Choose which mountain you want to climb

VP of Marketing round table 

Round table learning with Kentaro-san.

We were invited to have a lunch time round table discussion with the company’s Vice President, also Head of marketing department.

During the talk, he shared with us his approach to building a sustainable career path.

First, he talked about having a clearly defined career goal. Knowing where you want to work, how much money you want to earn helped him define his vision. For example, he set a goal to become a brand manager at the age of 30, then Head of brand team at 35, Head of the marketing department at the age of 40, earning this much of money etc.

It’s about deciding which mountain you want to climb. You can have the vision of a tall mountain, or a small mountain, it doesn’t matter. But it matters that you focus on the path towards the top of the mountain. The happiest people are the ones who can work at the top of the mountain he chose for himself, even if it’s just a small mountain. But for him, that’s satisfaction.

Secondly, focus on the goal. Life is long enough for you to experience many things and take some winding route sometimes, but whatever you do, don’t stray from your goal. You can take a straight approach or a winding approaching, which might take longer to reach your goal, it doesn’t matter. As long as you reach the goal at the end.

There will be temptations during the course, so you need to learn how to be disciplined. Also you need to overcome boredom because you will be doing the same kind of thing for a long time. Then you also need to have stamina to battle with hardships that come along the way.

Focus and accumulate depth in a field so that you can do this one thing better than anyone else you know.

It’s like adding pressure with a finger to a layer of rubber. Once you push down, the rubber surface dent a hole, and as you press harder, the dent deepens but also widens because the surrounding areas are affected by the force. So it’s not just a single straight- line dent but an area of dent. This is the same principle with focusing your effort in one area. You should never waste your resources, concentrate it in an area where you have a better chance to succeed, then only focus on it alone. Don’t worry about your width, because of the depth, your width will expand naturally because of this “rubber pressing” effect. And all of the expansions are connected to your strength, which make you even stronger.

When you are in the company, at the office, never do something that you can finish by doing it yourself. For that kind of thing, you can do at your own time, after work etc. When you are at the office, leverage the resources and talk to people and work in a team.

Concentrate your resources.