Katie Buck

The first thing I thought of was my mom and my dad. They are definitely a part of that foundation for me. I got to watch them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work so hard for themselves, for our family, and everything that they have they've worked hard for it. They're very servant leader oriented, and I think that stands out in our world today, when people truly are just curious about people, and want to understand people, and want to really help people. I luckily had that example growing up, and that's what I try to bring into everything in my life - that mentality of giving to truly give, not just giving to get, but giving to truly give. I believe that when you do that, you're gonna be successful. Just having the mindset of helping people is what success is, to me, at least. I do okay, and I have a really cool life, and I really love what I get to do, and I think it's just because I stay focused on, hey, what can I give today?

The best career advice I've ever received is from my mom, and she always said that it's not who you know, and it's not what you know, it's what you know about who you know. Essentially, it sounds great when people say they know all these people or are super smart, but what do you know about those people? How can you connect with them? How can you help them? How can you truly connect the dots for people? I've seen my mom make some insanely awesome connections between people in her network that have resulted in some very big, cool, exciting things. And it's because she's truly curious and always learning. That little nugget has always stuck with me - it's not who you know, it's not what you know, it's what you know about who you know that just makes all the difference. I think that's what I take with me, especially in my line of work.

I think the hardest thing that I had to learn was figuring out what my why was. And I didn't have to compare my why to anyone else. Over the years, I've seen people have really awesome whys - why they get up and do what they do, why they're hungry, why they're working hard, that motivator kind of thing. I think it needs to be intrinsic. You gotta harness in who you are at your core to come up with this why. I spent a lot of years having a why, but being like, oh, but it's not someone who's supporting their entire family - that's not my why. Just allowing myself to really hone in on what's important to me, what I'm working for, why I'm doing the work, and being okay that it looks different than other people's motivators. It's gotta come from inside. Having that focus is something that took me a very long time to drill in on, and it's still sometimes something I think about as I tweak it and as I get older. It's something I continue to tweak, but that's something I wish I would have had maybe a little earlier on.

The first thing that comes to mind is rejection. I read a book that I really like, it's called Rejection Proof, and this guy goes out to get rejected 100 days in a row, and lo and behold, what he finds is that people want to say yes! People want to give you things, they want to work with you. He did crazy things - he asked if he could plant a flower in someone's yard, he asked the donut place to make him special donuts, and they were like, yeah, okay. I found that, yeah, you get rejected, but every no is just getting you closer to a yes, or some people will say every no is just a not yet, or it may just be a no, but that's okay, because you never would have known if you hadn't asked. Over the years, getting into a mindset of being really okay with people saying no - it's just not the time, it's not a right fit between us, it's okay. You never are gonna get a yes if you don't ask. Anyone who's in sales feels that, and I think the people that really stand out and make a career in some form of sales are those who get okay with rejection. I believe sales is tied into everything - you're selling yourself in an interview, you're selling yourself when you're dating. Getting okay with rejection is such an important lesson in life.

Integrity is most important to me. Integrity means even when no one's watching, I stand by my values. There's so many opportunities in this world to get away with things, and so having my morals and values, my integrity, my character really lined up, and knowing who I am and what motivates me makes it really easy to make the same decisions behind closed doors or in front of the world. That's really important to me, and it's important to surround myself with clients and co-workers and a company that has those same values, and that was something I was looking for in my next position and landed at K-Force. I would also say adaptability - being able to take it and run with it. It doesn't mean that I have to be a people pleaser or bend to everyone else. It's being able to really take what's given to me and redirect or pause and figure out where I need to go from here. That's important just because life happens. Life is always life, and so being able to adapt on the fly and switch gears is really important to me too. And accountability is probably the last one. I think it goes back to integrity. It's not just about being accountable to my boss and my coworkers and people important to me that I'm doing what I say I'm gonna do, but I think it's really important for me to also be accountable to myself. As I get older, I'm in my mid-30s, everyone's got their lives, everyone's got their things going on, and so I have to be able to set out a goal and stay accountable to myself, because everyone else is doing their own things. I can't get my motivation from outside of me. So integrity, adaptability, and accountability are really important to me.