This picture shows one of the most amazing creations that I’ve ever seen.
A question that popped into my mind after seeing this was:
“Did you ever create anything amazing in your professional life?”.
I think I did early on in my career when I was working for Deutsche Bank…
* I built a derivatives trade loader which helped to reduce trade mis-bookings and the subsequent costly remediation activities.
* As far as I know, that piece of software was used in the booking of tens of thousands of derivatives trades into the bank’s main trading system.
* I found out later that my software was in use for several years. I used to meet friends of friends who had seen my name in the source code comments when they worked at Deutsche – long after I had left the organisation.
* My understanding is that the cost savings would have been in the ten’s of millions of Euros.
I’m proud of that achievement – it feels amazing to me (and yes I do tell my kids about it – LOL).
Of course, it wasn’t a single person effort – my colleagues developed other components, some folks tested functionality, others managed releases, many people gave me guidance and so on.
So, like most amazing things, the big result came from a team effort.
Did you create something that felt amazing from your point of view?
I bet you did – be proud of your achievements.
By the way, the inspiring picture below is of Mount Fanjing in China.
– Here, perched 2,336 meters above sea level, sits the Temple of Buddha and Maitreya Temple.
– If you look carefully at the picture, you’ll see that that the temples are separated by a gorge.
– Visitors pass from one temple to the other on a narrow stone bridge.
– It takes about four hours to hike the nearly 9,000 steps to the temples
– This structure is thought to have been built in the 7th century AD. That’s amazing.
The reason I mention my previous work in this post is not to show off, but to illustrate a point. Its actually a mind-hack for myself….
Thinking about something successful in the past is useful for me because it inspires me when I’m having a negative day, feeling unproductive, etc.
I have an anchor point that I can refer back to – when everything went well, when I was in a state of flow, when I created something that had an impact and that made a difference.
Your turn…
What amazing thing did you create during your career and who helped you?
PS – don’t forget to subscribe to my email newsletter for more red hot ideas and insights to help you work towards being extraordinary…