Spotlight Insights: Believe In Number One

In a Content in Business Spotlight Session, Phil Hall, Co-Founder of Residential Living Recruitment, gave this bit of advice:

“Believe in yourself and really make sure that you try and take all the noise around you away. Because so many people, whether it's online, whether it's friends and family, whether it's ex-colleagues, ex-bosses… everybody has an opinion, and everybody wants to tell you how to do something that perhaps they've done a certain way over their careers.

“I think it's really important to take that noise as low as you possibly can and just focus on what you want to do. You don't want to create a brand that already exists, right? You don't want to create something, and copy somebody else, in essence. Don't get me wrong - take some advice, listen to people. But when you're on this journey of setting out and building your own brand, ultimately believe in yourself and what you're doing.

“Otherwise, it doesn't really matter what anybody else is going to say. If you don't believe in number one, you're not going to make it work. Listen to number one, believe in yourself, be brave and take the leap.”

What Phil illustrates here is that we clearly need to find a balance between following our own thoughts, instincts and even ‘gut feel’ - and following the advice, experience and opinions of others.

When Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph took the idea of a mail order movie rental service called Netflix to the behemoth that was Blockbuster, they were almost laughed out of the building, being told “That will never work” (which is now the name of Marc Randolph’s podcast). The rest is history.

While Reed and Marc didn’t listen to Blockbuster - the comment would have certainly made them at least review their idea again and ensure it was indeed solid.

There’s another layer to Phil’s advice - which is more than belief in your brand, idea, product… it’s belief in yourself.

Courage.

You need courage to be able to push your idea and ‘put it out there’ in the first place. Then you need courage to accept feedback, impartially review, adjust as necessary and continue to push.

Watch or listen to this episode of the Content in Business Podcast in full.

The guest’s quote has been taken from a podcast recording and edited for easier reader consumption.