#48 🧭💡 People who change your life's trajectory
There are people in life who are influential:
through something they say, a phrase or even a word
through something they do, an endeavor or even a gesture
through the way they are, always or in a certain situation
through something they create
through what they symbolize…
And might change your life’s trajectory forever.
Sometimes, during my mentoring talks about career strategy, I remember my high school math teacher and mention the phrase that changed back then my life’s trajectory for the next years. It was something like this:
When you get to university, don’t limit yourself by learning only from the uni courses. Get involved in student associations, travel the world, do things besides school.
This brief 2 minutes exchange on the hallways of my high school had an enormous impact on my life. It created new questions in my mind, invited me to pay attention to new things when going to uni in Bucharest - changes that helped me make a different kind of decisions going forward.
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There are tens of people who have changed my life’s trajectory over the years, some of them significantly - like my high school math teacher.
Not only friends, some of them not even acquaintances.
When reflecting about it for the past couple of days, I started connecting the dots to the Map-Decide-Move framework for strategic thinking = for making decisions about what to do next in specific contexts.
Map is about understanding where you are and where you are heading.
Influential people might help you see a part of the map that you were ignoring or that has been a blind spot for you
They might inspire you about possible “travel” directions or destinations
They might share their insights and perspectives about what is going on in that context
Decide is about picking a way forward after exploring a few options about what you might do next.
They might help you see some options that you have, that you didn’t see before
They might help you narrow down the options, so you can make a decision easier
They might share their experience or advice related to the path you are about to take next
Move is about progressing in the direction that you decided.
They might inspire you to do actions that you haven’t considered before, on the path you’re taking now
They might help you prioritize realistic actions to do next
Or they might help you do the actions you need to do on the path you are taking.
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I invite you to reflect a bit on the influential people in your life - the people who have changed your life’s trajectory.
And also to reflect a bit on how you are influential in the lives of the people around you. How are you changing their life’s trajectories?
Enjoy the path(s),
Bülent
As a learner and knowledge creator across fields, I’m advising and mentoring professionals about their career strategies = their professional way forward. On this newsletter I’m sharing insights and practices that I come across while doing this.
Mentoring about career strategy is a side activity that I enjoy from time to time.
My main activity is to advise CEOs of Tech companies on Strategy.
See also: LinkedIn / Strategy & Org Design Goodies and GandireStrategica.ro 🇷🇴 / Affiliations: IASP, APF, EODF, IAF and IG