This is a short message, which is ironic because it took me 30 years to learn what I share here.

It’s been a tough year. You may be doubting yourself.

Or, some of you are flying high, beginning to believe your own PR.

It works for individuals but applies to organisations too.

Read carefully, please. This will save you a world of pain.

• When things are going well, when the results are good, when it seems you can do no wrong, be sure you don’t get taken in by your own bullshit. We are never as good as we think we are in moments of success. And be careful, too, not to surround yourself with yes-(wo)men, sycophants, and brown-nosing acolytes who feed you what you want to hear and seduce you into complacency and arrogance. For it’s just at that time that the biggest fall is imminent. Self-satisfaction is what stifles growth, innovation, risk, and hunger.

• Equally, when everything goes wrong, every decision seems to backfire, and your dreams are crumbling, do not believe you have no talent just because, at that moment, others around you are not able to recognise it. Before you write yourself off as a failure, as wrong, as mediocre, as ‘not up to it’, just check you have not surrounded yourself with deadbeats, dingbats, drop-kicks, and doomsayers, who bring you down and stunt your dreams.

That’s it.

Maintain perspective.

On yourself.

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This article is from my new book, Recruit The Savage Way. Buy now

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