Career Development Lessons from Drake's BBMA Speech

Did you catch Drake's speech when he accepted the BBMA for Artist of the Decade? Most of the focus was on Drake's son, but he actually dropped some great career development advice.

Here are a few lessons we can take from Drake:

🎤 Drake said, "Even if I do a good job, I always wonder, you know how I could have done it better," and that he's "spent an incalculable amount of hours trying to analyze all the things I did wrong"

💡 Lesson: Top performers challenge themselves. They reflect on their behaviours and actions and find ways to improve.

✅ Action: Schedule reflection time at the end of every day. Ask, what am I proud of? and what could I have done even better?

🎤 Drake also said, "for anyone watching this that's wondering how this happened. You know, that's really the answer it's, it's being so unsure how you're getting it done that you just you just kind of keep going in the hopes of figuring out the formula."

💡 Insight - Imposter syndrome happens to the best of us - literally! In fact, at a recent Archangel community event, Seth Godin shared some paradigm-shifting perspective about imposter syndrome. He said, "if you’re feeling imposter syndrome it’s because you’re describing the future in advance." And he suggested that we feel imposter syndrome when we're doing our best work.

✅ Action: Next time you're questioning whether you know enough to do that scary thing, or wonder if people will "find you out" for not being the ultimate expert in something, remind yourself that you're questioning it because nobody has the answer yet, and this is an opportunity for you to, in Drake's words, "figure out the formula."

🎤 Drake said, "I rarely celebrate anything."

💡 Lesson: This statement, I challenge a little. I mean, Drake said this while accepting another of the dozens of awards he's received, from Grammys to Billboard Music Awards, to MTV awards to... the list goes on. And on. Celebrations are pretty much baked into Drake's career. For those of us in more mundane professions, celebration is important, and we need to be intentional about making it happen.

✅ Action: At least quarterly, schedule time with your team or on your own to look back at where you were 3 months ago and where you are now. We are often so busy striving for what's next, we lose sight of how far we've come. Find a meaningful way to celebrate your accomplishments and progress, and what you're learning along the way. If you lead or work with others, recognize them for their role. This is a critical step to staying motivated and inspired, especially when you don't have a golden statue to remind you!

Here's a video of Drake's speech:

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