I’m often asked to give advice about how to get as much experience and exposure as possible, and through this accelerate one’s career.
My answer to this is “say yes a lot”. In the early days of your career, when you’re building your experience, you need to have exposure – to people, ideas, different types of jobs and leadership styles. You might get this in your one, main job, but you will get much more by taking on extra side-projects.
But somewhere, mid-career, there is a plot twist. You realize that things you said YES to before no longer serve you. Because you know what you want to focus on, you have a vision and a goal, and this is when you need to start using NO as your default answer. Say NO to things that distract you. Say NO to things that deplete your energy. Your time has become too valuable to waste, and you have to use it more strategically.
The mistake people make with the YES and NO early in their career? They don’t say YES enough because they don’t believe they can do this or that; they lack self confidence to try something new, and therefore rob themselves of those kinds of experiences.
Later in their careers however, they don’t say NO often enough out of fear that if they refuse, they will miss out or lose a chance to influence. So they hold on to commitments that are not pushing them toward their ultimate goals, once they have the experience to know what those goals are.
Audit your recent answers: were they YES or NO answers? What did you say YES or NO to recently?
