The president of IHOP, Darren Rebelez, shared the best career advice he has ever received, as reported by the Business Insider.
During the 11th annual National Pancake Day, IHOP served millions of free pancakes and asked their customers to donate to a charity. In celebration of the day of pancakes, Business Insider sat down with Rebelez in a New York City IHOP branch. When asked about the best career advice he has ever received, Rebelez shared two of his favourite pearls of wisdom.
The successful Rebelez, who has previously worked as a manager at Exxon Mobil and chief operating officer at 7-Eleven, said that one should be open to different opportunities, even if they don't seem like they fit in exactly with what you thought you were going to do. He also shared that he held few analytical jobs earlier in his career.
"It wasn't anything I had a background in and didn't sound really interesting to me, but I learned a lot of things that ended up helping me out later when I was at 7-Eleven and responsible for all the gasoline," he explained. "You never know how the pieces will fit together over the length of your career."
Rebelez said that working with Exxon Mobile prepared him for the executive role that he played at 7-Eleven, which gave him experiences and ideas on how to run a retail franchise which he actually needed to land his current job as the president of IHOP.
The other piece of advice that he shared was that one should not worry about the politics in the office. He shared that he has learned that office politics should not be relevant to your work and instead focus on getting good results with your work. "It's pretty rare to see someone focused on work that gets results and being a team player that isn't successful. But you do see people that are politically savvy but don't get the job done and aren't successful," he said.
