Our CEO Sarah-Jane Benham recently joined nearly 200 other event professionals at The Hoxton, Southwark for the Elevate Mentoring 2024 kick-off. She was also asked to join people and culture consultants Nic Neal and Zoe Tuffs on stage to share her experience of the Elevate podcast 'Just One Thing'.
During her on-stage moment, Sarah-Jane shared how cathartic it was to reflect on the lessons she's learned leading up to her becoming our CEO. It's a testament to the power of personal growth and the importance of embracing opportunities that challenge us to step out of our comfort zones…
I was delighted to be invited as a guest on the Elevate Mentoring ‘Just One Thing’ podcast. I was asked to share one piece of advice I’ve been given over the years that was so good I had to pass it on. I chose ‘Act as if’ which was first coined by Tom Eatenton the Founder of Kru Live. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently and wanted to expand upon it here.
‘Act as if’, is a blend of perception and a building of self-confidence and evidence in order to achieve a goal. For example, if you are an account executive looking to be promoted to an account manager, the first step would be to identify how you would think and feel in that role? If you were made an AM right now, what would change? Would you spring out of bed in the morning? Would you hold your head a bit higher? Perhaps you might participate more in a meeting? Once you have in your mind what the behavioural traits are of a great account manager, now’s the time to ‘act as if’.
Act as if you are already in that role. Adopt or dial-up those behaviours, think like and act like an AM as if you already are. When the opportunity for a promotion comes, you will feel more than ready and it will be a nod to your employer as you are already showcasing and operating on the frequency of a great AM. You don’t have to wait to be told you are an AM in order to start behaving like one.
It’s not just career in marketing or promotions this can relate to, you can also apply it to something like confidence. How does a perceived confident person act? Do they put their hand up more? Do they say yes to public speaking? Now the tricky part. Act as if you already have that confidence. Start by saying yes. Build up your immunity to nerves and get yourself out of your comfort zone because that’s where the growth and transformation happens. That’s how it becomes a reality.
One final example from I when I first started at Kru. I was the third to join the business and we worked from what can lovingly be described as a large broom cupboard. Between us we wore all the hats, but from day one Tom had always acted as if we were an agency of 30 plus people and that continued across our behaviours as more of us joined the team. We developed our values and our mission, we had a 5 year plan, we even had quarterly board meetings (ok they took place in the 8 Bells pub, but they still happened). Even down to the lightest of touches, emails were always phrased with ‘we’ not ‘I’ to help achieve a greater sense of infrastructure and depth. We conducted ourselves in a way a 30-50 person agency would and as a result attracted the types of briefs you get when you are that scale. We acted as if until it became a reality.
Elevate is a not-for-profit mentoring programme designed specifically for the events industry. It has an alumni of nearly 2,000 event professionals across every sector of the industry. Working together with Elevate, Kru Live are changing lives, careers and the events industry for the better.
