EF News
We asked - you answered!
As part of our Big Question feature, we asked four Forum members: what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Sarah Callender, Duo Global Consulting
'Trust your gut every time' - Roy Stanley.
I have definitely lived by this, whether that's in how we have built the business, in the people we have recruited, when we created new products and services. If your gut is telling you somethings not right, it normally isn't.
Jonny Grubin, SoPost
The best piece of advice I've ever received was to 'take the path of least resistance'. SoPost wouldn't be here today if I hadn't taken that guidance to heart: I'd been working on an idea for years with no real progress to show for it.
I hadn't realised that there are many routes to the same destination, and the one I was on was incredibly hard to navigate. This advice taught me that, if you're not precious about how you get to where you're going, you're much more likely to succeed.
In my case, the destination changed too - choosing the path of least resistance introduced me to a completely new opportunity, and 10 years in we're seeing a lot of success, but I feel like we're only just getting started.
Owain Brennan, SeerBI
The best piece of advice I have received is to be micro ambitious, setting small goals and making incremental steps to where I want to be.
This allows me to be flexible about how I achieve what I want to and helps me to celebrate small victories without going a long time waiting for something that may never happen.
This advice also stops me from being stuck in my ways and not open to change. It is advice I feel anyone can use from students starting their journeys to individuals running international organisations.
Sarah Pittendrigh, Sarah Pittendrigh Coaching
“Don’t be afraid of failing, be afraid of never trying”
Too many people are held back by the fear of failure and of what other people may or may not think.
I love Theodore Roosevelt's “Man in the Arena” quote. It summarises why you should not let these negative thought patterns or irrational fears hold you back:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
