What does success mean?

Stanley's Note:

Finding staff isn't as hard as they say.

It just takes planning and effort.

As we look to scale our business this year I have had a lot of people talk about the staff shortage and the lack of candidates for roles.

However, when I posted 3 job ads recently for socialised creative roles, we had about 60 great candidates apply and 19 of them showed up to a group interview.

From that group interview, we found 6 people who would fit our team.

And three of them we have offered roles to.

Are these staff the best possible people for the role?

Who knows? 

Can I develop them into the best people?

Absolutely!

I've said this multiple times but I'll say it again.

Great staff aren't found they are developed.

Stop looking for the perfect person and instead look in the mirror and be the leader your team needs to thrive.

For everyone out there looking to grow this year, start planning your hiring now and put a plan in place to find great people who can develop into the best team.

Check out my awesome team and all the great stuff they get up to in the newsletter below.

Cheers,

Stanley

Recipe for Success

Two women, one in her early 30s and the other in her early 20s, with vastly different life experiences, come together every week for 30 minutes, so they can figure out what success is. The point isn’t to make the meaning explicitly clear, but just to have a conversation and change the narrative along the way.

Success is a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s not a number, it’s not a position or a place. It’s just what you think it is, right? Especially coming from some who doesn’t consider themselves necessarily successful, this seems pretty ironic.

But then again, does it require validation from other people?

The thing is that the idea of success is extremely cluttered with what can be called ‘litter’. Things like judgements, biases, comparisons, the need to be validated and all of that other nonsense. They just pretty much leave you thinking about whether you’re ever going to get where you want to. But this litter doesn’t define success. The smallest of things define success.

This article is a success because it was typed out, published and read. Two girls creating a podcast with no experience whatsoever is a success. Leaving a corporate job for a career in theatre, that’s success. Going from being a freelance photographer to being a business owner, that’s success. Starting an accessories business and growing on social media, that’s success.

It’s a whole lot of things. It’s all the small steps that get you to the really big dream.

We’re conditioned to think of success as a ‘thing’ that’s conditional to these imaginary milestones we’ve got to achieve.

Get a job by 20, married and kids by 30, a house by 35; this list, it’s endless.

But does it really need to be done in this order? No, it doesn’t. And that’s because it’s in contradiction to everything that the idea of ‘life’ stands for.

Life is not linear, all of us know this. It’s a winding road with some straight stretches, at best. There’s really no point in juxtaposing the idea of success with life then. They may be two different highways, but their layout is virtually the same.

Let’s talk about The Attention Seeker. If each member of our team was asked about what success means, they would all come up with completely different answers.

Even as a collective unit, we count every small win as a success. Moving to a new office space, hiring new team members, being told that we’re doing good work are all examples of success.

At the cost of this sounding like a preachy lecture on the philosophy of success and how you can achieve it, it’s a tiny step in objectively the right direction. Almost like a cliched reminder to ease the pressure that’s been building up inside you for a long time.

Because, even though cliches make for painfully simple analogies, they’re also ordinarily beautiful and make for equally great reminders.

Written by Shreya Bakshi

2 weeks back S&S had Jesse Masters, a freelance photographer and business owner, on their podcast.

Jesse had a lot to share with the girls about the world of freelancing as a creative, setting your expectations and value and just going for it.

Tune in on Spotify or YouTube to listen to what he had to say.