Why
is this important at this moment?
Employers
have higher expectations of their employees today than they did in the past. If
you want to stay relevant competitive, and marketable, you’ll need to make sure
that you’re continuously improving and evaluating yourself to ensure that
you’re not coming up short. Expectations are increasing at an aggressive pace,
and you cannot afford to lag behind; else you’ll become a forgotten history.
Warren
Buffet (CEO, Berkshire Hathaway), Bill Gates (CEO, Microsoft Corporation), Herbert
Wigwe (CEO, Access Bank), Aliko Dangote (Owner, Dangote Group),Pastor E.A.
Adeboye (GO, RCCG), Leke Alder (Founder, Alder Consulting), Linda Ikeji (Owner,
LindaIkeji Blog), Michael Jordan (World Greatest Basketball Player), Cristiano
Ronaldo (5-time Winner, Ballon d’Or), Femi Tiamiyu (Convener, Leaders’
Quarters), Kolade Ogundare (Lead Facilitator, Koladeinspires), Michael Amure (Administrator, EMU, HHF, Surpass) are examples of people who are consistently relevant in their chosen careers, hobbies, and sphere of impact!
So,
it doesn’t matter whether you’re an employee, an entrepreneur, a businessman,
or even a social media influencer, you need to stay relevant!
So,
how do we become (and stay) relevant? I’ll be sharing 7Ps to Be and Stay
Relevant in your chosen career.
PassPose
– Price – Professional Development – People – Personality – Productivity –
Power
1.
PassPose
Don’t
mind my coinage of words… This is simply a merger of Passion and Purpose. Specialize
in something. Don’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades while becoming a master of
none. Instead, discover your natural capacity and excel in that discipline.
You’ll make yourself more marketable to employers and even buyers who are
searching for experts in that field. What is your Purpose? Where lies your
Passion? Find it and carve a niche for yourself. Never be a square peg trying
to fit in to a round hole…
Now
imagine a Cristiano Ronaldo fighting boxing or a Pastor Adeboye running a blog.
Relevance becomes almost impossible, my people. There are many noodles, but
Indomie stands out. There are many cement brands but Dangote stands out. There
are many blogs, but Linda Ikeji stands out.
Find
your PassPose, develop a career around it, and then you are on your way to
relevance!
2.
Price
Price
here means you should be ready to sacrifice, as much as you need to, in order
to get the needed knowledge, skills, and mastery in your chosen career. Every
teacher should have a form of teacher education; every doctor should get
education in the profession. Even corporate organizations give their
specialized education/trainings to new recruits.
Once
you’ve discovered your PassPose, get education/training. There are masters of
the art that you can learn from. You cannot become relevant if you don’t have
the required skills. Passion fades away in the face of frustration due to lack
of skills. Ask Pastor Adeboye, he will tell you how many hours he spends
studying the Bible. Do I need to tell you about Ronaldo and the sacrifice he
made (great price he paid and still pays) to become (and stay) relevant? My
friend, Mark Francis (although, a Barcelona fan) will tell you better!
3.
Professional Development
Be
a lifelong learner. Seek to embrace learning in all its dimensions and embrace
it as a lifestyle. Learn by seeing, by doing, by reading, by taking physical
and online courses, by asking questions and talking to people, by experimenting
and innovating, learn by whatever means are at your disposal and in whatever
learning method you prefer. Aim to stay ahead of the literature in your
industry and pick up books that motivate and inspire you and benefit you in
your overall career and general well-being.
Show
me a man who’s not developing himself professionally, and I’ll tell you he’s
going nowhere. Regularly learn and sharpen the skills relevant to your career
path. Understand
the dynamics of the industry you operate in. Myopia serves no one. Mastery is
essential because, if you have no useful skills, you cannot be useful to
others. The
biggest barrier to staying relevant is feeling like you don't have time to fit
in professional development. But you HAVE to. Think of it like brushing your
teeth: It's so much easier to do a little each day, week or month than try to
catch up and deal with the consequences after you neglect it for years.
Take
control of your own education. Industry events can often be more useful to you
than formal coursework and credentials. Attend seminars specific to your
discipline. It’s easier to stay on the bleeding edge when you’re listening to
experts speak, as well as get opportunities to build your network.
4.
People
Warren
Buffet said “your network is your net worth”. Enrich your network with the
good players in the industry. Don’t try to compete; rather try collaboration.
Permit me to share two quotes made by Kolade Ogundare:\
1.
To live to the best of your abilities, work harder on your strength and
collaborate with others who have strength in your area of weaknesses. Doing
otherwise will make you work like iPhone X and get result like Nokia 3310”.
2.
Your attitude and disposition towards talented colleagues/people will determine
more than 70% chance of your own success. If you are competitive, you’ll always
turn out average. If you seek cooperation and teamwork, everyone will win.
Make
friends across generations. Don't assume you don't have anything in common with
co-workers who are older or younger than you. Making friends with people who
aren’t in your age group can help you communicate with a wider variety of
people. Getting their perspectives can help provide new ways of looking at the “business”.
They can keep you updated on big-picture changes, as well as provide new tools
and problem-solving approaches.
Another
thing to note: Be involved in People Development. Be a People Person, depending
on the nature of your career. Build people up, and they will strengthen your
relevance. Personally, I am so committed to building people who will become
masters of social media management, and I stay relevant this way. I empower
people, and these people are the evidences of my relevance.
5.
Personality
This
is about who you are and your core values. I will keep it very simple: Be
authentic, have integrity, be a good time manager, be polite, and be reliable. Strong
competence may give you success, but it takes good character to sustain the
momentum. Reportedly, Warren Buffet personally and directly works with only 24 people in
his head office (at Omaha), and he only chose them based on good character,
before competence. He prioritizes character over competence, as that’s the high
way to relevance!
6.
Productivity
Listen
clearly: “Results cancel insults.” If you’re not deliberately producing
results, you will fade off easily. Redundant workers are parasites to every
organization. How productive are you? Experience and good past records are not
enough to keep you consistently relevant. If Ronaldo does not produced goals
and breathtaking displays every season, do you think he’d have five Ballon
d’Ors by now, especially in the stiff competition with Messi? (Anyways, I
celebrate the both of them for being relevant season in, season out. I’m
blessed and my generation is blessed to enjoy these two icons in the football
scene at the same time). The moment you stop being productive, you start dying.
If you doubt, ask a farmer about his crops.
7.
Power
Another
source of relevance is Power. What do I mean by this? Be responsible enough
never to shy away from leadership roles. When they come knocking, grab them
with determination and see the challenge as a means to expand your capacity.
I’m not saying you should be power hungry, I’m actually saying you should not
reject leadership. Wield your influence and make your impact. Speak from the
Peak. It is your actions, ultimately, that make you relevant to others. It is
through action that you change yourself and change the world. Without action, even
a great and brilliant mind and soul remains entirely irrelevant.
Don’t
be too humble to lead people. That’s not humility, it’s mediocrity. Write your
name in the record books. Increase your stature and voice in your industry by
leading people. There’s a place where powerful people speak, that the voice of
talented people cannot reach. Get there, step by step, and make your voice
known.
Your
career is your sphere of impact to the world. Work towards relevance, and not
popularity. Your popularity may grow, while your relevance wallows in abject
ordinariness. But once you grow your relevance, popularity comes as a free
added advantage. Chase relevance, and success will chase you pants down!
Thanks
for reading!
