This week I am going to share with you a story worth-spreading.
For better or worse my job entails meeting with quite a few people, most of them in high places. For better or worse, those that I meet irrespective of country and industry, are very much alike. The people one usually gets to meet at the highest echelons of corporate circles, fall under one of the following, broad categories:
- The “lucky ones” who rose the ranks quickly and effortlessly because of their family’s nepotistic approach towards their own business;
- The… “parrots” who irrespective of whether they belong or not in the aforementioned category, they have made a decent effort to meet the position’s requirements, either through experience, or study, but apart from replicating others’ work, they are little capable of further pushing the envelope and
- The “one-dimensionals” who irrespective of whether they belong or not in the first category, they are very good at what they do, but have little else in the way of being interesting individuals.
- The “exceptional ones” – more on them below.
So after setting the general scene, let’s go back to my original story. I had a meeting last week with the founder of a Cypriot company as well as other people related to his business. The meeting was held at a location where I seldom pass by and so to be sure, I left early enough to accommodate for heavy traffic. And sure enough, I was hit mercilessly by Murphy’s Law: The roads were almost empty and I ended up going to the meeting place well in advance of my intended time.
So the founder of the company invited me to his office, where we had a friendly and fairly relaxed chat. He told me the story of how he started the company and about the intellectual property that he developed in order to make it a leader in the local market. He immediately got my full attention after this brief introduction, as about 99% (OK I am exaggerating, but you get the meaning) of Cypriot companies have little to offer in terms of applied innovation, most of them being focused on the tourism industry, or local representations of foreign brands, with little to offer in the way of added value.
He continued explaining to me his thought process on how he went about developing new products every time, thereby constantly helping his client’s get better and better at their own businesses.
And then I noticed a small collection of ancient, medieval and early 19th century artifacts in a corner of his office. I said that I love studying history and asked for his permission to examine them more closely. Not only he let me, but he also gave me a brief background of each artifact. As it turned out, he too, was interested in history. And we had a small chat on this topic as well.
When this was done, he gave me one of his books, focused on explaining in a scientific manner common phenomena that many people do not understand (how many c-suite executives, even in top corporations, are even remotely interested in reading books other than as closely related to their business as possible?)
My word-counter indicates that I have already written 600 words on the topic, so before I get overly boring, let me cut to the chase: I am meeting countless people every day. And so you are. But who are the people that really stand out in your memory? Are they the (irrespective of professional success) women that apart from their business are mostly interested in social events, or the men that can hardly hold a conversation other than their business and sports? Good people they may all be, but in a world where this kind of individuals are a dime a dozen, I know exceptional when I see it. It is interestingly different than what I normally see and meet.
Last week I met an exceptional man. Last week, was a good week. We are all unique in our set of qualities, no doubt about that, but not all of us are exceptional. Not all of us can be memorable like that. Are you memorable? If not, what can you do to become one?