Value of Partnerships

I have been on the same mission for as long as I can remember and I fully expect to be on that same mission for the rest of my life.  That’s just how I am wired. I am a mission-oriented person who wants to execute and, as a result, win. My mission is growth – period. I plan to never stop growing. If I do, that’s I’ve failed my life’s mission and that is simply not an option. I plan to continue to grow personally, professionally, financially, physically, socially, spiritually, etc. from now until it is all said and done. As they say “if you are not growing, you are dying” and I must admit, I totally subscribe to it.

Recently I was asked what got me to where I am at today (I assume they were referring to my relative success, high levels of responsibility and the leadership obligations bestowed upon me). Seeing how I am so mission oriented I thought to myself, “To stay the course on a mission, you need drive.” Then I realized what was being asked of me was not what ‘within me’ got me to where I am at but actually – what was the ‘thing’ or ‘event’ in my life that was a turning point? That question proved to be a little more difficult as (ironically), mission-oriented people like me (us!) don’t always take the time to acknowledge those things/moments as our focus is programmed to be on conquering the next milestone. This immediately induced the “life flashed before my eyes”. In processing all the inflection points in my life that should be called out and celebrated – my thoughts immediately led me to the one constant – people. PEOPLE are what got me to where I am today – because it always comes down to the people that cross your path – more specifically partnerships you form with those people.

With that, the ‘thing’ that happened repeatedly happened to me causing my professional growth to boost my career, therefore frankly getting me to where I am today – was (and still is) opening myself up to partnerships. Back in the day if you will (before I started experiencing true success), I had the mindset a partner just divided assets thus a smaller piece of the pie. It was during this time, early in my career, I was in a role, a very responsible and valuable role at that, of a loan originator. I was a good producer, had decent people skills, some sales chops, and slightly above average way of knowing how to get a deal done. Naturally, I knew I could be doing so much more on my own, single handedly. As my career advanced, I tried to do that ‘so much more’ all by myself, and, to nobody’s surprise, I experienced failure and stumbled several times along the way. Then one day – life threw me a bone.

I started working with a few guys. We started vibing. We started doing not good business. We started winning alongside each other. Things became easier and my success was starting to grow. Of course we wanted to continue down this road, “keep the band together” – so I found myself saying “why don’t we go into a partnership?” My perception of partnership had shifted. Yes, partnerships do divide things but it’s not just dollars and cents. It also divides workload, responsibilities, and allows each member to focus on their specialized skills rather than having to be everything to everyone.

If you are looking for an opportunity to grow, I encourage you to look within your network and find some people that you can flow with and grow with to consider entering a partnership. Of course, not all partnerships are guaranteed to be homeruns, nor are they all created equal but the ones that are good – so worth it. Without partners I would be a fraction of who I am today. With partners I am a better version of me several times over.