Reflections on career, positioning and delivering value.
Last week, while waiting for my flight home in a crowded VIP lounge, I thought about how, a few years ago, this place was synonymous with status, exclusivity and privilege, and today it’s the least you expect from your Credit Card.
And this doesn’t just happen at airports.
In the market, I see the same movement: MBAs, fluency in English, attendance at innovation events, mastery of digital tools… all this was once a differential. Today, it’s the minimum expected.
What has changed? What used to be a differential has become a basic criterion for taking the field. And the question that urged me while I was at the airport was:
What differentiates a professional who can really stand out?
The VIP room can symbolize that moment in your career when you have gained access, recognition and influence. It’s comfortable. But he also runs the risk of falling into the trap of passive status: being in a prestigious environment without necessarily making an impact with his presence, without putting his talents to use, without creating new possibilities, without positioning himself when he should.
No wonder Richard Barrett considers Status and Image to be potentially limiting values that don’t contribute to our evolution.
It’s as if, after winning the badge that opens doors, we’ve settled for where we dreamed we’d be one day.
And we forget that, in reality, the VIP lounge is just the place where we rest or wait for the next flight, it doesn’t actually take us anywhere. We need to know how to differentiate between the position we deserve to occupy today and the one we want to reach as a destination.
In a world with so much access to everything, wisdom is being able to take advantage of the place we have gained to broaden our vision. And through deep self-knowledge, understanding how we can continue to add value wherever we are.
What I realize is that we have an abundance of professionals on the market with credentials, but a shortage of authenticity.
And you can see it here on Linkedin, through the countless articles written from shallow prompts. Or on Instagran, with the invitations to join networking clubs for R$20,000.00 where people go into debt for the right to join and socialize with other potential debtors.
The fact is that the market is becoming more and more competitive for professionals and companies that already have an established reputation, and whose challenge is to remain relevant in the market.
If you’re already in a strategic position, perhaps it’s time to go beyond the old SWOT analysis. It’s no longer enough just to analyze your strengths and weaknesses, or the opportunities and threats that the moment offers.
How about thinking about your career from the point of view of strategic licenses?
I think this methodology recommended by StartSe for business management and planning can also help you evaluate your professional assets at these three levels:
- License to operate: That’s the basis. You’ve probably done your homework and have the bare minimum to get on the scene and be effective at what you do: a good CV, your connections, your personal brand.
- License to compete: No executive grows in their career if they are not self-critical to the right degree. Self-evaluation is a continuous strategy for improvement, but ask for feedback to assess how you continue to have a differential capable of delivering results. Only those who seek to improve themselves can compete in the field, going above and beyond with each delivery, acting consistently and developing skills that are relevant at critical moments.
- License to win: this is exactly where the rarest and most precious space in a professional career lies: what only you can deliver, in your own way, with your own truth. You can’t get this license with a CV. It manifests itself when presence, clarity and consistency become a legacy. It involves self-knowledge with awareness, in other words, the ability to see yourself in context and make adjustments wisely, in order to deliver what the market needs today, to compete with professionals who have prepared themselves to get this far, with more tools than you had when you started your career.
Being in the VIP lounge can be a license to compete. But winning requires much more than taking to the field: it requires preparation and substantive, recurring commitment.
The game is internal: it’s not where you are, it’s how you move. And professional maturity is expressed when we stop chasing just more hits – and start consciously choosing the impact we want to promote.
Your position today is visible. Can you see as clearly as you see your chair, the collective impact you promote? Keeping License to Win up to date requires intentional pauses to recalibrate presence, contribution and coherence.
I’m going to propose an exercise. Take some time this weekend to answer these 4 questions and assess whether your license has expired and which of your unique talents you need to better target in order to renew your License to Expiry.
- Do you recognize when you need to change your delivery strategy?
- Do you know what gets you off track – and what gets you back on track?
- Do you identify the dynamics around you that need your maturity, not your automatic response?
- Does my delivery have its own power or does it depend on context to seem relevant?
So that you can differentiate yourself by operating with purpose, authenticity and being able to generate value in complex environments.
The real competitive advantage lies in transforming your natural abilities into strategic assets at the service of something greater: your reputation, your legacy and your ability to generate impact.
It needs to be revised:
1) Where do you invest your energy, which effectively contributes to your growth?
2) What strength of yours is really in circulation so that everyone can keep moving forward with your relevant contribution?
3) Who do you choose to build with, and what impact does your presence still have? Are you surrounded by peers and conversations that challenge you, or by echoes and repetition?
Because, at the top, it’s not the accumulation that makes the difference – it’s the awareness of what’s still alive in your delivery. When access changes, the difference is recognizing that trajectory doesn’t guarantee permanence.
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