The Paris Olympics of 2024 were a global phenomenon with television and streaming ratings setting records everywhere. The performances, pageantry and patriotism were contagious as different countries’ best and brightest faces went all out for bronze, silver, and gold. It didn’t matter if it was the 40th time the star-spangled banner played or the first time ever for Botswana, there were tears of joy on the medal stand, in the crowd, and at homes around the world.

It reminded us of the great movie scene from “The Chariots of Fire” where Scotsman Eric Liddell is telling his concerned sister of the power he felt when he was running for God and his country. Ironically that movie is about the Paris Olympics from 1924 which was also a big success.

The inspiration of the Olympics is a super charged fuel that can be euphoric, but we doubt it has much staying power, which begs the question we would like to address in this edition of our crucial work skills white paper.

Where do you get the fuel that lasts and sustains for a career and a lifetime?

It makes us think of the Frederick Nietzsche quote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

Simon Sinek published a best-selling book in 2009, “Start with Why.”

A three-year-old understands the power of asking why.

I asked why so often as a child that eventually I heard a classically bitter response, “Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do or die.”

That quote ended up being one of several I had next to my senior picture when I graduated from high school as I found much of primary education a lesson in compliance as much as discovery.

Yet it would appear that developing an internal why is a vital exercise for everyone and it is typically easy to spot those that have done the work, because they are said to have a great sense of PURPOSE.

Developing a sense of purpose is both an individual and collective experience. You need to connect your actions into areas of strength to create the internal fly wheel that can sustain your focus and skill over long periods of time. We covered this in our last post about combining your interests’ strengths and style to maximize your contribution.

Applying your skills to magnify the contributions of others is where the magic fusion of everlasting fuel appears to be found.

Watch the spirits of a great grandmother light up when at 90 years old she holds the newborn baby for the first time. She is the matriarch at that moment with decades upon decades of firsthand experience on how to raise a child in that family. No one can possibly know the stories that she knows and the people that she knew that lived almost 150 years ago. Her chance to pass on this knowledge and love can infuse even those that are seriously ailing.

Turning back to a sport that is classically aligned with the Olympics is the rowing story from the 1936 games in Berlin. The University of Washington junior crew famously beat the varsity boat, then the Cal boat, then the east coast schools to represent the United States. At each step if they had lost the season would have been over as there were no excess funds amidst the depression. Even when they won the right to represent the country, they had to raise $5,000 in less than a week or another wealthier team would attend. ​

Daniel James Browns best selling book “The Boys in the Boat” chronicles the stories of the times and the people that made up that gold medal winning 8-man crew. One of the main challenges in making the boat “swing” was getting the athletes to feel the water and work in unison. Part of the story that resonates with so many is that it was in the rowing for each other that the peak performance emerged.

Combining your skills and contributions to a business effort to house, clothe and feed your family is a noble cause that few movies will be made about. Yet having this sense of purpose is a defining feature of adulthood. Sustaining purpose throughout life requires a natural curiosity when things change vs becoming jaded that the old ways were better.

With the internet turning 32 years old and generative AI improving daily we appear to be at the dawn of a new age for entrepreneurial actions and behaviors. Staying curious with the flood of options for new tools that can help us solve problems would appear to be crucial.

Here are some closing questions that we hope will help you create that inner fuel that sustains.

• What do you want to build?
• Who do you want to build it for?
• What pain are they living with now?
• Whose life will be better because of your effort?
• Who would be the most proud of the contribution you are making with your gifts?

Got any new fuel building up inside you as you read this......What are you waiting for?
Go for it!

Summer isn’t over for another six weeks but with half the public schools in the country starting on Monday it sure feels like it.

We are chock full of content from some interesting meetings and conversations from July which we will look to drop into our publications a little at a time, but our lead story for you is about career positioning.

It would appear that AI is allowing all of us to do more with less help and if you make a living helping others it means that you might need to keep thinking about how you can continue to surprise and delight your clients with what they need next, think about the problem they are living with now and how you can solve that problem for them.

We were asked on several occasions essentially the same question by a wide age range of professionals.
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“How do I position myself for success in the new AI driven economy?”
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We drew up a quick sketch and have the following process as a potential path to coming up with some potential answers.

Here are the actions to consider taking.
List out your intellectual assets which can be loosely defined as things you have some expertise in relative to the average person.
I might have some expertise in:

• Open Water Swimming
• Competitive Golf
• Running a Sales Team
• Leading a Company

List out your abilities that activate your assets relative to others.
I might have some ability to:

• Help an average swimmer learn how to complete their first open water swim
• Help a 9-handicap golfer become a 6 through course management
• Help a technical founder understand the right ways to manage salespeople
• Help a chairman of a company restructure a management team as an interim CEO amidst a crisis

List 3 industries that are growing quickly and list 3 people in each industry that are leaders

• Research what is driving the growth
• Analyze how each leader is positioned for success and their strengths
• Think about some potential gaps that might exist in areas that are not strengths

Contact the leaders you identified and offer to take them to lunch

• The context for the lunch is how you might be able to overlap their needs with your assets and abilities.
• When people are leading companies that are growing, they are always looking to level up the team they have.
• You want to earn the right to have them tell you what problem they are living with right now that they can’t solve.

Solving that problem is your pathway to maximizing your contribution to a successful company which in turn will increase the chances you earn a spot on that team.
Professional services has employed millions of people in the United States and paid for plenty of mortgages and college tuitions, but the puck is moving and it is time to understand how to reposition your unique assets and abilities to fill in gaps on fast moving companies vs being the last person working at the CVS store while the machines fill your prescription and everyone uses the self-checkout….