At Meta we celebrate Metaversaries – the day someone joined Meta. You can read all my previous Metaversary musings at the bottom.

Upon reaching a significant milestone today – my 7th Metaversary – I thought I would share my favorite Meta mantra, and 7 insights I took away from it in my time here.

The mantra, originally attributed to Mark Zuckerberg, but largely associated with Guy Rosen, is: Good work, consistently, over a long period of time (aka GWCLP). It was originally applied to Facebook’s growth, and used to celebrate Facebook’s milestone of reaching 2B monthly active users (!), but I think it is a great career mantra, and one that worked very well for me.

1. Good – notice we’re not talking “great” here. It emphasizes in my view the importance of consistent, reliable, predicted, productive output over the pursuit of infrequent, unpredictable, exceptional achievements. While “great” is often associated with groundbreaking results and recognition, “good” forms the foundation of a stable and efficient organization.
2. Work – they say that if you find a job you enjoy, you won’t work a day in your life. I LOVE my job most of the time, and yet it involves a lot of work. It’s really easy to do the work you enjoy, and sometimes I do wonder why do I even get paid to do it, but the trick is in the work you don’t enjoy: (a) it should be a relatively small share of your work overall, otherwise it’s really hard in my experience to deliver GWCLP; and (b) you should do it anyway. This is what GWCLP means – doing all the work, doing it well, doing it consistently, doing it all the time.
3. Consistently – Aristotle wrote: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”. From my long running and my long-standing change of diet I learned that most things in life are not a sprint, they are a marathon. And the key to cross the finish line, and be proud of yourself, is to get up every morning and do the work despite everything. This post has so many gems that are relevant to leadership, team work and overall. I’ve collected some quotes that clicked for me. A lot of the great athletes we admire (Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer come to mind) talk publicly about enjoying the grunt work, other than pursuing the limelights and trophies.  
4. Long period of time – I have now been at Meta for 7 years. I spent 5 years now in Financial Integrity (my product group within Meta FinTech). I spent 8 years at another workplace (Radvision). Over a +25 years career, I rarely jumped between workplaces. I really think it takes time for someone to get the context, learn the ropes, decipher the culture, in order to deliver GWCLP. And while I know hopping between roles has been known to provide monetary incentives, I learned to appreciate the many advantages of sticking around for a long period of time. One would argue that the monetary yield is also in favor of that.
5. What does it take to be in the same organization for a long period of time?  I think it’s a combination of finding the people who inspire you and finding the people who see the magic in you. In some cases this can be your manager. I try to be that manager for my team. In other cases it can be your work partners. I’m lucky to have such partners throughout my longer stints.  
6. What does it take to do good work in the same organization for a long period of time?  I already wrote that it has a LOT to do with relationships. They say relationships are established in war times, and yes – I have my share of “war room” stories, but the best time to invest in relationships are peace times – building deep connections with your peers without a real (transactional) purpose (yet). When you work in a place where “everybody knows your name”, everything gets easier. And more fun!
7. Good work, consistently – We all play “Alien Chess”. Which means the boards keep changing, and you need to grow, to improve, in order to deliver good work consistently. For that you need to often operate outside of your comfort zone, challenge yourself enough, grow your responsibilities. It may feel overwhelming at times, or make you feel uncertain (did anyone say Impostor Syndrome?), but after you delivered GWCLP, you will trust yourself to continue and do that through the next challenge. 

A few years ago I collected a quote from Joey: “Success is feeling good about the work you do throughout the long, unheralded journey that may or may not wind up at the launch pad.” (source). To me that is the essence of GWCLP, and regardless how this journey leads me, today I am feeling very good about it.

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Previous Metaversary posts:
1st Faceversary: the 10 things I learned during my first year at Facebook
2nd Faceversary: the 10 things I unlearned. 
3nd Faceversary:  the 3 things that defined my 3rd year
4th Metaversary: 4 things that I took away from year 4
5th Metaversary: 5 tips for success from 5 years in Meta
6th Metaversary: 6 important traits of leadership from 6 years in Meta