Want To Be A Pro From A Layman - Take Actions to Learn From Failure

Before each boxing lesson, the instructor asked us to jump the rope for 5 minutes to warm up. I still remember the first few times that I really hated this and felt embarrassed as I could not jump the rope at all. As Singapore is now undergoing lockdown again, I use my leisure time to practise. At the beginning, I kept on kicking or stepping on the rope which drove me nuts and frustrated as I saw some people could cross the rope to jump or jump the rope like walking normally. It seemed like that I could not see their rope. I still remember my kids and I saw one guy jumping the rope on the street like the circus guy which amazed us. After watching some YouTube videos, Googling the tips and skills, observing others' feet to jump the rope, etc. I practise every day and finally I did it to jump the rope with both of my feet up for 10 times, then 20 times, 100 times. Then I tried one foot. Now I could jump like a pro with crossing the rope and walking like normally for 100 times without kicking the rope. Amazing. Right? I can't believe too but I did it. All the lessons taught me that we have to spend time to learn, practice without the fear of failure. It applies to our new skills at work too. Few years ago, I knew nothing about digital marketing as I had been a PR practitioner over the years. Atlaspace opened the door for me to learn from scratch. I still remember my ex-digital marketing manager laughed at me and said that I was 'outdated' and 'a piece of old cake'. But now, I am heading up the growth marketing and social media across four cities in the region. I transformed myself from a PR practitioner to a digital expert. This required me lots of hours to go into every details. It might be a simple, stupid question to the digital manager or even a junior executive, but it was a complicated question to me. Thanks to all my juniors to teach an 'old cake' how to master the digital world from scratch.

On the other hand, surprisingly, two of my digital managers asked me about PR and they thought PR is so complicated. To me, I can close my eyes to do most of the tasks. Now you can see my points. Right? Some skills are easy to you based on your accumulated experiences and practices that you are not aware but they are difficult to others.

As a manager, we should be patient to train our juniors to master the skills you have. A manager is no longer an individual contributor. Your team members' success is your success. That should be the KPIs for all managers too.