Today I want to talk about lessons in career advancement hidden in plain sight!  When an industry leader is speaking during a conference education session, or maybe during a webinar, that person is not only imparting specific tips relating to the topic, but they are also sharing a hidden lesson, showing you exactly how they rose through the ranks in their career.  Do you know how to find those hidden bits of wisdom?

I’m not sure when I started realizing there were hidden lessons embedded in our webinars, but one that really stood out was a webinar with Chad Moulin.  Chad is a leader on the maintenance front within the multifamily industry, and one webinar he shared a simple tip about keeping a glass of water on his night stand when he was on call.  Therefore, when a resident called in at two in the morning, he would quickly take a swig to clear out his throat, so when he then answered the phone, he would sound awake, alert, and eager to handle their issue.

As I heard the tip, I thought that was a great idea to improve that resident interaction, but even more so, I asked myself, “who even thinks of ideas like that?”  In other words, ideas on how to sound more positive and energetic on a 2am call would never even occur to most people.  Frankly, most people are not exactly thrilled with the prospect of being on call in the first place, so they probably think that they rose to the challenge simply by answering the phone – as though the resident should be happy that they even get an answer on their service request, so they shouldn’t be expecting anything beyond that.   And yet, here we have Chad who continued to see it as an opportunity to improve the resident experience.  The fact that Chad even thought of such an idea of a glass of water in such a situation shows how determined he is to improving every aspect of his job, no matter how small it might seem.

So the tip might be the glass of water, but the lesson was the mentality that Chad has in always trying to improve every single process, dissecting each aspect of his job to make it better.   That mentality is exactly what got Chad to be a leader in his own company and also within the industry as a whole, and yet I would venture to guess that many people would only see the glass of water tip at face value, not realizing that he was implicitly telling the audience how to rise through the ranks, just like he did.