I always have to add to a team someone who is a highly tactile, list-oriented person who keeps us on track. And call them a COO or executive all-star, or whatever. I need to balance myself with people around this table who are much better at organizing, which is certainly a blind spot of mine.
Alexis MaybankWhen I came right out of college I remember someone pulling me aside and telling me how to exactly fit in. How to wear my hair, what clothes I should wear, even how I should talk and wave or not wave or hold my hands. I wish I never had that conversation. It held me back for like two years and it took me a while to learn this myself, but the idea that you are your own brand, and you are your own person.
Alexis MaybankA lot of people want to be an entrepreneur, so it's important to know that there's a lot of ways to be an entrepreneur. One of the ways is to go about and start your own business. There are also ways that you can gain experience in the context of a larger business, like raising your hand to helm a new office. As you are gaining your skills to run your own business successfully, the first way is to think about how you can do so based on where you already are.
Alexis MaybankA career is measured over the course of the years, not moments. Over good decisions, over successes, not moments, failures, missteps, or bad comments. I learned that I needed to take a step back and look at my career not in that one moment that made me feel really bad, but what I had done not even in the past one or two years or last one or two hires, but that that career is built over many, many, many, many successive quarters and years and good decisions - never, ever made in that one moment where you felt really bad.
Alexis MaybankWhen it comes to asking for raise, you just have to do it in the right way. You may get a no, and that's fine, but ask and make sure you know when you can come back and ask again.
Alexis MaybankWith resilience you are learning to be flexible and take feedback on how people are experiencing what you are building, you're listening to what your customers are saying, you're building these relationships, and making better decisions over time. That all really starts with that resilience and that willingness not to be perfect.
Alexis MaybankI always have to add to a team someone who is a highly tactile, list-oriented person who keeps us on track. And call them a COO or executive all-star, or whatever. I need to balance myself with people around this table who are much better at organizing, which is certainly a blind spot of mine.
Alexis Maybank