🔥 Career Success Tips You Were Never Taught | Climb to the Top with Matthias Mahr!

Want to get promoted, build stronger work relationships, and take control of your career path? 

In this episode of Your Career Journey Podcast, I’m joined by Matthias Mahr, author of How to Be Moderately Successful, for a candid and practical conversation on how to achieve career success, without burning out or pretending to be someone you’re not.

We dive into:
✅ Matthias’ career journey from Austria to London
✅ His transition from strategy consulting to commercial leadership roles at eBay, Eurostar, and Trainline
✅ Why building meaningful workplace relationships is key to long term success
✅ How to manage your boss, collaborate better, and work well with others
✅ How to confidently navigate the promotion process
✅ The balance between confidence and adaptability in fast moving environments
✅ Real world strategies for managing workplace stress

Matthias shares hard earned insights and actionable advice that have worked for him and for the many professionals he’s mentored and coached.

💡 Whether you're early in your career or looking to step into a leadership role, this episode is packed with practical takeaways to help you advance your career with purpose and confidence.

00:00 Introduction 
00:35 Career Journey: From Austria to London
01:18 Transitioning from Consulting to Industry
01:38 Roles at eBay and Eurostar
04:35 Launching New Services and Leadership Roles
08:33 Writing the Book: Inspiration and Process
10:58 Book Structure and Content
16:57 Working with Others: Understanding and Collaboration
23:26 Managing Your Boss: Building Effective Relationships
25:11 Finding the Right Balance in Relationships
26:27 The Importance of Proactivity
30:46 Navigating Promotions and Career Advancement
37:14 Managing Stress and Finding Balance
45:12 The Value of Specialisation
47:26 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

🔗 Useful Links & Resources:
📚 Matthias Mahr's Book: How to Be Moderately Successful: https://www.moderatelysuccessful.org/
Matthias Mahr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthiasmahrcommercial/

Your host, Emma Graham, Career Coach and ex-recruiter, is here to help you with:

💡 Gain clarity on what’s important to you
💡 Confidently communicate your value
💡 Build a personal brand and a strong network
💡 Take a strategic approach to your next move
💡 Navigate the job market effectively
💡 Build career confidence with a repeatable success blueprint

🌐 Explore my coaching programs and free resources:
Website: https://www.egconsulting.au/
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmajgraham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmagrahamcareercoach/

🎁 Free Resources:
📄 CV Development Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/cv-advice
📄 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/linkedin-profile-guide

📅 Book Your FREE Career Strategy Discovery Call:
https://calendly.com/emmagrahamconsulting/discovery-call

Transcript

Emma: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Your Career Journey, the podcast designed to be your compass through the twists and turns of career development. Today, I'm joined by Matthias Mahr, author of How to be Moderately Successful, Career Acceleration for Realists. His own career has taken him from Austria to London via a number of other European countries, working for brands like eBay, Eurostar and Trainline in senior commercial leadership roles. We talk about the highly practical real-world world tactics that have made a difference for him and can help you get to your own base camp of success. So I am joined today by Matthias, Matthias Maher, all the way from London.

Matthias: 0:47

Hello, good morning in London, good evening where you are.

Emma: 0:51

Yeah, good morning, good afternoon, all the different time zones. So we are going to be talking today about your new book, your first book, How to Be Moderately Successful. But before we get into that and all sorts of discussions that have come out of that, it'd be really great just to understand a little bit more about your career journey and I guess what led up to the point of writing your first book.

Matthias: 1:17

So I'm in London, as I just said, but I'm actually originally from Austria and I moved to London in 1994. So a few years ago yet, I did my undergrad here and then at the end of the undergrad like I suppose quite a few people I didn't really know what I wanted to do so most people in fact there's a bit in my in my book which goes well actually I would have loved to kind of wake up one day and go I have this this one thing I want to do I'll do it forever but anyway and so I went into strategy consulting for a few years first in London for three years for a company called Mitchell Madison which no longer exists and then in Paris after that in between I did an MBA in the US So I did a total of six years of strat consulting. And at the end of that six years, or when I got to my six years, I suppose, again, like many people in consulting, I started asking questions about, well, is this the right thing for me? Should I do this for a long time? Should I start doing something else? And I really got to the conclusion that I wanted to be in a business. I wanted to sort of run a business or part of a business and rather than advise, actually be inside it. So in about 2005, I came back to London and joined eBay. At the time it was eBay UK, so I'm assuming everyone's heard of eBay. So obviously selling and buying used and new goods online. And when you come from consulting into industry the first time, and some of your listeners, I guess, and watchers will have this experience, it can be quite tricky initially to figure out, well, how do I make this transition? And even what should my first job be? And often those first jobs are strategy related because you come from strategy consulting and my job ended up being marketing strategy. And that had the word strategy in it, which I think the person who hired me thought I must know about strategy for marketing because I know about strategy. I actually didn't know a huge amount about marketing, so I had to slightly make it up initially, but I guess again, in some jobs you sort of, you know, you're just happy that you get it and then you make it all right in the end.

Emma: 3:14

Say yes, figure it out afterwards.

Matthias: 3:17

Exactly. It's actually worked out, worked out very well. So my job there was to make sure that eBay UK was allocating their marketing money in the right way and understanding the impact of the marketing, that it has a really marketing strategy, marketing effectiveness. But at eBay, I quite quickly took up different roles because eBay was quite a fluid organization at the time. I think it probably still is with quite a few reorganizations quite regularly, which gives opportunities, I guess, in terms of being able to do new things. And there, first of all, I built a new team around insight, which is bringing together the analysts that have data insight and also market research from outside. So that was quite a new idea at that time. Nowadays, data is obviously a huge thing. It's everywhere. But back in the day, it was quite a new idea. And I then I moved into marketing proper and ran part of the marketing team at eBay. First, the online marketing team, and then actually did brand marketing at eBay as well.

Emma: 4:18

There

Matthias: 4:19

you go. Then after eBay, I joined a company called Eurostar, which is a train operating company. Some of you might have heard of, it runs primarily to London and Paris and London and Brussels in the UK and France and Belgium. And there really started to transition into commercial roles, which is what I've been doing ever since. And by commercial, I mean running the revenue part of a business or part of the revenue part of the business. And that can include marketing and did include marketing, but it can also include things like revenue and price setting, can include things like commercial strategy some understanding of customer experience and what should the customer experience be like the classes of service and I actually even was responsible for the timetable for Eurostar which I have a slight sort of nerdy bit in me and trying to figure out exactly when the train should run and figuring out things like actually the first early morning train from Paris was always empty because people didn't like getting up early so we kind of got rid of that and started a bit later some small things like that which were quite fun and the last part of my journey at Eurostar where I spent seven years I did something quite different which was to launch an entirely new service and that was between London and Amsterdam which has been running for a few years now and has actually been a really good success that was a very very different job because it involved working with people in Holland the train operator the train manufacturers were in Germany we needed some help from the French authorities as well so trying to get all these different nationalities together which given my background was was quite a fun thing to do but some of those stereotypes and again something that's in my book but of the Germans and the French and the Dutch and the Brits and how they all work together and how they all show up were definitely still true certainly at that

Emma: 5:55

time. I did have a little laugh to myself as I was reading that section of the of the book some of the some of the British ones definitely definitely rang true to

Matthias: 6:03

me. Indeed there's

Emma: 6:04

a whole section that was

Matthias: 6:06

particularly tongue-in-cheek just because I wanted a bit of light relief but it but when people read it they're like yeah yeah you know it is stereotypical but it's kind of true so so yeah that was fun. Then I went into my first true leadership role it was about 10 years ago for a company called Handpicked Hotels which run 20 country house hotels in the UK, really, really nice ones, not sort of five, six stars, but kind of four, five stars, really nice country house hotels. Where was the revenue marketing director, which I guess nowadays would be called the chief commercial officers are responsible for that part of the business entirely now. And making sure that we had the right, I guess, price and ultimately the right revenue coming into the business. Then I did something a bit different, which is to set up on my own. I did some interim chief commercial officer roles for a couple of businesses. I did some projects because I felt that I just wanted to try out different things. So kind of going slightly full circle back to consulting in some ways, but for myself, which I concluded that indeed I had made the right decision and I preferred working in companies than doing consulting. So I went back into that. And if you're still following, then the last role I had over the last few years was at a company called Trainline and Train is the leading reseller of train tickets in Europe. So think of it as the booking.com for train tickets, which if you're in Australia, perhaps that might not be something that might feel as necessary, but in Europe, actually, there are quite a number of different train operators and it's quite confusing sometimes as to how you get from A to B. So having a company like Trainline where you can just go, I want to go from Paris to Lyon or from Milan to Rome, and it shows you all the different options. and all the different prices, that's what Trainline does. And there I was responsible for setting up the international business of Trainline or really expanding and properly setting up the international business. So in countries that I mentioned, such as Italy, Spain and France. So that's what I've been doing.

Emma: 7:58

Was it always that way or was it originally just UK based and then it expanded to...

Matthias: 8:04

It was founded in the UK, Train9, and the UK business still accounts for about three quarters of the total revenue, but it had over the years started to a little bit expand and certainly offer the supply in those other markets in Europe, but it hadn't really invested fully behind that. So this was really building up a second part of the business, I guess, which is the international one. And also Train9 actually has quite a big inbound business from customers coming from the US, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and other places who are coming from for their summer holiday with a family let's say and they want to visit a number of different countries and they've heard that trains are a great way of doing that but they don't know exactly how to do that so it's actually also got really good positioning for those sort of visitors because it's a one-stop shop in English where you can buy everything in one place.

Emma: 8:49

Yeah and as you said so confusing actually without it to know even which website to go to for which train operator for which journey so yeah it is it is a really good platform and works really well.

Matthias: 9:00

So that's me so yeah I've done a few different things over the over the years still looking for exactly the right thing for me I mean I think I've got now a general area of commercial but I'm still sort of moving a little bit around rather than having having found the the one niche for me but as you said in the meantime I've I've taken a bit of a sabbatical and over the last six months I've written a book that's the last thing I've done

Emma: 9:21

and what what prompted that like where did the where did the idea come from what was the what was the driver

Matthias: 9:27

the idea really had been brewing in my head for a long time and I've had in my phone in the notes functionality I guess quite a few notes on this book for a number of years. I actually, during COVID, had started writing a little bit of it, only about 10%. And really the idea came from the fact that I'd, over the last five or 10 years, probably more like 10 years, I've been doing more and more coaching with people in the businesses that we're in, sometimes outside of the business, just friends or colleagues I knew in my direct line, but also across the business, some mentoring schemes, et cetera. And I just did more and more of that because I quite enjoyed it. It seemed to work quite well. so people approached me to get some help and I'd started writing down some of the ideas that I gave people and I thought actually some of those stories I'd started writing down were hopefully quite fun and quite engaging so over time it sort of became a quite a long list of things that I've written down I thought you know what actually if I put my mind to it perhaps I could I could put this into a book and the other thing was I felt there was particularly for people in their early to mid careers, maybe a little bit of a gap in the market for a book specifically for them. There's a lot of books out there, obviously, around how to become a millionaire, how to be a CEO, how to invent big companies. And they're all great books. They're really, really interesting ones to read and very inspiring. But it perhaps makes it harder for people in their, as I said, early to mid-career to figure out, well, where should they go next? How can they progress to the next level before they get to that CEO role eventually? And so those two things combined, I thought, actually, I'll try and write it down and see if I can make it into a book. And eventually that's what came out.

Emma: 11:06

Yeah, nice. And how did you find the process? Was it easier or harder because you had the notes? I can kind of see that going either way. I

Matthias: 11:17

mean, if anyone's out there trying to think about writing a book, it is very hard, no question, partly because the writing bit's hard. And then once you've written it, you also need to get it out there to the world. And that bit's also quite hard because just because you've written it and you put it out there and you're very excited. no one's going to and a few friends obviously going to buy it but you're not going to sell a huge amount of copies just by having it there so there's both sides for starters but coming back to the writing process I think the hardest bit is to get a structure together really once you've got a structure which in my book is they're quite short chapters there's about 40 or 45 very short chapters that you can dip in and out of and each chapter has a reasonably similar structure of a story and then an action once you've got that in place and assume you've got enough ideas which I had then it becomes easier to do but it's really that early structure because before you've got that you sort of write a little bit unstructuredly a little bit into the ether if you like and you don't quite know where it's going so you need somebody an editor yourself or a friend or somebody just to help get that into place and then be quite disciplined about the writing process and have time that you allocate and have, you know, have a spreadsheets that you track and then have people that can read it for you. But yeah, once the structure was in place, it wasn't too bad to get it done.

Emma: 12:36

And tell me about the title. I have to say to me, again, it just sounds very English. But tell me about the title, How to be Moderately Successful Career Advice for Realists.

Matthias: 12:49

Indeed. So we talked a little bit before starting that it is quite English, both in terms of title and in the tone as well, if I'm honest. So in other countries, obviously, particularly, let's say the US, you'd go for, you know, how to be fantastically successful. But the reason I chose moderately, partly it's to be a little bit arresting and make people look up, obviously, and go, hmm, why? But I really feel there's some truth behind it, meaning that I How I pitch this book is that it will get you to what I call the base camp of success. So if you think of success as a mountain to climb, this book will get you to the first bit of it, which again, I'm calling the kind of base camp, which is actually a tough enough climb as it is. And what does moderate success mean for me? Actually, the first part of the book is defining what it means for you. So I'm not defining what that means. But as a general idea, it's a place where you've got enough money to be comfortable. You've got enough responsibility to feel that this is quite good. I'm in a good sort of mid-level place. That's how I define it. And that could be just as an example, it could be maybe a head of department role or a senior manager of some sort. But again, that's really up to you to decide. It's not for me. And the first couple of chapters of the book are asking those questions. And as I said, this book will get you to this base camp idea by having a lot of little tips and tricks, incremental improvements that you can make that should get you those one or two promotions perhaps that you need to get there. And then continuing on with the analogy of the mountain, once you're at base camp of this mountain, then you can decide what to do next. And some people might decide they want to continue climbing the mountain all the way to the top. And that's fantastic. There's plenty of books for that. but the air gets thinner as you go up, right? So you might also decide that actually you're not really up for that climb because it's all really, really hard work and you might not get there. And actually base camp's quite a nice place to be. The food's quite good. The views are nice. And you'd rather just sit there and watch other people sort of struggle on ahead and you're quite happy to enjoy where you are. So that's the next step after

Emma: 14:56

that, I guess. And you're still on the mountain.

Matthias: 14:58

Exactly, exactly.

Emma: 14:59

Yeah, and you're still on the mountain. It's not as if you're totally, totally at the bottom. I have to say... It really, again, it might just be the Englishness of me, but it did really resonate with me, the topic, I think, sorry, the title for the reasons that you gave there. But you see so many books that are, you know, change your life, like be this, be that. And it's also, you know... quite over the top and, you know, the biggest superlatives that they can think of. And that's not necessarily real life for the vast majority of people. Whereas this, as you say, in the byline kind of, you know, career advice for realists did feel to me much more practical, much more real life, much more something that, you know, a significant percentage of people can do and get benefit from. So yeah, I was just interested because I could imagine a lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot of people, perhaps more so our American friends being a bit confused by the title. Why would you want that?

Matthias: 16:01

It's also in my own career, just for what it's worth, because I've taken this time out to write it, but I do intend to go back and back into corporate life. And I have had a few discussions about that, interviews, early discussions. People are like, hang on, so does that mean you only want to be moderately successful? I don't think we want people here who just want to be moderately successful. So it has been a bit of a risk for my own career as well I suppose but I thought it was worth it and it and it is it is my personality as the things you just mentioned in the sense that I'm about action I'm about making probably smaller incremental improvements but a lot of them which eventually will will add up rather than this yeah chasing this sort of one huge thing um so I guess every every author in some ways puts that personality into the books that they write so that's that's

Emma: 16:46

my yeah yeah absolutely yeah you mentioned the structure there and lots of of kind of 40 or so, I think you said, sort of short, sharp chapters, again, kind of really, really practical. There were a few that kind of stood out to me that I thought it'd be interesting to kind of chat in a bit more detail about and understand some of the stories behind them. Again, as you said, every chapter's got a real life story in, which I also liked. A big percentage or a pretty significant chunk of the book is around working with other people. I think for the obvious reasons. There's not many jobs out there where you don't have to work with other people. And, you know, other people bring lots of positives with them. They also bring some challenges with them. I guess that's just life. But yeah, tell me about your approach to working with other people and how you've kind of thought about those chapters.

Matthias: 17:44

Yes, working with other people is clearly a fundamental part of being successful in any job. or certainly the vast majority of jobs but that's why it's a really important part of the book as well and the way i've structured is is i'm starting with the fundamentals of understanding other people and where they're coming from because i think that's got to be the first part of being able to deal with them well is knowing what drives them why do they act the way they act what are their objectives and there's three parts to that in the book the first one is what their role is, which, again, is kind of obvious, right? Are they in legal? Are they in finance? Are they in commercial marketing, sales, wherever they may be? And people in those departments will have very different reasons for operating the way that they are. And if you, let's say, are in sales and marketing and you are annoyed at the legal person who keeps blocking your project and you just sit there going, why do they not understand how important this is? That can be quite frustrating.

Emma: 18:43

I can't imagine why you chose that example. Well, it

Matthias: 18:45

happens quite a lot. But you've got to understand that legal does it for a reason. They're not generally doing it because they want to be annoying. They're doing it because their job is to make sure that you don't you know, get the company or the CEO, whoever in trouble. So I think it's quite basic. But if you don't step back for a minute and say, well, hang on, let me just understand what drives them. What are their objectives? What are their KPIs? And, you know, what role do they have? It'll make it a lot harder because you'll just end up headbutting with quite a few people. So the department, some of the fundamental drivers as who they are as a person can be sometimes quite important to find out which culture they're from. We talked about that a little bit before, can influence how they act as well so that's the first part doing that inventory of I suppose why do people act the way they are and also they're just that personality profiles which I've got a bit early in the book as well so things like it's called the color wheel or the Myers-Briggs test which some of some of you might have heard of which is really about the preferences and the way of operating of different people are you more an ideas person more a numbers person are you more of a introvert more of an extrovert are you more sort of thinking or feeling that sort of thing so so there's a lot of different ways of being able to understand people And I think if you take the time sometimes to step back and rather than going, oh, this person's just difficult, you try and figure out why are they doing what they're doing, that can be a lot easier. So that's the first part of the section of working with people is to understand them well. And then there's some specific examples about working with certain types of people after that.

Emma: 20:20

It's such a, as you say, it's a relatively simple point, but with so much complexity underneath it, because I think it's just human nature, isn't it? It's very easy to see things from our own perspective. We're used to that. And someone else's perspective to us might appear... difficult or like they're doing it on purpose or they're just out to annoy me or you know all of the things we we say in our hopefully in our own heads most

Matthias: 20:50

of the time i've got one i've got one chapter in there which is called working with idiots which again is is purposely a little bit pushing it in terms of the title but but it but an idiot is defined as you wish to define it so it's just somebody who would you know people who annoy you at work i guess which there will always be some people right that you're like oh i can't believe i have to work with x or that person again and and again the first part of that chapter actually is let's figure out are they really idiots or are you two just very different and as a result you just don't see it life the same way and quite quickly you've sort of had you know bashed heads and then and then ever since then you you haven't liked each other so i'm pretty convinced that when you make your list of of idiots which is my action you know make make make a list that let's say half of them there's actually just something on the line that's that's quite different yeah um there will be some people left that you still think are it's at the end of that time not promising that magically you know no one's going to ever annoy you but i think you can reduce the number in that box by thinking through a little bit and then you still need to figure out what to do with the remaining ones and and broadly i'm suggesting either to just ignore them if possible or to find some sort of accommodation where maybe you've got a a third bit that you can both work towards together but but yeah so so It's just understanding that. And I think once you get into it, if you move from the, oh, these people are annoying sort of mindset to actually let me understand where they're coming from. I think it can be quite fun, the sort of psychology for beginners, if you like. I think it can be quite an interesting game of really trying to get under the skin of what drives people.

Emma: 22:26

Yeah, totally. And I think it just changes the... I'm not going to say vibe. I can't think of a better word than that. But it changes your approach in your head in a, gosh, in another lifetime, whatever it would be, 20-odd, 25 years ago or something. I actually worked with the Disc Behavioural Profile, the colour wheel that you mentioned there, and used to do a lot of training with it. We used to do it for team building, sales, influencing, but all from the basis of understand yourself and your own drivers, but also understand those things. in other people and it was so fascinating to see the kind of the aha moments for people when they would realise that person that they were clashing with that you know they probably thought was an idiot was actually just on the opposite side of the model to them and it wasn't that they were an idiot it was just that they were very different in the way that they went about things and then the sort of the second light bulb that would go on of well if I think that about them then they must think that about me and suddenly there's this whole new level of understanding and and also kind of a path forward to say well if I adapt a little bit and you adapt a little bit then actually we can meet in the middle and hopefully it won't be such a painful a painful interaction going going forward but yeah I'm with you I find stuff like that just super fascinating I think people in general are infinitely fascinating and why they do the things that they the things that they do the other part of that working with people that I thought was really interesting and one that can often I think be overlooked is how to work more effectively with your with your boss and obviously they have a responsibility to manage you, but there is an element of a two-way street there. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Matthias: 24:18

I agree. And I've actually called it managing your boss, because as you said, clearly they're your manager, you're not their manager. Nonetheless, I think there's a lot you can do to make that relationship better and also work for you really well. And then have what I've called this sort of adult to adult relationship, as opposed to what can sometimes happen as more the parent-child relationship. relationship where they tell you what to do and you just do it which sometimes can be useful if they're very senior and you want to learn but generally it's much better to have that that sort of open relationship and again it starts with understanding them and and figuring out what would what do they want out of their role currently do they want to get promoted do they want to be seen to be really good or whatever it is that that they want to do so understand that piece um And then I think in some instances, also swallowing your pride a little bit and making it work for you that way, because bosses like to be made to look good. So if you can do that, then that's always a bonus. So that's one thing. And then also using them to achieve your goals ultimately. And sometimes, again, that can be let's say you want something to be achieved, you try and convince your boss to do this project or whatever it is. And sometimes they might just absorb it and pretend that it was their own idea and sort of sell it on to the next person. And you might think, well, how dare they? That's just outrageous. That's my idea. But sometimes if the idea ultimately happens and your project gets funded or whatever, then sometimes just accept that that's part of the deal and swallow your pride and sort of get on with it. Not always, clearly. You don't want to always be in the show But sometimes it might just be better to do that. So it's just finding the right ways to, again, understand and then make work for you that relationship. And you should get a lot back in return from that.

Emma: 26:10

A theme that comes up quite a lot, actually, and I think it specifically also comes up in that bit is around being proactive, right? in different scenarios and I think the example you gave there also made me think of that it's actually not just kind of sitting back and just letting your again it sounds strange to say your boss drive the car because yes they're the boss but if you can be proactive in the things that you're looking for of you know well actually in the next year or two years I'd like to get here how you know is it possible that you can help me work towards that and actually be more proactive in the way that you approach that relationship and and some of the goals that you've kind of got around that. But yeah, I think it's one that people don't sort of naturally think of, that one, but can have such a huge impact as you say. It's

Matthias: 26:59

probably the most important relationship you have at work normally. So making that work for you and making sure it's a good relationship and that you get... as much as you can out of it. It's really important. And you mentioned proactivity. It's really a theme throughout the entire book. And again, my personality, I think you just have to be proactive if you want to learn, if you want to advance your career. Hopefully, if you're someone who would pick up a book like that, you want to be proactive. So that's a good start. But yeah, not a lot's going to come to you naturally. Some might. And sometimes you need a bit of luck at work as well. So sometimes a role might open up and you can just get it. Or sometimes somebody might leave or whatever might happen. there's certainly going to be a bit of luck in in in life but but but but even if that luck happens you need to practically grab it so i think that's a really important key tenet of the whole thing is is make your own luck ultimately and grab the opportunities ask for things you know don't wait for things to happen to you don't kind of complain that you've been overlooked for this that and the other even if it's true it's not really going to make any difference if you sit there complaining. I feel good for a day or two. So I'm not saying never do it. But ultimately, you need to go out there and ask for things and grab the opportunities that are there and make your own opportunities. So I think that's a really important

Emma: 28:15

part. Yeah. And on that proactive part, the story that I've got in my mind, I think the title of that section was Speak Up. But I've got the example of the Austrians in the ski lift or trying to get on the ski lift and kind of barging people out the way. I have actually experienced that firsthand as well. And it's true. I learned pretty quick that I couldn't just stand back and queue. Like I had to get in and had to use my pole to, you know, block the people on either side of me.

Matthias: 28:44

Yeah. So the Austrians might be a bit far along the edge of the proactivity sometimes where actually, you know, talking about the cultural clashes, having first turned up in the UK where it's very much the opposite and it's all the politeness and please no after you no no after you it can be quite an interesting culture clash when you when you come from a place like Austria where it's not you know I suppose queuing at bus stops is one of the examples in Austria there'll just be a sort of circle around the stop and everyone will try and get on whereas in the UK it's a sort of nice line of whoever got there first so I'm not saying and clearly there's a line in all these these things right so I'm not saying be rude I'm not saying get your elbows out actively and push people out the way. And you have to obviously find the right balance of doing that. But equally, if you just sit there and go no after you, no after you, then that's also not going to get you on the bus either. So it's finding that right balance of grabbing opportunities and being proactive without obviously pushing it too far

Emma: 29:46

there's this thing and I did it myself for many years and probably still was doing it up until not that long ago if I'm honest but that idea that my work will speak for itself and like that's good enough like if I'm doing a great job and I'm smashing it and I'm doing all this stuff and you know my team's happy and all of those things that people will see that and I will be noticed for that and yes like that sounds nice But the reality is that, you know, nine times out of 10, it's not going to be enough that you kind of do need to put your hand up a bit. You do need to speak up. You do need to, you know, push yourself to the front of the queue, whatever analogy we're going to use a little bit. And again, be proactive in kind of advocating for yourself. And I think certainly for people earlier in their career, that's a really useful piece of advice that just doing a great job probably isn't going to be enough, unfortunately, as much as, you know, we'd like it to be in kind of Pollyanna world. It's probably not true.

Matthias: 30:54

Yeah, that is true. And people who ask for more will ultimately get a bit more on balance. Also on things like promotions, which we're probably going to come to in a minute. But same thing, if you just sit there and, as you just said, go, I've done a great job, therefore I'll get promoted. That may work, but if you don't, work at it and and use the processes and and so on which you can maybe speak in a minute then you'll just increase your chances of that happening

Emma: 31:20

yeah do you want to do that now seeing as we've seeing as we've brought it up because you did have a really kind of structured approach to that in the book so

Matthias: 31:28

i've got i've got two parts to thinking about the promotions piece one part's quite boring but quite important and the other bit's a bit more fun so the boring bit is the process that i've mentioned and especially in larger companies that will be quite structured promotions processes in terms of what time of the year did they happen? So when do they happen? Who gets to decide? Typically, your manager is the first level, so they have to support your promotion, but they are rarely the only person who is in the decision-making process, especially as you become more senior. There's often panels or groups of people or calibration or something. And then you may have to hit certain numbers. So if there's an end-of-year review process, you might have to be above average or some other score in order to be even considered for promotion. And this can be quite complex and again some people in my experience can be a bit negative about that whole process and feel that it's stacked against them or it's sort of rigged or some version of that and my experience certainly from having been on quite a few of those panels is generally that's not true and promotions are quite hard to get right 100% because there will always be a little bit of subjectivity in it as much as you try to take it out but people will try hard to make it as objective as possible So rather than thinking that it's rigged against you or that you might not you know you might be disadvantaged is again just try and figure out what those processes really are who makes the decisions what are the criteria and you can even speak to either your manager or HR about it my recommendation in the book actually is sit down with the right person in HR and just ask them to talk you through it and to really explain exactly how it works and they'd normally be delighted because a lot of HR work is can be tricky and can be difficult and dealing with difficult people or some problems so if you just say look all I want to know is how this process works please help people are often delighted to do that so I'm sure that's part one is again it's a bit boring but it's just really understanding that well and then using what you've learned to your advantage in terms of if you know a certain number of people then as you said make sure those people know who you are and what you've done if you need to hit certain scores certain criteria again make sure that you know what those are and if there's some gaps in what you need to hit often there's a list of competencies that companies will look for like. analytics strategy people those sorts of things and being really clear on where you're perceived to be strong and where you perceive to be less strong and then working on those gaps that you might have so again you can demonstrate that you've really taken those things into account is also really important so i think all that that process path is worth investing into and and really understanding how it works

Emma: 34:11

and i think if you do essentially like that process is actually your friend because that process will actually tell you how to get there it will lay out out the scoring and what each bit means and and what that what that particular section is measured against and and rather than as you said being kind of negative about that or feeling that it's stacked against you well actually it's the opposite it's actually there to try and make it as equal as as possible and to take you know the fact that somebody likes you more than someone else kind of out of the process ideally and actually make it about the skills or we

Matthias: 34:47

can compensate but that is the game there might be some of that of you know I like this person more than the other person but

Emma: 34:53

and you're never going to get rid of it entirely but yeah it's as you say it's never going to be there's always going to be that element of subjectivity

Matthias: 35:01

and then the second part of the promotion is thinking and this is probably the most important career advice I've ever received is if you want to have a certain type of role you've then act like you're already in that role rather than waiting to get it so my example was a few years ago i wanted to be a director have a title of director in the company and i was complaining if you like and going well if only I had that title I could do all these things and I could be more strategic and I could make these decisions and then my boss at some point said to me if you want to be a director then act like one and I thought what does that mean and actually with hindsight it's the best advice which basically just means whatever next level you'd like to get promoted to don't wait to be given that role before you act like that role but actually start behaving as if you were already there because that will make the decision at the end a lot easier because what you ideally want in this decision-making meeting is if someone says, oh, Mattia should be promoted to this level, everybody else goes, oh, I thought he already was at that level because that's how he did it. Then it's the easiest decision ever. It can feel a bit scary sometimes because you might think, oh, am I really allowed to make these decisions or act in this way or lead this meeting or whatever? And again, you have to feel your way into it, but often you are allowed to do that and people just accept that you're now doing it the way you're doing it. So you just have to give it a go. But I think stepping up to that new level before you're given the promotion is the best way of getting there ultimately. So yeah, that's my number one advice. It's already step up before you get

Emma: 36:42

it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also, totally part of that, but I guess the thinking behind that. So when you're looking at challenges or problems or whatever's coming to you day to day, adjusting your... thinking so that you're not looking at it from the level that you were at you're you're looking at it from that next level up of well you know what are the things that are actually important here and and and kind of changing the way that you approach approach things more more broadly

Matthias: 37:09

indeed and back to proactivity sorry just briefly there's there's there will be opportunities for you to be proactive here as well and step into leading certain meetings or writing certain papers or whatever it is and just grabbing some of those opportunities even if you feel that maybe they're a bit stretchy well just give it a go and see if you can see if you can do that before

Emma: 37:29

it's the old it's the old well it always gets attributed to richard branson i don't know whether he actually said it or not but the old say yes and then figure it out later if someone you know offers you the opportunity or there is an opportunity put your hand up say yes and then work out how you're going to do it afterwards i think it kind of goes hand in hand with that with that proactivity one assuming he said something like that but i think it was him um the other the the topic that I wanted to touch on because it is something that I think is just coming up kind of more and more at the moment is around stress and how you sort of find balance, particularly, I mean, affects a lot of people, but particularly in some of those more senior roles where, you know, you're getting more and more pressure for more and more outcomes. How do you manage that? And what have you found that's kind of worked for you?

Matthias: 38:25

Yeah, so look, the first thing I'd say is it's not easy, right? Stress can be a great thing because it drives you on and a little bit of stress is a good thing because it pushes you But too much stress clearly can push you over the edge and can have all sorts of negative consequences. So it's definitely not easy. So there's two things I'd say. The first one is that balance. I think if you recognize those two competing parts and if you make sure there's sort of proactively try and make sure there's a reasonable balance, I think that's the first step. And when I say two competing parties, on the one hand, you have to be confident in yourself that you're doing the right thing and that you're good at what you do and remember that if there is stress and if people put pressure on you that's probably because they have high expectations of you and there's a quote called pressure is a privilege which is written on a tennis court in the US somewhere and it's true to some extent so if people give you lots of work and ask you to do many things and have high expectations that's because they expect you They think you're quite good or very good. They

Emma: 39:30

think you can do it. So

Matthias: 39:32

take that as a compliment. Find somewhere in yourself that comfort or that strength that actually you are very good at what you do. On the other hand, you also want to make sure you keep getting better and you keep looking out for the new thing and you keep solving problems and so on. So it's a sort of version of something called the Stockdale Paradox, which is at the same time, you have to be 100% convinced that you're going to get there because you're amazing. But at the same time, you also have to be 100% convinced that there's loads of problems that you need to fix right now. And so you have to try and have these two things not be too much out of kilter because clearly if you think you're too amazing and you become overconfident that's going to be a recipe for trouble but if you fall too far the other way and think oh my god it's all too much i can't go with it then that's the trouble the other way so find some way of balancing that out and particularly i think the key is to remind yourself that actually you are very good at what you do by and large you know think of write down or keep somewhere the good work that you've done remind yourself that people give you compliments and praise and that you've delivered good work. I think it's coming back to that inner strength when it becomes all a bit too much and remind yourself that ultimately the reason it is a bit much is because people think that you're good at what you do. But it's finding that balance as always. And then the second bit, I think, which is maybe even more important is remind yourself that you're not alone in this thing. So there's a chapter in the book called, you're not the only one who can't sleep at night. And it's 100% true. So you might sit there Hopefully, it's not getting as far as not being able to sleep at night, but maybe sometimes that happens. And you sit there and you go, oh, I can't sleep, or it's too much, or I'm waking up because of this presentation. And initially, you think, oh, it must be just me. Everyone else is coping, right? It's this sort of part of the imposter syndrome bit as well. It's like, oh, I'm the only one who can't cope with this. Everyone else is doing great. I can guarantee you that is not true. Everyone else is not doing great. 90% of other people will have very similar experiences. sort of reactions or stress moments to you so if you can find yourself somebody at work or a friend but preferably somebody else at work and you you start opening up a little bit you don't have to tell them all your things but just if you come into us i couldn't you know if someone says how you doing instead of going yes i'm great you go you know what actually i i feel a bit tired because i couldn't sleep that well last night because this is on my mind you'd be amazed how quickly the other person will go, oh yes, that happens to me all the time as well. And this happened to me the other day. And very quickly, you're down an interesting road of discussion and a bit of sort of mutual help because I can, as I said, guarantee you're definitely not the only one. It happens to pretty much everybody in different ways at different times. So you just have to find a way to take strength from those two things. Not that it's easy. It's never particularly easy if you want to be a, a high achiever but but yeah you're not the only one and you are actually very good at what you do so remind yourself of that when it when it gets tough

Emma: 42:33

yeah it's so true isn't it I've gosh I've had conversations like that with many people over the years and I'm trying to think if I've ever met anyone who has not said some version of that I actually can't I can't think of someone who's just been like oh no it's just you know water off a duck's back everyone has had you know some some version of that but I think it's very easy to to kid ourselves that yeah as you say it's just us that we're we're the only ones that are that are struggling and I think it is one of the things I was going to say in the modern world that's a terrible turn of phrase but I can't think of another way of saying it that it has become so much more normalized to to talk about those things and to say even the fact that you know imposter syndrome has just become something that people talk about much more openly and readily and I think that can only be a good thing that that people are more open to say you know we're not all we're not all perfect and we're not all just you know cruising along that as you said the some of these jobs are really hard and and some of the decisions and the things that you've got to to deal with aren't easy and and that's kind of what what comes along with it but yeah having those those open conversations can you think of anyone that you've ever ever kind of ask that question with and they've just looked blankly at you and gone oh no well

Matthias: 44:01

some people some people still don't particularly like talking about it right and and opening up so i've no that's different who it who it is but i still think even those people will have some moments most likely and the other thing probably just to add on on this area is is also saying no to things occasionally which might feel quite hard and be a bit weird but again if you're very good at what you do people will ask you for more things because they know that you can deliver and if you keep saying yes to everything because you want to please people and you want to you know if you're bad about saying no that's going to make it harder right so occasionally you you do need to also just find a way to say no or say yes but i can do it next week or some other version of of that because if you keep loading yourself up with ever more things to do then it's just going to go harder

Emma: 44:47

yeah yeah Yeah, a hundred percent. I actually had that conversation with a client a couple of weeks ago saying, you know, one of the things that's a part of her sort of value proposition is that she's really delivery focused, results focused, like always gets it done. And that's a huge positive for her. But the flip side is that people come to her with more and more stuff. And at this point in time, she wasn't great at kind of setting boundaries around that. And as you say, kind of saying no to some things, but it's a good skill to- Yeah, it's not easy. I

Matthias: 45:19

mean, I've got a chapter in there called, strategy is deciding what not to do, which is one of my favorite sayings. Because if your strategy is, I'm going to do A, B, C, D, E, F and G, then is that really a strategy?

Emma: 45:32

It's not really a strategy.

Matthias: 45:33

The hard bits are going, you know what, these bits over here, they're quite sensible, but we're just not going to do them because we just can't do everything at the same time. So that also applies in a micro way to yourself, I think.

Emma: 45:45

Final question, Matthias. The time goes very quickly and it's always the final question. And that is, what do you know now that you wish you knew then?

Matthias: 45:55

So I've thought about this a little bit because you did ask me in advance. And for me, I think it's around your value proposition as a person and the specialisation that should be in that. So let me explain a little bit. As I said at the beginning, I would consider myself to be a commercial generalist, which means that I could put my hand to quite a lot of different things and be quite good at them, I would think, which is lovely because it gives me lots of options even now. Looking at my next role after this book, there's quite a few different types of things that I'm looking at. However, as you progress in your career and as you get a bit older, I suppose, I think it is actually valuable to have a slightly narrower value proposition so when you start out try out different things some might work some might not that's fantastic but I think as you get into your say 30s late 30s is really be very clear or clearer on what is your specific value proposition and to narrow down to specialise into an area that is yours to own and that could be literally anything you know I'm a biotech salesperson, I'm a digital marketing expert, whatever it is. Because as you progress, I mean, companies at the end of the day are pyramids of some sort, and therefore there are fewer senior jobs available than junior jobs. That's just life. So if you want to get one of those more senior jobs, you will be competing it'll be harder to compete because there'll be more people for the number of roles, a few roles for the people. So there will be some people who are specialists for each of those roles. And if you come in a bit like me and go, well, I could do this, then people might look at you and go, well, I'm sure you could, but I have this other person over here who's done it three times before and who's a big specialist in this area, so therefore I'm going to give it to them instead of you. So it's a bit of a long winded way. But I think as you progress, if you haven't done it already, you might have been lucky, you might have already chosen something early on. And that's fantastic. But if you haven't, certainly in your 30s, I think just really start a little bit honing in on a specialism that you can then really develop and create your value proposition around. I think that would be my advice to myself from now on. from 20 years ago, I guess. I might have done that a bit earlier than I had.

Emma: 48:08

Thank you. I really enjoyed that. It's a subject I could talk to you for hours about, but in the interests of time, I won't. But yeah, thank you. And as I said to you, I think before I pressed record, I really enjoyed the book and really easy to read, very practical, very funny. So I'll pop links in the show notes to your LinkedIn profile and I'll pop some details in there about the book as well if people want to check it out.

Matthias: 48:34

Great, fantastic. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it as well. So thanks very much.

Emma: 48:37

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