College Success Tip – Work Harder Than Anyone Else
The single most important characteristic that will determine your level of success in college is how hard you are willing to work. It all comes down to how badly you want to succeed in the classroom, with internships, in your activities, with your social life and everything else that you are involved with. Get involved in as much as you can and give your absolute best to all of it – you will be glad you did!
The easy thing to do is skip class frequently, not get involved in activities, play a bunch of video games and lay around all of the time. The right thing to do, and the thing that will determine your level of success for the rest of your life, is to get off your butt and make stuff happen in your life! The quickest way to do this is by having an exceptionally strong work ethic in everything that you do.
Here is a challenge for you – make your Return on Investment for your tuition higher than anyone else’s. In other words, gain more value from your tuition dollars than anyone else on campus receives. Learn more, get involved in more, meet more people, lead more organizations, take advantage of all the programs, build relationships with your advisors and do everything else in this book. Make it a goal to look back one day and know your tuition didn’t cost a dollar because the experience you received in return was worth millions.
The Bottom Line: Your success as a college student will not be determined strictly by a grade point average. It will be measured by what you accomplished. Your success will be based on the experiences you have, the friendships you make, the relationships you build, the lessons you learn and the impact you make. The harder you work, the more you will accomplish.
How to Have Successful Relationships as a Young Professional
As a young professional, you deal with many different types of relationships. You have relationships with your faith, your family, your friends, significant others, co-workers and mentors. Rather than focusing on any of them specifically, we are going to look at the characteristics you need to be successful in every relationship that you have. Also understand that relationships have a huge impact on the person that you are and the people that you will become. Part of having a well balanced lifestyle is your ability to have quality relationships. This article details the five things that are critical in building and maintaining great relationships.
Be Loyal and Dependable
Always be loyal to those in your life who have taken the time to help you become a better person. You have had people in your life that have gone out of their ways to teach you, mentor you, give you gifts, support you and have been there for you during difficult times. Remember those acts of kindness, return those favors and be loyal to those people. Also be dependable. Be the person who your friends know they can go to during a difficult time. When you tell someone that you are going to do something, always follow through on that promise and make sure your word is as good as gold.
Be Respectful
Have respect for each and every person that you encounter in life. Respect successful business owners for their leadership and entrepreneurial skills. Respect volunteers in the community for their selflessness and ability to take time out of their lives to help others. Treat everyone in your life with a great deal of respect, whether it is your boss or the person taking your order at the drive-thru window. Be respectful of everyone, whether there is a crowd of people around or nobody is looking. Be the one person who asks the check out lady at the grocery store how her day is going during her 8-hour shift. These little acts of respect to everyone around you add up over time and help you become a person who others will respect.
Positive People Only
Unfortunately you do not get to pick and choose every single person with whom you interact with daily. You do, however, choose the people with which you will spend the most amount of time. Make sure that your best relationships are with people who have a positive attitude and outlook on life. Also make sure that these positive people you surround yourself with will have a positive impact on your life and help you become the person that you want to become.
Ask yourself if the people in your life will be able to help you in your journey towards success. Also determine if these people align with your vision of success. If they do, continue to build relationships with them. If they don’t, then you must determine if an adjustment can be made in your relationship with them, or if they no longer should be a large part of your life. Remember that your relationships with family, friends, mentors, co-workers and others are a large part of who you are. You are reading this because you want to be successful – make sure that the people in your life are going to positively impact your journey towards success.
Communicate Constantly
Make sure that you are in constant communication with everyone in your life. This refers to both frequency and openness of communication. Frequency is important; don’t let time slip by in between calls to loved ones, friends and mentors. Stay in constant communication with them because life is too short to let time slip by. With current technology, there is no excuse for not communicating on a regular basis with the important people in your life. Send a text message, make a phone call on your way home from the office, shoot over an email or put up a wall post on Facebook. Any of these are better than going weeks or months without talking to the important people in your life.
The other important part of communicating is having open and honest dialogue with everyone in your life. Being honest about your feelings will make you feel better and lead to less confusion or arguments over time. Tell people how you feel, what your goals and dreams are and what will make you happy in life. Know how they feel, know what their goals and dreams are and understand their perspectives on things. Have conversations and be completely honest with everyone in your life, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier and more enjoyable your life can become.
Learn From Every Relationship
Relationships can take on all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors. Some are great, others are not. Some will continue on forever, others will end badly. In those great relationships that will go on forever, make sure to learn why they are so great. Understand what makes you happy, why they are so valuable and figure out how you can have more just like them. When bad relationships come to an end, do not view them as failures. Be fortunate that you had the relationship regardless of how badly it ended, and take from it lessons that you can carry with you. Learn why the relationship didn’t work and let it make you a better person who has a clearer idea of what types of relationships will make you happy. Whether a relationship is great, terrible, wonderful or awful, learn from it and let it grow you into a better person.
A Final Word
Relationships have a huge impact on every aspect of your life. The biggest question to ask yourself in any relationship you have is whether or not it is helping you achieve your vision of success or hurting your progress towards your goals and dreams. Make sure that you surround yourself with people who will positively impact your life, make you a better person and support you as you work towards everything you want to accomplish in life.
Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – You Have To Persevere
I hate to say it but I believe its best to always be honest – if you plan on starting a business, it is extremely likely that more people will doubt you than will believe in you. It is also very likely that you are going to face critiscm, a lack of capital, major setbacks, poor decisions and a whole host of other negative occurences with your business. How you handle these will be a huge factor in the ultimate fate of your business – this is why perseverance is critical for entrepreneurs. Here are just a few examples of the obstactles I personally have faced and how I persevered through it:
A professional editor and family friend reviewed my book manuscript and told me to take it and put it in my top desk drawrer for at least 3 years so that I could “gain perspective” and then maybe take another shot at the book idea.
How I Persevered – After about 15 minutes of being angry/sad/depressed/furious/doubtful and every other negative emotion you can image, I re-read the letter and came across one sentence that made this letter mean absolutely nothing – the person that wrote this letter to me had a book idea but never had the courage to have it published. I thought to myself “Why in the world would I ever take advice from an editor that didn’t have the courage to get their own book published?!?!”. I put the letter, not the manuscript, in my desk drawrer and got back to work publishing my frist book within 3 months of receiving that letter.
A mentor tells me that I’m making a huge mistake by starting my business
How I Persevered – I told him that I respected his opinion and appreciated him looking out for me but that I believed in my heart that I had a message and a business that would ultimately reach millions of people and I wasn’t willing to keep it bottled up inside of me because of the “risks” involved with it.
I have many others as well, some of which were much harder to deal with, that I will share at some point in the future. Who knows, maybe I’ll write an entire book about some of the world’s most successful people and who they proved wrong on thier road to success. Do you think anyone ever told Michael Jordan that he should quit basketball? You betcha someone did!
I used the above examples to show you how I personally persevered through these difficult situations. I want to use them as an example of the difficulties you could potentially face on your road to becoming a successful entrepreneur. By no means were these easy situations and I’d by lying if I said they were simply to handle, but I ultimately found it within myself to persevere through the because I knew in my heart that what I had to offer needed to be shared with the world. I expect you to do the same and believe in yourself no matter what obstacles are in your way of your vision of success.
Young Professional Success Tip – Treat Your First Opportunity Like an Internship
I always find it amazing how hard people are willing to work at an internship but somehow this work ethic mysteriously disappears when the opportunity is a career and not an internship. In my first book, The Course They Forgot to Offer, I talk about the importance of treating your first career opportunity in the exact same way that you would a prestigious internship. A great intern will always do the following:
• Asks a ton of questions so he can learn as much as possible
• Emulates the behavior of their successful co-workers
• Learns about the industry
• Takes on as much responsibility as possible
• Shows up early and stays late
If you didn’t have this attitude during your internship, start displaying it immediately as a young professional. You need to be willing to go above and beyond the average person’s work ethic if you want to become successful quickly. I am assuming that you are an ambitious young professional, otherwise you wouldn’t be taking the time to read this book. Because you don’t want to wait around for things to happen, you must go out and create your own opportunities for yourself; a great way of doing this is by simply bringing the attitude of an intern to your career. Show up early, take on as much responsibility as possible, build relationships with the most successful people in the company, understand all aspects of your industry and ask a million questions!
College Success Tip – Get to Know Your Professors
Make the effort to get to know each of your professors during the first week of class each semester. By staying after class to introduce yourself or stopping by their offices to exchange a handshake, you will instantly separate yourself from everyone else in your class. This will take you a few minutes, which are well worth it. A couple of reasons why this is important:
• Professors are the ones who grade you, so keep them happy
• Many of them are well connected in the industries that they teach, which could help you during your career search
• They might be able to write a recommendation for you to get into an organization or graduate school, or serve as a reference when you are applying for internships/careers
Having professors on your side will never hurt you and will more than likely help you at some point. You cannot walk into their offices when you need a favor and expect them to drop everything to do it – get to know them first, build a relationship and then use them as a resource if they can help you.
The Bottom Line: Your professors are human and will favor the people who they like. If you build a relationship with them, your chances at being able to re-submit a project, get a recommendation or be excused to miss class become much better. Little things like this will make your life much easier.
Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – You Must Have A Vision
If you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you have to have a vision. I call it a “vision of success” in my book – you have to know what your successful future looks like and feels like. You have to be able to visualize the people around you, the family that you have built, the house you live in, the car your drive, the city you reside, the community service you provide, the timeline for growth of your business and every other detail that it will take for you to feel successful. Most people have NO CLUE what their vision of success is – walk about to 100 people at the mall and ask them what they want to accomplish in life and what they need to do in order to feel successful. I bet you at least 95 of them look at your with a blank stare and are speechless; if the number was 99 I wouldn’t be shocked.
So why do you need to have this vision? Because it is going to guide you to where you want to be in life. You are inevitably going to face challenges, doubters, obstacles and significant roadblocks that could potentially derail you. People will tell you that you are insane for starting a business, you might run out of startup money or nobody may be interested in your product/service initially. Your vision and being well aware of what your future success is going to look like and feel like is what will guide you through these difficult times. What do I think about when I’m having a tough day? I just close my eyes and picture myself as a NY Times bestselling author with a powerful message that is able to affect millions of people throughout the world. I also see myelf surrounded by an incredible family and amazing friends who support me and add an incredible amount of satisfaction to my life. Once I picture that and everthing else that is in my vision of success I instantly feel motivated and recharged, ready to continue to journey towards my vision.
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must have a clear vision of success. Business plans, financial forecasts, market analysis and all of that other stuff is wonderful and necessary, but at the end of the day you have to be able to close your eyes and clearly see what your successful future looks like and how it feels to have reached it.
Young Professional Success Tip – Identify the Positives in Everyone
When I was in elementary school, I wasn’t exactly the best-behaved, most mild-mannered kid in the classroom. I liked to talk when the teacher was talking, mess with the people sitting around me and occasionally crack a joke out loud. How do you think most teachers would classify me? Maybe as the class clown, obnoxious, rude, poorly behaved or annoying? Back to this in a minute.
As a young professional, you must be willing to see the positives in every one. You need to see the positives in your friends, family, co-workers and those who are smarter than you, dumber than you, younger than you, older than you and absolutely everyone else who you come in contact with. Being able to see the positives in everyone around you will make you a better person, manager, leader and teammate. Very few people in this world are able to look at the people around them and see positive characteristics in everyone – I challenge you to be the person who can instantly identify the positives in EVERY person you interact with.
Alright, back to my story… So I wasn’t the best behaved student in class and let’s be honest; most people wouldn’t want someone like me in their class. In second grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Natali who took a different approach, which made ALL the difference in my life. She saw me as an enthusiastic student with a great deal of passion. She also showed me how to love writing and how to have the desire to become better at it. Her approach, which was different than any other teacher’s I have ever had, was to see the positives in every student and have each of them focus those strengths to become great people and students.
The point of the story is simple: see the positives in every one. It may just make all of the difference in their lives.
Career Search Tips – Make it Just Like College (7 of 7)
Finding a “job” isn’t all that difficult, regardless of the economy. Finding the perfect “opportunity” for yourself, however, can be challenging. If you follow the 7 rules in this series, you will significantly increase your chances at quickly finding the perfect career opportunity. My goal is to make your life easier and keep you focused on doing things the right way, not the easy way. By doing things the right way, you will be more efficient and your search will be more focused and effective.
Many similarities exist between your search for the right college and your search for the right career opportunity. Picking a college or career based purely on statistics or rankings is a mistake. What makes people successful in college? The key is to be in an environment where you’re happy, can learn and grow as a person. Your career is no different – find the city and professional opportunity where you can learn, grow and become a better and smarter person. Find an organization that feels right and has the type of culture and environment in which you will feel comfortable and excel.
Career Search Tips – Know Yourself and Be Yourself (6 of 7)
Finding a “job” isn’t all that difficult, regardless of the economy. Finding the perfect “opportunity” for yourself, however, can be challenging. If you follow the 7 rules in this series, you will significantly increase your chances at quickly finding the perfect career opportunity. My goal is to make your life easier and keep you focused on doing things the right way, not the easy way. By doing things the right way, you will be more efficient and your search will be more focused and effective.
Remember who you are as you shape your vision. My goal was to work in sales for a small company that would offer a lot of opportunities to learn and grow. I wanted to travel all the time, learn every aspect of an industry, and be a huge part of a company. In order for me to be happy, I knew that I needed to be with a small company, have a lot of responsibility, be challenged constantly and have the freedom to do my work without having a boss micromanaging my efforts. Hands off supervision was crucial. I knew my strengths, weaknesses and what type of environment suited me best. Throughout my search process I never lost focus of this vision and ultimately found an opportunity that matched this description perfectly. Finding this opportunity took months of hard work, but it was worth all of the time and effort.
The lesson to be learned here is that you must be well aware of your skills, strengths and weaknesses when searching for the right opportunity. Find something that will allow you to perform at your best and capitalize on your strengths. If you don’t like to be managed constantly or to have someone looking over your shoulder and evaluating you daily, find an opportunity where you have freedom and flexibility. If the thought of speaking in front of people makes you nervous, you may not want to start out in sales. If you hate being indoors all day, an office position probably isn’t the best one for you. Find the opportunity that allows your strengths to shine. Keep in mind that over time you will learn to turn your weaknesses into strengths. This comes from experience and a desire to improve yourself.
Knowing yourself means that you need to be your own person and not allow others to tell you who you are or what you should be. A perfect example is all of the young professionals who are in law school or medical school because they were told by their parents that lawyers and doctors make a lot of money. If you want to be in either of those fields and enjoy that type of work, then by all means go for it! However, if your main motivation is that your parents are both attorneys and they told you to follow the same path, then you might need to find a better reason. Know yourself and what you truly want out of your own professional life. Do what you feel will make you happy. If you aren’t sure what that is, then follow your heart and see where it leads you. You’ll be surprised how often it takes you to exactly where you are meant to be in life.
Career Search Tips – Demand Excellence (5 of 7)
Finding a “job” isn’t all that difficult, regardless of the economy. Finding the perfect “opportunity” for yourself, however, can be challenging. If you follow the 7 rules in this series, you will significantly increase your chances at quickly finding the perfect career opportunity. My goal is to make your life easier and keep you focused on doing things the right way, not the easy way. By doing things the right way, you will be more efficient and your search will be more focused and effective.
You have created a vision of success that you’ll reach by finding the perfect opportunity for you. Do not accept anything short of an opportunity that will eventually lead you to that vision. There are millions of opportunities in the world, so there is no reason to settle for anything less than what you want. Make sure that you find an opportunity you absolutely love, that challenges you and makes you want to jump out of bed every morning. Most people are miserable with their current career choices because they were too lazy to put in the time and effort that is necessary to achieve excellence. If you demand excellence, look hard, build relationships with successful professionals and stay committed to this process, your chances of achieving success will increase exponentially.
