RWL024 How to Cultivate Key Traits for Remote Work Success and Stay Connected

Characteristics of Successful Remote Workers

Speaker 1

0:00

Hello, it's Alex from Remote Work Life here. I hope you are well. Remote Work Life is the podcast for remote professionals from around the world to help you to grow and learn from those who know the world of remote work best. I'll share with you what I've learned from my conversations with a number of CEOs, leaders and entrepreneurs, and I'll talk to you about the benefits of remote work and hopefully help you to understand what to expect so you can begin to build your own remote work life. And if you've been joining me or listening to me, over the last few episodes, I've been talking about the pillars of remote work. These pillars I have derived from my conversations with various remote professionals over the last year or so and, in terms of the actual seven pillars, I've actually identified seven pillars. The reason I put them together, or at least wanted to let you know about them, is because these tend to be these seven pillars tend to be features, characteristics that have cropped up about remote workers and about remote work from the various conversations. So I've noticed patterns in in what people have said about remote work and remote workers and decided to just really try to encapsulate it within these seven pillars for you, whether you're new, and I think it would help, if you are new, to understand what it takes to be a remote worker or to have a remote business. To have a remote business, or if you are, I suppose, interested in your own personal development, it can help you to really to begin to understand what you need to do to, I guess, level up your experience in your your your, I suppose, your capacity as a remote worker, whether you be in a business or have your own business. So that's the idea behind it, and today's pillar that I'm going to talk about is entrepreneurial spirit, because I believe that remote workers share many of the characteristics that entrepreneurs have, and when we think about entrepreneurs, I guess we think immediately about somebody who owns their own business or is a ceo, for example, or some sort of um, yeah, some sort of startup or whatever it may be. But those, all, those are all the things that perhaps spring to mind initially. But that's not to say, even if you are working for a remote business or a non-remote business, you can still have the characteristics of an entrepreneur, and I think if you do, then it will put you in good stead if you're looking to get into a remote role Because, as I said, there's lots of similarities, lots of similarities.

Speaker 1

3:26

One of those similarities and I'm going to go through a few similarities just here just quickly is remote workers tend to for a new role in a remote business. What you'll need to do is really understand where your expertise lies and sell that expertise to whoever it is you may be speaking to, whether it be a hiring manager or a CEO or somebody that you meet at a networking event. Don't be unfocused, don't talk about too many things. So it's really important that you understand where your niche is. So, for example, what I tend to see quite often is digital marketers, especially, talking about all of the things that they can do so copywriting, email marketing, seo, google ads, facebook ads, instagram and they tend to just really list it and throw it all out there, when what you should first and foremost do is really begin to understand what the demands and what the requirements are when it comes to a project you're pitching for or a role that you're applying to, and sell those specialist skills and that niche that you're within to the person who's looking for your skills. Because what you tend, what you will, what will happen is you'll appear unfocused, and that's the last thing you really want. So that focus is something that the best remote workers, some of the best remote workers and entrepreneurs have in common. Another, I suppose, common feature, common characteristic of a remote worker and an entrepreneur, and my reason behind saying or using the entrepreneurial spirit pillar is because remote workers, entrepreneurs, have passion, they have a real passion about certain things. So another example I can give I'll give myself as an example. One of my passions is tech, technology, gadgets, um and you can often use your passions as again, to to spark conversations, to sell what you do, so that people can understand you better and where you're coming from, your values, your, you know, the mission, all that kind of thing. So just just to give you an example.

Speaker 1

5:42

So, as much as I like tech, I also like helping where I can to really introduce people from underrepresented groups to tech, to things like, for example, coding. I did a coding project at my kid's local school with that in mind. I understood that, for example, girls there's an under. You know, girls are certainly an underrepresented group, girls and women in the world of tech, and I wanted to do something about it and, as I said, it was my passion. So I set up this project. It was really successful. We had 12 children, 10. Five of those children did over 100 hours of code. I was really really proud of that. But I was even more proud of the fact that four of that five were girls and that really sort of really ignited a fire within me to actually continue to really push my passion and really help as much as I possibly can.

Speaker 1

6:45

So I'm always looking for opportunities, much as I possibly can. So I'm always looking for opportunities. If you're listening to this, I'm looking for opportunities to help in that regard, especially really boosting that under-representation in tech. So think about how you can do that. What passions do you have and what can you do to really not just talk about what it is but talk about how you've used your passion in a way that's helped in some way or form. So yeah, that's another common theme amongst entrepreneurs and remote workers is that passion. I don't want to go off on a tangent too much.

Speaker 1

7:23

Another common theme is autonomy, or at least the ability to thrive in an autonomous sort of uh setup, because you're not going to have somebody next to you to to help you with that particular project and you you're not always going to have an immediate access to somebody to help you out. So, uh, being able to work autonomously is something that you will need to to get used to. That's not to say you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna have or you're not gonna have um support from your teammates, from your remote teammates, but for the most part, you're going to be expected to work without any supervision, and that, again, entrepreneurs have to do that all the time, or at least they work on their projects while their team is working on their own projects. So, yeah, that's another common theme and another reason why I said that the entrepreneurial spirit is certainly a pillar of the remote workers toolkit.

Speaker 1

8:31

Another similarity is the communication Entrepreneurs, remote workers, are excellent communicators, have to be excellent communicators, and if you're not, if you're not quite there yet, it's something that you can brush up on, it's something that you can learn to do and get better at, because you're going to find that you're going to be writing quite a lot, you're going to be doing video conferences, maybe you're going to be doing audio conferences, you're going to be texting, you're going to be doing all kinds of things that, um, that I suppose mean, or that that uh makes it necessary for you to be a good communicator. Another similarity between the entrepreneur and the remote worker is they have their own setup usually and they go about creating their own setup for their own comfort. And that's something I had to do again when I had my remote office for the first time. I went about it completely the wrong way the first time around, I remember I got a kitchen table and a kitchen chair and quickly found that that was just not comfortable enough to see me through the day. So I just went about it, got an ergonomic chair, got a good desk, all that kind of thing, the equipment. Got myself a computer that was super fast, super fast broadband, all those kinds of things. That setup is something that as an entrepreneur, as a remote worker, you're going to need.

Speaker 1

10:07

So another similarity and another reason why it's it's my one of my pillars of remote work that resilience as well. Actually, resilience and discipline, it's something that is core to the remote worker and is core also to the entrepreneur. You're going to cut. You know, got experienced times when you are. You know when it becomes tough when you're on your own and you're struggling with a project or you're struggling with balance. I don't know, it may be. There's a number of different things that you may um chat, a number of different challenges that you may face along the way, but, um, what you've got to try to do is find a way of working through those challenges that. So you need that resilience. Um, it may be that you seek help and often the solutions, the answers that you uh, the answers that you seek, aren't always answers that you can give or you can, I suppose, provide yourself. So you will need to seek help, but you'll need that resilience along the way to not give up and to see your project from start to finish.

Speaker 1

11:24

And, as I said, it's linked to discipline, because there's certain things that, as a remote worker, as an entrepreneur, you will need to be disciplined in certain aspects, because you don't have somebody there telling you when to take your lunch, or at least prompting you to take your lunch. You don't have somebody saying you know, take a five minute break or do some stretching because you've been sitting at your desk for the last two hours. You need that discipline yourself. You don't have somebody there telling you to drink your water or prompt you. Everything has to come from you for the most part. So that discipline to do all of those kinds of things is something that's going to really be important to, I suppose, help you to thrive in your remote role.

Speaker 1

12:17

Organization as well. You're going to need to be super organized to get things done and, again, that's another thing that you have in common with the entrepreneur you have to be super organized. You have to be super organized, you have to be. All those words organized, discipline, resilience they're all connected in one way, shape or form. So, yeah, you can really begin to see, can't you, the common themes here.

Connecting With Remote Workers

Speaker 1

12:43

When it comes to the remote worker, it's almost like you're, even if you're employed by a remote business, you're working in a way, a business of one, because you have to organise yourself, you have to really sort of look after yourself and all those things and all those aspects so that you can really get on in life. And this is why, as I said, it's such an important pillar for you to consider. And from time to time, you're going to need to really review where you're up to in terms of your skills, your role. Are you happy with what you're doing? What do you need to go to the next level? So, again, entrepreneurs, remote workers, have a strong sense of self and if they really come to a point where they're uncertain, again, you have to use your own instincts, your own resources and your proactivity to begin to really understand where you're up to. So, again, another aspect of that remote work or of a remote worker that is similar to the entrepreneur. So that's really it.

Speaker 1

13:57

I didn't want to make this episode too long, but I just wanted to, as I said, highlight this as being a very important pillar for you to consider and if you have any questions about it or have any suggestions in fact, if you feel I've missed something out or if there's something that I can add, let me know. You can connect with me via LinkedIn or you can just connect with me via Facebook inside our free Facebook group. It's the Remote Work Life Accelerator group on Facebook, where you can also hopefully connect with other remote workers. I think we've got near enough a thousand, if not more, people inside the group, so I hope there's somebody at least in there that you can start a conversation with and get to know, because it's always important as well to really stay connected, to avoid isolation, and that's the whole purpose of this podcast. So, yeah, I hope you've enjoyed that episode. Any questions, let me know via those various avenues I just suggested and, um, I hope you can join me on the next episode where I'll be covering another another pillar of remote work.