teaching – Austin Senecal: Start Small

Hello everyone and Happy New Years 2024! I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks reflecting on how I could help more people achieve their personal and professional goals, especially younger people who are standing where I once stood. That led me to to question what would have helped me when I was starting my own career and personal journey. I believe the one thing that would have done more than anything to help me is to have someone I respected build my confidence by helping me understand the opportunities that existed.

When I was in high school I believed that college was only for excellent athletes, academic prodigies, or people who were rich. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but that was my worldview because there weren’t many people in my circle who’s parents had gone to college. Now I know that higher education is accessible to everyone and with the right level of discipline and motivation, people of all levels of intelligence can successfully complete their education goals. College isn’t for everyone, but everyone should know that it’s accessible to anyone.

I also believed that markets were dominated by large corporations, so it would be impossible for someone to start a business and successfully compete against giants. Now I understand that as businesses grow, it becomes harder and harder to be nimble enough to keep up with rapidly evolving market changes. The world constantly wants something unique which places small entrepreneurs or creators at an advantage. Young people feel they’re at a disadvantage when joining organizations with a lot of long-tenured employees, but we need to let them know that those organizations are hungry for new ideas so they’re in a unique position to bring a lot of value immediately and be recognized.

How important it is to be humble, ask questions, be positive and build relationships. I believed managers and employees with more experience expected me to know what I was doing in order to have a seat on the team, so I did my best to maintain that view and struggle through without asking questions. I still see that behavior with young people entering the workforce today, which is probably due to pride and other complex human emotional behaviors, but it’s doing as much damage to their careers as it did to mine. Help new employees understand that they’ll be much more successful if they are honest about what they don’t know, aren’t afraid to ask questions, be positive despite challenges, and that relationships are critically important, even in organizations like government agencies where some people still believe policies negate the need for good relationships.

This year, help young people and new employees understand how the world really works. It’s a sign of strength which will be recognized and rewarded as those folks move through their journey.

There are numerous benefits to helping others succeed. First and foremost, most of the people you help will remember it and do the same for you some day. I remember my father-in-law mentoring a young intern pharmacist by helping him with homework over the phone, and years later witnessed him ask for advice from the young pharmacist who had graduated by then and was an expert on the latest developments in the industry. When you help others, it builds your network of people who can be relied on for advice, references, open positions, etc.

Experts say we retain 50% of what we write down and 80% of what we teach to others. By teaching others, you’re actually reinforcing the knowledge you’ve learned so it doesn’t fade over time. When teaching, you gain knowledge yourself from getting the perspective of someone who views the problem in an entirely different way. If you’re open enough, interactions like this lead to the next industry development or business disruption because you’re able to combine your deep industry knowledge with someone else’s knowledge of current technology, etc.

Finally, helping others succeed is a sign of strength and leadership potential. Your organization will notice who’s sharing knowledge and helping the entire organization grow, and who’s hoarding knowledge to keep everyone else weak. Both the sharing and hoarding are very apparent to leaders in the organization, and despite the hoarders believing they’ll be promoted for their superior knowledge over everyone else; the opposite is true. Good leaders recognize the power in sharing and teaching within the organization and will promote people who possess this behavior.

Who can you help today?

Tag: teaching

I Wish Someone Had Told Me

Help Someone Today