ZAP Wanderlust: Miami
Earlier this week, I attended the Holmes Global PR Summit 2015. Years ago, David and I had lunch with Paul Holmes, one of our industry’s most inspiriting leaders. At lunch, he talked about his first PR Summit and asked us to attend. Due to scheduling conflicts and more, we were unable to go. I’m thrilled to finally get the chance to attend this year! The goal of the summit is really simple – to get a temperature on the global market and learn about PR trends, insights, etc.
Over the two day conference, we attended countless sessions ranging from topics like crisis communications to creativity to retaining good talent and industry insights. Perhaps one of my favorite sessions came from author and Harvard alum, Sarah Lewis about “Leading the Creative Enterprise.”
Lewis came with three important lessons for leaders, including:
- Don’t just seek success – seek mastery
- Display in public and generate more in private
- Balance grit and know when to quit
While I won’t go into each lesson above (find me for coffee if you’d like to hear more), I’ll leave you with the main takeaway - “near misses.” Lewis explains that some of the best leaders of our time had one thing in common – they had all experienced a “near miss.” Furthermore, what made each person so phenomenal was how they chose to rise from their failures and channel their frustration for good.
I think we can all recall a “near miss” that we’ve had in our professions. What really resonated with me were the tools that she discussed to embrace those misses and channel them for good. In the end, she argues that you need to be a master in your profession yet be humble enough to still want to be an amateur. You also need to know when you’re going down the wrong path and be strong enough to quit. To learn more, I highly recommend her book “The Rise” where she delves deeper into those tools, tips and tactics. You won’t regret it!
Jennifer Lake, Vice President