K-0010
You are leaning your craft (remember, learning never stops) and sticking with the program (K-0004) and you are working hard and practicing as you play. (K-0008). But you are asking yourself (admit it) when will you get work of your own? And the answer is simply, “You will. Sometime. It will come. Be patient.”
What you need to do is lay the seeds and those blooms will grow and they will all be traceable back to something you did yesterday, last year, and tomorrow.
Seth Godin, an American writer and blogger talks of “Being Remarkable” in the literal sense of the expression. This has always resonated with me. Your goal is to have someone remark about you (positively, of course) to someone else. That someone else could be (and often is) another partner in the Firm or senior person in the organization as well as others outside of your own organization. And they will remark of you if you deliver that good work, anticipate what is next, be a mench and ation all the other things I have previously touched upon. You are growing your brand.
While I say that the only reason I was hired back as an associate was Max insisting on bring napkins along with the pizza (K-0007), there may be one more reason. I had been assigned to assist as an articling student with a corporate reorganization that would create what was then Dundee Bancorp. My job in part was to make sure every corporate resolution was properly signed by each board and where needed the shareholders. This was of course before Excel (not that I know today how to use Excel mind you) and so I did the only thing I could think of – I used six pieces of legal sized lined paper taped together in two rows of three to create a poster size master spreadsheet. Along the horizontal axis was each resolution or document keyed to the closing agenda and the vertical access was the list of every single signator, individual or corporate, of which there must have been at least 50. I then identified with a checkmark each cell in the matrix of who had to sign what document. And with that, off I went with a few banker boxes of documents on a wheelie and my matrix under my arm, travelling office to office throughout Toronto to gather all these signatures.
Word of this travelled somewhat around the office and I kept being visited by associates and partners alike wanting to see what I had created and how I did it. It was being remarkable in the literal sense of the word. I can tell you, that exercise did not hurt my career development. As Rod Barrett proved, good work begets more good work and I was called upon thereafter to assist in many more files with the same and an expanded group of people. One thing leads to another. And if you listen to all of this, you too will be a 30 year overnight success.