Monday, June 9, 2014

WHAT'S DRIVING YOU!

I’m not going through the drill of saying how long I’ve taken to make my comeback to the blogosphere - I'd like to get down to business right away.

Working as a TV producer, I run through tons of video feeds everyday - through the day. While 103% of them are work related, once in a while you come across an interview that you hoped would never end. 

I sat through one such edit this week. It was the interview of Michael Bloomberg (He owns the channel I work for but that had nothing to do with my interest for the interview per say) and Lloyd Blankfein, the hugely respected chairman of Goldman Sachs. 

The Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses program (a $500 million program that helps entrepreneurs get access to business education, financial capital and business support services) is what brings both these captains together. Both bring some seriously significant amount of knowledge, wisdom and business acumen to the table.

The interview detailed their journey to the top of their respective firms. While Bloomberg got sacked from his previous job Blankfein didn't get through to GS. He worked for a small company that got bought over by GS and he climbed on from there. Getting sacked made Bloomberg work on a project that would build a company - what we today call Bloomberg LP. 

What really got these men to where they are. 'You've got to work very hard'. It's that simple! No short cuts, no influence and no nothing else! 

What drives them - what keeps them going after all these years of success? I love how Blankfein puts it - When things are going well there's nothing more fun and I can never imagine leaving it. And when things are going bad, my sense of responsibility takes over and cannot imagine leaving it. Adrenaline junkies these! 

Apart from all the other words of wisdom they had to say - I totally fell for this one by Bloomberg. 
'If you like what you're doing - you do more or it and the more you do of it, the more successful you're gonna be which gives you more reason to like it' 

I think I just found myself a new work mantra!