all, your boss. We will all experiencethis at one point in our lives. In life we should not care what other people think. But inour careers, we should care deeply about what other people think. Because otherpeople’s perception of us, directly correlates with our value, ourcompensation, and position. Ultimately you cannot control what other people think, BUTyou can influence the heck out of them. One could teach an entire seminar on the different ways todo this, but for this blog I want to concentrate on one specifically. That is, showing up earlier, and leaving later…. thaneveryone. Now, the popular narrative today is “work life balance”.Which is fine, you can probably adequately do your job within the normal 8am –5pm window, and then you can enjoy your life. Do not misconstrue what I am saying, you should enjoy yourlife. But you should also seek any opportunity to separateyourself from the rest of the pack. There is a MASSIVE opportunity to do so, bysimply being there outside of the normal 8-5 window.This opportunity is especially available to the young peopleout there. Without being married, having children, a mortgage, and all of theother responsibilities of adulthood in full swing, this is you time to takeadvantage of this opportunity!Most seasoned professionals I speak with have noticed thatnew hires today tend to make a habit of showing up late and leaving early. Theythink they are fooling someone when they say “there was an accident” on the wayin. Or that they “have a doctor’s appointment”, or “need to take their car tothe shop” or they “have a family event to go to”. At some point the excusesbecome too common. Eventually the truth is that they do not want to work thefull day, they want to come and go as they please because they do not prioritizetheir job, the opportunity, or practicing the discipline required to maximizetheir production. That is large in part because they think the job is there toserve them, instead of them being there to serve the job.What many of us find hilarious is when these same people wholeave early, stay late, they expect to be compensated for every minute thatthey spend past 5pm. Even when they are invited to a networking even with anopen bar!Let me tell you this…stop seeking immediate compensation forthis time. The compensation will come but will come at a much later date. Thinkof it this way, you are making a deposit…an investment that will be cashed in,at sometime in the future. When I was 22 years old working in NYC, I made a point ofthis. I wanted everyone to know that I would be there when they arrived, and Iwould still be there long after they left. Making that a habit helped forgeseveral relationships that just recently allowed me to cash in on myinvestment!I saw 5:00pm – 10:00pm as my opportunity to knock out anytedious paperwork that I could not get to during the day and or be proactive onsuch tasks that were not “due” but that I knew would be a time suck later. Most importantly these were tasks that I knew would sendnotifications and/or emails to my...
