My life is a reflection of the power of strategy. I grew up as a working class kid in the 80s and early 90s in a small rural village in Germany. As long as I remember I wanted to escape what I perceived as an environment of narrow mindedness stifling creativity and personal expression. But I didn’t know how to do it other than breaking free. I didn’t have a well planned strategy in place. I was young and impulsive. Pursuing my dreams I searched for ways to become who I aspired to be. Aged 23, I realized I was hitting a glass ceiling in my career development and decided to go back to the drawing board.
In hindsight, this was the moment I became strategic about my life.
I developed a clear picture of how I wanted my life to look like, and I knew I had to prioritize a few things in life above everything else. I decided to go back to school, full-time, earning the credentials needed to enter university. When it was time to choose a discipline, I decided against subjects I first felt drawn towards. I didn’t ask myself where my passion lied, but which discipline would provide diverse opportunities for my work life. Willing to pick a field of study I didn’t connect with emotionally, I chose General Management.
Being strategic sometimes means embracing unpopular and hard decisions.
I chewed my way through a mountain of dry matter, because I knew that I’d rather suffer through a few years of university and enjoy decades of fulfilling work later, than the other way around. Nothing worse than studying a discipline you thoroughly enjoy only to realize later that there are little to no jobs out there requiring your knowledge or skill set. In the end it paid off. After graduating from business school, strategy became my one true passion, in life and business.
Strategy empowers.
A strategy is a set of key priorities that become your framework for decision making. When an opportunity presents itself, you benchmark it against that framework. You make intentional choices that propel you closer toward the desired future. Strategy empowers you to live the life you want. You dare to dream big and find ways to live your dreams. You say yes to what supports your dreams and stop caring about other people’s expectations, or other businesses’ tactics. You start to distinguish shiny objects from real opportunities, fake from value, and stop hustling without direction. As a result, your actions become focused and aligned with your values. You start building toward a legacy that inspires yourself and those around us.
Empower yourself and create a strategy for your business here.
Main image by Edu Lauton on Unsplash