‘Success Doctor’ Can Help You Reinvent Yourself

By Sarona-Lee Wilde, CPP, PCP

As the payroll business continues to expand globally, you may find that you need different skills and abilities than the ones you used to grow your career to date.

We may also want to use our gifts and talents differently than we have in the past or even update our purpose and vision for success in our lives—work and personal. Thinking, working, and maybe even living globally is a different experience and opportunity for many of us. How can we adapt? Where would one start?

We are talking about a lot of self-reflection, reprioritization, retooling our skills, and taking our careers in a different direction than we even dreamed about 10 or more years ago. We are rebranding ourselves, and even rethinking relationships.

How did the leaders before us do it? How do the leaders today do it?

Some leaders get “executive training” or coaching, or find a mentor. Executive training can be costly, and finding a mentor who can walk us through a complete set of strategies for success in our personal and professional lives is not easy.

Enter another solution, a book and workbook from “The Success Doctor,” Dr. Shirley Davis, called Reinvent Yourself. Not only is Dr. Davis a leadership coach, but her company SDS Enterprises, LLC, is a global workforce firm providing strategies and solutions for how to work, lead, and succeed in a global, virtual, diverse, and hyper-connected world. (You may also recognize Dr. Davis from the American Payroll Association’s Annual Congress where she was one of the Women in Leadership Series speakers.)

There are so many ways to define success that just figuring out your own personal definition will take some effort. The good news is, in the workbook Davis walks you through the self-reflection, self-assessment, and critical thinking you’ll need so that you can create your own meaningful definition of success. Along the way, you’ll also start to identify what might be getting in your way of achieving that goal so far.

In addition, you’ll look into the meaning of fear. Davis says, “Fear is a learned behavior based on our own experience or on one that has been imposed on us. Some spiritual leaders describe fear as: ‘False Evidence Appearing Real.’” That really made me think about how fear has impacted my success and what I can do about it.

In Chapter 6, “Reevaluating Your Relationships,” she discusses six types of relationships:

1. Personal
2. Mentors
3. Authoritative figures
4. Key business contacts
5. Strategic partnerships/alliances
6. Sponsors

For me, this pointed out a difference between how I look at relationships and how, for instance, the global leaders of today look at relationships. I’m familiar with the first four and spend some amount of time nurturing those relationships. However, I hadn’t thought much about strategic partnerships/ alliances and sponsors. In considering those additional types, I realize how important they are in today’s world if one wants to achieve continued success. `Davis not only describes but provides information on how to go about building relationships with all six types.

I highly recommend getting the workbook along with the book so you can really get the most out of her mentoring. You will spend some time considering what you’ve read, but to take away and incorporate what you’ve learned in her book, do the work in the workbook at the same time.

It may sound like a lot, but the book has fewer than 200 pages and includes only eight chapters. I recommend working in pencil as you may want to go back and revisit your work.

If you’ve felt unprepared for the way business is today, including a more diverse and multigenerational workforce, globalization, economic changes, and even the pace of technological advancements, it may be time for you to Reinvent Yourself.

And Dr. Davis could be your mentor through her book and workbook. Reinvent Yourself is just what we need, and at an affordable price. You can even get the book in audio format. Learn more at www.drshirleydavis.com.