Use Wisdom wisely!

So this week I celebrate the 25 anniversary of starting working life.

As I look back on my first days at work (in Hull on a salary of £12,000 – when I felt the richest I have ever felt since that moment!) I wonder what I can offer to those starting out in their careers today.

I’ve thought long and hard and it boils down to ‘wisdom’

Wisdom does comes with experience – desperately managing the launch of new products on production lines that start at 15% efficiency, shooting TV ads in locations so cold you can’t feel your fingers or toes for days afterwards, recalling a product from market with the threat of being on WatchDog, recruiting and developing future Marketing talent who were born the year you started work…

The trick with wisdom is how you use it – in my enthusiasm to impress and progress I must have been seen as the overzealous newbie in the team, as I recall a tutting Manager saying with exasperation “youth of today!”,  yet on the whole I was encouraged and steered gently but positively to find ways to channel my enthusiasm and given opportunities to grow.

I am now old enough and have worked long enough to profess to have some level of wisdom. With it I continue to counsel myself not to tut but to listen, advise, guide and recognise the progress of those around me.

I also constantly remind myself that I still have a lot to learn and mostly it is from from those keen beans who rightly challenge the norm and bring their knowledge on new and better ways to do this thing called ‘Marketing’