Career advice from a director

What’s the best advice you ever received? What tips did you wish you knew earlier? How did this help you on your career journey?

We’ve spoken to members of the Apolitical community to share their top three pieces of career advice with us. In this article, Donal Cronin explains why it’s important to actively listen in their role as director of his own company.

Your first piece of advice:

Listen way more than you talk. Learn to listen - it's not a passive act. It's active. Be interested, be curious, ask questions, hold back on wanting to make your point or win the argument. Try to understand where the person you're talking to is coming from. Work on your listening all the time.

Your second piece of advice:

Always create time for reading and learning. You have to keep learning, renewing, refreshing. And that takes time. Make the time. Get rid of some other activities that aren't the best use of your time. When you make it important, you find the time.

Your third piece of advice:

Mind yourself. You are your own most valuable asset. Get fresh air, get exercise, mind your diet. And you don't need perfection, you just need to be good enough most of the time. You don't need to run marathons - you can walk. Have some treats. But make your own health - your physical and mental wellbeing - a priority in your life.

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