Saturday 20 July 2013

How Many Sides have You Got?

One of my 'sides' - fundraiser for Hounds For Heroes
One of the things I enjoy most about my job is finding out more about the people I work with and the people that I come into contact with. Yes, we all usually have weddings as a large part of our make-up but there's more to us all than that.

Hobbies, interests, passions, likes - they all come together to make us, well, us and it's always really interesting to see these wonderful wedding professionals as multi-dimensional, multi-faceted people that have so much more experience and knowledge than is often seen and we bring all of this to our work life too. We don't switch off between places - what we learn in one part of our life comes with us to another. All experiences, good and bad stay with us. So it's important to get a grip of this. How can you hope to get the best out of people when you only know a tiny part of what makes them tick?

It's quite often the things that sit behind the work facade that provide the depth to the person. Yes, we love our jobs and we're passionate about them but they're not 'the whole us'. There's more to be seen, there's more to find out and there's more to understand.

So, have a think - what do you bring to your work party? What comes with you to work from the rest of your life? What experiences have you had that might be holding you back? What are your private 'best bits' that could be used to get your professional life moving? What do you have that sets you apart from everyone else?

Because ultimately, that's what we're looking for - those oh-so special bits of you that no-one else has. You're always going to have competitors (and imitators too if you're unlucky/so good that people can't help but copy) but what no-one else can ever have is your unique mix of life experiences and your approach to your life. And I mean your whole life, not just work, not just your non-work life, the whole crazy, special mix. This is why 'behind the scenes' tweets are so popular and why personal snapshots and insights into our wider lives work so well with clients - because we show ourselves as real people, not simply as wedding automatons.

In an industry where clients buy into people, into personalities they trust, don't you think it's really important to know who you are? Because until you know who you are, how can you even begin to standout?

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