Sylwia Korsak

I met Ireneusz Osiński in Gdańsk today, just to a quick chat over a coffee (during the Solidarity Academy I was speaking at) and I came out of the meeting intrigued and slightly unsettled.

Irek (I hope if he is reading this I am OK to use the shortened version of his first name;)) lectures on the path to effective career and runs a local foundation for young talents. We had a great chat about his and my observations on the topic and I feel I need to share something. I am told that many young people in my homeland aspire to hit the gold in few months after uni just by high ambitions, faith and really strong commitment to success but not work. I listened to few of Irek’s podcasts tonight and more and more influential voices tend to agree.

What is the problem? The American Dream of opportunities in new industries? The idea that if one or two youngsters come across a good idea, code and monetise, the entire generation would follow? Well maybe, but let’s just clarify what I think are the keys to success. I’ll list them below and you let me know what you think:

1. Ambitious, confident career vision – vision as a word pre-defines the dream-like notion but also implies a bit of realistic, insightful instinct for the next thing (I, on purpose, won’t use the term ‘big thing’ as it does not have to be so big to make us happy, right?). Vision is based on intuition but also good understanding of current trends, contingency and our very own given and acquired skills and abilities.

2. Hard work and loads of rest when needed – we cannot always work hard, but we cannot truly think that the image of our success shall result in months on a beach…who will do the exciting, visionary work then? More and more positive psychology studies show (I happened to come across many of those in ‘Reality is Broken’ here) that what really makes us happy is hard and challenging work which is based on continuous feeling of self-worth and growth. And we all know that sitting on a quiet tranquil beach for a long time would probably drive an intelligent person mad, right? It’s when we get our hands dirty and our brains boiling that we feel the success – in the process! But don’t forget to rest, re-change and allow your body, mind and soul (if you believe in it) to recover.

3. Friends, mentors and trusted connections. Test your connections to know you can trust them and build on their actual potential. Question but also learn from your mentors. If you don’t have any – find them! If you think you need celebrities just stop and ask everyone for a piece of advice, write it down and look back at the list – magic, right? The best tips in my academic life came from landlords, cloakroom ladies and often my bosses, colleges, family. Most from my son actually. Don’t test your friends, but let them guide you. Accept good advice. Forget the silly stuff.

4. Focus and learning to say no – don’t over-promise, just do what you can in the best possible way. I am not saying you should just focus on one thing. Many of us wear many hats. But choose hats carefully – always ask ‘what is the actual work and commitment needed for this task/project’. Practice saying no – it’s ok to say it sometimes.

5. Smart, informed choices – measure each and every step of your career carefully. When in doubt, ask mentors and friends. Ask, research, investigate all circumstances until you are 200% that the next step is right for now and for your entire life. Educate yourself on all areas needed to make a fast smart choice too – whether it is the skill to analyse, skill to market yourself, be or run a job interview etc or whether it is something more specific for your industry.

6. Accept that you might fail and learn from it – really, be humble. It’s ok to fail. But it’s not OK to blame others, sulk for ages or simply expect others to pick up the ball if you can do so. Move to the next thing but look back, analyse – just to ensure you won’t make the same mistake again.

This and much more. What is missing off this list? Let me know!

I find it difficult to blog nowadays as most of my time is spent on juggling. Juggling work, home, family, studies. I used to be really good at this but I think at the moment I have too much on and my life is not just yet organised enough. On the other hand, when I talk to some of my clients (I am doing a lot of mentoring and advising individuals nowadays) I often realise just how far I have come. I don’t mean to sound too proud, I simply see the stages of my life in their current choices and only this way I get to realise how much I have achieved in the last few years. But also how much I can share and teach. First of all the home – for those of us who work from home the quality of life is amazing comparing to office work, of course, but we also need to be very organised! I – for example – am not a clean person. So much so that as a child I had my own term for the mess in my room. ‘Creative chaos’ I used to call it knowing that lack of order is my underlying arty state of happiness – I need it! So now, as a person working from home, I have two jobs – the work itself and the office manager. The work is done by the social media adviser. The office manager, on the other hand, is planning, packing away, cleaning, ordering supplies, creating a work space out of a private home space. It’s easy to do but it costs time. Time that I have to add to my schedule but also suggest to my clients. My running partner used the word ‘contingency’ describing her freelance editing job and I think I would apply it to my home-office managerial position too. Maybe the additional time spent on ongoing supervision of our home-office spaces in not an unexpected expense in time (and sometimes money) but we often tend to think so. I can only compare it to those memes on Facebook where men joke about the time their wives spend without work on ‘doing nothing’ around the house and not realising that the house is clean, planned, equipped, supplied…And so I became my own office manager, ‘joking husband’, reviewer for one hour each day. I now bill it in my company time  (I used to ignore it for a long long time and try to do everything myself. It resulted in stress and a small impact on my health too and I will not let that happen again). So I urge you all, home-office workers, to consider your office managerial skills as a job role within the business. By doing so you will build it nicely into your daily routine and into your business planning too.

2015 is my year of learning to be healthy (and fit) and to manage money well. Both are super hard for me but I feel that if not now, I will never learn to take care of myself and thus for others. I have spent entire 2014 learning about habits, preparing. I studied books, took free online courses and confronting my current habits too. Slowly started working on overwriting my current emotional and physical habits with new ones. I sleep more. I eat a little bit better (though this might be an entirely new challenge for 2016;)). I meditated a lot and learned about mindfulness – peace became the centre of my life, it replaced the passion, mad restlessness… This spring was very difficult as I needed to work on my company’s financial future and overall goals but once I got that out of the way I could finally start making time for my health. I am not sure how you work but I work in phases and – I think like many women – many topics exist in my daily focus on a parallel basis. So I might be mainly working on finance of my company or on a Pixel Club or other local cause, but the ‘how’ is still focussed on my yearly resolutions. I also gained a lot of time. That time is now used to get back to shape. But I have struggled immensely with the notion of exercise, gym or running. So – as always – I reached out to people around me, shared my worries, ASKED for help. And guess what? Help was given:) One of our mums at school directed me to a local running club – which changed my take on running and health in general. During one of the local business meetings I have listened to a sports coach explaining the idea of the body as our vehicle, the difference between fitness and competitive exercise, the ideas behind how we care for yourself and about death (hey, why not, right?). I started servicing the local pilates studio with social media support and learned so so so much about muscles and heart. I have gone back to dance helping my neighbour to kick off her business (she is so talented and so professional I could not decline and now I am addicted!). I went back to yoga and daily meditation. I managed to fit it all in because I KNOW how it all works, why it is important and who can help me. I know I cannot do it on my own. Now that I do it with great mentors and friends I know I will never go back to quiet days without any movement.