ANDRE BEGIN

Throughout my life, I have been most fortunate in having been surrounded by mentors, coaches, and teachers who have been a fountain of wisdom, knowledge and experience. I am extremely grateful for their kindness and generosity as their words of inspiration resonated with me, not only through my career but my life as well.

However there was one little piece of advice that seemed to have slipped through the cracks.

In looking back, I kick myself for not having made this deduction myself because, in hindsight, it seems pretty obvious.

Nonetheless, had I experienced this epiphany sooner, I believe that my life may have been a little easier in later years.

Here is the nugget of wisdom:

When working with great people who share their insight, their experience and their best practices, take it all in, ask questions and accept their guidance with a grateful heart. When the opportunity presents itself, try the advice out to see if you achieve the desired results. Hang on to the advice that works for you.

However, not all advice is meant to last a lifetime.

Sometimes we need to adjust it, or only use parts of it, or even to let go of it altogether when it doesn’t seem to produce the desired results, no matter how successful the advice may have been previously.

In essence, we need to maintain a revolving door of advice.

Advice that may have been offered many years ago that led to a successful outcome is not guaranteed to work in the context of the world as we know it today. If approaches are inspired from ways of thinking that originated a decade or two ago, are they guaranteed to apply today? Some will, some won’t.

When words of wisdom seem to have lost their effectiveness, we should keep an open mind to more current advice to approach problems with more contemporary solutions.

A decade ago, I was in a situation which felt like I was repeatedly hitting a brick wall. Despite my attempts at calling upon all of the best advice and best practices I had stored in my back pocket, nothing seemed to be working. It actually took a fresh pair of eyes to make me notice how the environment had changed significantly and how my traditional solutions, no matter how tried-and-true they were, might no longer apply. We needed to pivot and adapt our way of thinking to approach this problem differently.

As much as flexibility and adaptability were deemed key competencies for our work, it made sense to think that in the context of problem solving, we should have a few different approaches ready, and to switch them out as needed like different tools in a tool box.

What didn’t occur to me was that I needed to continue shopping for more tools and to be prepared to retire some older ones. Lesson learned.

That being the case, not all great advice has an unlimited shelf life. The world is constantly changing and the way to approach problems may need a combination of traditional ways of thinking as well as new ones. The trick is to recognize the right advice, at the right time, for the right occasion. Then… practice, practice, practice.

To be taken under someone’s wing and offered words of wisdom is an honor and a privilege. For that, we shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity and to feel gratitude. However, no matter how good the advice is, we may need to let go of some of it at some point and to remain open to new possibilities, to new ways of thinking and problem solving.

For that reason, advice that was cherry-picked over the years and that shapes our way of thinking needs to be constantly reviewed, refreshed and tested to meet the challenges of the present and the future.

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Sincere thanks for reading!

Have a great day,

André