You don’t mess around in the Vail backcountry.
Every year highly experienced skiers die here.
When you go out, you go prepared: Avalanche beacons, probes, shovels, and float backpacks, which deploy like an airbag to keep you on top of the snow, should an avalanche take you down.
You don’t mess around in the backcountry.
You prepare.
The same is true if you want to create an extraordinary career.
When my clients walk into a meeting they are prepared.
Ahead of the meeting they have stepped back, often developing a written plan.
They know why they are there.
What they want to get out of the meeting.
How they plan to do it.
Who they need to be.
And in depth, they know the person they are there to influence.
Not just their name, rank, and serial number, or which friggin’ football team they root for, they know that person in ways that person doesn’t know themselves.
They know what makes them tick, what motivates them, and what holds them back.
They are experts at reading people, knowing whether that person principally talks or creates pictures in their head, and what their body language suggests.
And they are highly effective at turning the right knobs, moving that person in the direction they want the meeting to go.
If you were to see my clients in action, you would think it comes naturally to them, but like all highly skilled people, it looks naturally because they have prepared.
Day after day they are reviewing their practices and training their skills to be more and more effective at what they do.
Like backcountry skiing, it might seem extreme, but when you are serious about your career, you don’t mess around, you prepare!