As you will have seen from previous blog posts, we recently completed mock interviews for students at three local schools. We were given a list on ten questions that we had to ask each student. These questions included things like talking about a problem that a student has overcome, asking a student their strengths and how they overcome their weaknesses. It was really interesting to hear a wide range of answers from the students over the four interview sessions. One of the questions we had to ask was “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
I asked this to a student from Ernulf Academy. This student was male and had recently moved from another country to the academy. I asked where do you see yourself in five years. Without even a pause, he replied pretty quickly that in 5 years he saw himself as happy. He quickly followed that by asking if that was the wrong answer. Of course, I reassured him it certainly wasn’t. In fact, I told him, it was my favourite answer of all the interviews so far.
Over the four 2hr sessions of interviews I have asked all students “where do you see yourself in five years?”. Each answer was different, but along the same thread. The students said they saw themselves in college, university, with a family, driving a car or in their own home for example. This was the only student that gave me an answer of this sort. While it was completely unexpected, I loved it. His answer has stuck with me over the last few weeks too.
I started my own business because I wanted to be happy. But, I also wanted to make small businesses happy. I wanted to make clients happy by freeing up their time doing the online marketing stuff they hated. Instead we would do it for them. This would give them more time to do things that made them happy. This could be spending more time with their families, or focusing the extra time on their business and what makes them money.
I’ve really taken this students approach to heart. Where do I want to be in 5 years? I want to be happy and I want my clients to be happy too. But not just in five years. Also in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months and 5 years. I want to be happy now and I want our clients to be happy too.
Which leaves me to ask you the same question; where do you see yourself in five years?
