It's a strange feeling when you can't relate to the national storyline at all. Every day, every headline on every news site, and every pundit on every news show discusses the awful state of our economy. They sell fear and high unemployment numbers are high up on the scary-topic list to their audience.
When this topic became popular discussion in 2009, it felt awkard telling people we were having our best year. It just didn't seem right to be proud of our growth when so many people were suffering from downsizing. A few years later, my attitude is a little different.
Hollywood Video, Circuit City and Borders, to name a few former heavyweights, aren't on the map anymore. Law school is no longer the "safe path" to big bucks, and the insurance and medical fields are going through a transformation whose outcome is anyone's guess (although most in those professions aren't optimistic).
So seeing our team open up three new locations in the past three years feels more special today. Being part of an industry that has grown from $50M 10 years ago to more than $155M in 2011 is very comforting. Creating jobs and providing opportunity for hungry, motivated professionals to become self-reliant is an even larger source of pride. Being stressed over expansion choices and client-demand obligations feels like a blessing more than a burden.
And above all, it feels like affirmation that making the right choices over the easy ones, really matters.
Our guys chose opportunity over "stability," which may have bugged a parent. They chose to be pushed and developed out of their comfort zone when stagnation and not being pushed was an option. This probably frustrated them frequently. Sometimes they declined a Wednesday happy hour to work on their pitch and occasionally woke up early on a Saturday to plan out goals instead of sleeping in. Those choices couldn't have sat well with friends still in college mode.
They took the entrepreneurial route and believed in themselves and in an industry that L.E.K. Consulting expects to double in the next three years. They found that not only is it never crowded on the extra mile, it also leads to growth, opportunity and the ability to not worry about the country's top storyline.
- Joe Nolan
