Many of us strive for satisfaction in our professional lives. In this personal post I mean satisfaction as enjoyment. The lucky few are able to achieve this hallowed state, but for many (even those operating in their chosen profession) true enjoyment can be elusive.
The reason for this, I believe, is because the majority of people find it very difficult to be themselves at work. And if you can’t be yourself how can you expect to enjoy it?
My personal experience
For a long period at the start of my career I operated by wearing a kind of mask. I used to talk openly about my “professional” and “personal” self. About how there were ways to act at work and ways to act at home or with friends and that they were decidedly different. Neither of these was false or unethical in any way, but there was a strong contrast.
Work conversations were focussed as much on what I thought others wanted to hear, what was expected of me to say, calculated to drive outcomes or progression, mostly driven by my reasoning brain and not my heart or emotion. Of course in my personal life the opposite was true. I could just be me, warts and all. Completely unguarded and authentic. Relationships outside of work are always more natural and relaxed, partly because we get to choose who we want to spend time with but in large part because we are just ourselves.
You may be reading this and thinking, surely he’s not saying we should all let down our guard at work? Surely we shouldn’t tell our customers what we really think, challenge things that our heart says is wrong, expose our inner souls for all to see? Well I sort of am, as I think it is key to achieving professional satisfaction. I’ll explain…
Moments that define
Think of all the moments or achievements in your life that you have most enjoyed. The things that you will be talking about in your retirement years to anyone with the time to listen. Really think. How many are related to your work and sales career?
Here is a snapshot from my open and honest list (don’t judge me):
- Creation of my amazing family – my relationship with my wife, my pride in my children.
- The feeling of performing on stage and knowing that your actions, word or song are controlling the emotions of an entire audience. Making them laugh or cry or both.
- Directing theatre – proudest achievement directing Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth (pictured). Being in the room feeling how the audience reacts to your artistic decisions. The sheer elation of being on the receiving end of standing ovations.
- My concentrated period of scuba diving in my late teens. Across several dives I witnessed some of the most amazing sights on earth, all beneath the ocean. Nothing quite as humbling as being in close proximity to majestic sharks, rays, or other beautiful creatures in their natural environment.
- The curry my family enjoyed, served to us on china plates from a seaside shack on Barricane Beach in Devon. How glorious it was sitting on sand among hundreds of others enjoying this simple pleasure in such a natural setting.
- The speeches I’ve given to friends and family (best man to John & David, my wedding speech, the eulogy at my father’s funeral, the speech at my grandfather’s 90th birthday). Each of them heart-felt with different and strong emotional reactions.
- The limited amount of charity work I’ve been involved with (volunteering at schools for children with Special Educational Needs, sponsored walks for The Woodland Trust, organising and performing in concerts for The Aiden Goodwin Foundation).
I could keep listing and it would take a while before I got to any work related moments. This doesn’t diminish any professional experiences though. I am very proud of my career to date, but work achievements pale in comparison to the enjoyment of these personal moments. Moments lived with no guard or agenda, just as me.
Harness this for Professional Satisfaction
Over time I’ve learned to relax more at work, crumbling the barrier between my personal and professional lives. As a result, I’ve found my working life more enjoyable and enriched. For example, a couple of years ago I was honoured to give a talk at the London conference for the AA-ISP on the topics of sales recruitment and sales culture. It was a proud moment and I was open, myself and harnessed the essence of a lot of the speeches I’ve given in my personal life.
Nowhere have I experienced a team working in closer harmony to achieve a common goal than at the theatre. The working environments on large productions are amazing and everyone has crucial roles to play. Yet there is no feeling of hierarchy, a huge sense of fun, everyone goes the extra mile (without being asked) and there is true collaboration.
People intuitively know how they fit together and Trust is huge. For reasons of both safety and seamless performance, everyone has to play their part for a show to go well. Consequently, I’ve been involved in achieving some incredible things on tight budgets (such as having Ariel in the The Tempest enter stage from underwater!). These days I try and create a similar environment to that theatre world at work – fun, open, creative. Lo and behold enjoyment floods back and results improve!
The only difference is that I am allowing myself to be me. I think about what I really enjoy and try and bring it into my professional world. Performance and theatre becomes storytelling for business effect, love of nature and the outdoors becomes championing CSR, sharing openly about my family and experiences allows people to see the real me and form closer working relationships. You get the idea.
Be Yourself
Sometimes your ability to be yourself at work can be constrained; by the organisation, its culture or procedures. This is a shame. However, if you don’t work at it, you will quickly find that going to work becomes something you dread. Not a healthy position for well-being and in our profession certainly not a healthy position for Sales performance.
Irrespective of your current employer’s culture, by definition, being yourself starts with you. The more of us who remove any masks we may be wearing, put our hearts on our sleeves and act with vulnerability as our true selves – the better place the business world will be.
I wish you all the best in achieving professional satisfaction. I know you can do it and more importantly, I look forward to hearing all about it.
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Photo by Robert Piwko www.robertpiwko.co.uk