It was a job interview, the trip to China.
It was an interview to become an international speaker, to enter ‘the circuit’.
Once you get accepted into that group, you are one of the guys who commutes in Business Class, to countries far away to share your knowledge with people who want to hear you speak because someone else has told them that you’re a celebrity.
Many years ago, before I went into practice, I was broke and I went for a big night out with some of my dental mates who were associates and earning lots of money.
One of my best friends gave me some money that night and said “you can pay me back when you’re on the lecture circuit”
I think I did pay him back (I hope I did) much sooner than that but the trip to China was a chance to get on the circuit.
Lots of people are desperate to get on the circuit. Lots of people's egos want them to be on the circuit. Lots of people would sell their soul for the chance to repeatedly take the posh seats on Emirates to places where they can stand in front of audiences and pretend to be a rockstar (even if it’s a dental rockstar)
I realised it was a job interview, but job interviews go in both directions.
I find that when I’m interviewing people for the practice.
I know I’m checking them out and I know they’re checking me out too. There is no question that in a job interview, where there are a finite amount of candidates, the interviewer is selling themselves as much as the interviewee.
For the final lecture in Qingdao on the Saturday morning (the original lecture I had been booked to do) the Head of Geistlich China came to watch me and that was the final bit of the job interview.
It was lucky that he came then because it was the best one I delivered and he genuinely seemed quite pleased.
After the lecture he commented on my tie and how nice it was, it was a new one made by Mandiip, who I had been introduced to beforehand and who made me the new suit.
I went to get changed so that we could get the car to the airport (via the Olympic sailing site from Beijing 2008) and in the car I gave him the tie as a present to say thank you for all the experiences I had had in China.
The car was to test me, it was the final interview, it was to check me out.
He liked my philosophy, he like it a lot. He is the guy that buys all his new recruits for Geistlich China the Buser GBR book and tells them that they can’t work for Geistlich until they’ve read it.
He asked me how many times I’d flew around Europe to lecture and I wonder if he already knew the answer.
I told him that I had never left the United Kingdom to lecture before now. I told him that I built The Campbell Academy so that I could bring the people to me instead of travelling to them.
He asked if I spoke for lots of different companies. I told him that I only spoke for people that I liked and I would never accept an invitation for any amount of money for somebody that I didn’t believe in.
He said he hoped I would come back to China again (he didn’t say with Geistlich) I said I hoped I would too and that I hoped I would bring my family to see it.
I told him (and I told the lecture) that I never came to China for money. It was a job interview and in the space of writing this blog (and this is often the case with writing things) I realise that the jury was out.
I realised that nobody quite knew yet whether the job interview had been successful or not.
It’s always a job interview isn’t it? Anything we do should be treated like a job interview.
We should be prepared, we should want it and we should try our best. We should want to show that we are linchpins and want to show what we’re capable of and be excited and engaged.
It’s always a two way process – you look at me and I look at you and if it works we work together.
So, in the end, the jury is out. The job interview for China and for Colin Campbell and for Geistlich.
I’m not sure they want me back, I’m genuinely not sure one way or another but secondly, I’m not yet sure that I would want to come. I’m not sure China gets the job.
Blog Post Number: 1801