44 Partner Corin Ashby gives his five top rules for staying at the very top of your game.

I’m incredibly proud to say we’ve been shortlisted for a few industry awards lately. It’s brilliant news for our very dedicated team – and an excellent excuse to practise one or two ‘surprised but humble’ faces in the mirror.

But here’s the thing we need to keep reminding ourselves: being an award winner is an outcome. Winning is a rather less sophisticated daily habit.

Because the shiny bit – the trophy, the applause, the LinkedIn confetti – arrives at the end of the story. The work happens in the middle – the Monday morning brain that’s not convinced it has any ideas, the Thursday afternoon edit that needs another pass, the tiny detail you fix even though nobody will notice (except you… and your standards).

Daily wins

Acting like a winner, for us, is surprisingly unglamorous. It’s staying curious enough to ask better questions, and reliable enough to deliver better answers. It’s the discipline to keep quality high when timelines are tight. It’s bringing fresh thinking without forgetting the fundamentals – clarity, craft, and the client’s reality.

The real winners aren’t the names on plaques. They’re the people who turn up every day and apply themselves with perseverance and style. The ones who keep their promises, keep their sense of humour, and keep going when the brief changes for the third time (before lunch). The ones who can be meticulous and imaginative in the same hour – sometimes in the same sentence.

Here are my five habits to help you become an everyday winner

1. Stay curious: Ask the extra question before you open PowerPoint.
2. Be reliably brilliant: Do what you said you’d do, when you said you’d do it.
3. Raise the bar (then meet it): Sweat the detail, keep standards high.
4. Keep going: Momentum beats motivation on a Tuesday afternoon.
5. Bring style: Clarity, craft, and a sense of humour under pressure.

44 fact: 44 Communications has been shortlisted for its creative work in multiple categories across the FEIEA, ICE and CIPR national and international awards. The IoIC Awards shortlist will be announced in July – fingers firmly crossed.

Next up: Why failing might be the most useful thing we do.