So here’s the big lesson: If you serious about learning how to succeed at work, try to be number 1 at your field. If you can’t be number 1 despite your best efforts, pick a different fied or a narrower segment within that field where you are number 1.
Let me tell you something about competition, you see, you don’t have to beat competition just by being better than them. Many times you can stand out just by being different
I will tell you something that will immediately make you different from most of your competition. Stop treating your job LIKE A JOB. Treat it like your own business. Really, its that simple. You won
You know I believe that either should run your own business or treat your job like your own business. Treating a job like a job is for average people and average people never do great things.
When I met Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the Chairperson of Biocon and one of the richest Indian women to interview her for my movie Carve Your Destiny (It is an inspirational movie I spent over 6 years creating, for which I interviewed some of the most famous achievers. You can watch it at the link given at the end), she mentioned that even when she did a job, she felt like she owned that job. She treated it like her own business and ultimately that gave her the experience to run her own business.
She said that the problem with a lot of young people today, even those who wonder how to succeed at work is that they work for security and expect the company to take care of them. Now I understand that from one point of view it is important the business takes care of its people, but ultimately if it is security you want, you should only be working in a government job.
Because we need to understand what is business. Business is something that is done for profit. The bigger role you play in delivering that profit, the more you matter to the business and consequently the business has a vested interest in taking care of you.
The 21st century is the century of the Employee-Preneur. Now what is a Employee-Preneur. A employee-preneur is someone who is technically an employee but has an entrepreneurial mindset. Which means he goes about his job in the same manner as he would treat his business, ensures that he can do whatever he can to maximise his organization’s profits and consequently receives exponential rewards….in a manner similar to how an entrepreneur gets exponential returns.
In the Recession of 2008, a lot of people lost their jobs. Some companies shut down totally but others kept operating after laying off a lot of people. Many of these were very hard working people. But they were not indispensable. They were replaceable. If they went, it’s not like the company wouldn’t manage to do without them. There were not that crucial to the company’s bottom line. In fact, keeping them around was adding to excess overhead costs and hurting the firm’s profits.
None of us wants to be in a situation like this. It’s far better to stay prepared than get prepared in response to an immediate disaster. The way you stay prepared is by identifying what is that is absolutely crucial to the firms bottom line and then be willing to go the extra mile through performance and soon the firm will notice. They will then put you in control of bigger ad bigger responsibilities in that area until you reach a point that you become absolutely crucial to the firm for maximum output. The higher-ups will want to put you in charge of more stuff, because you’ve proved that you’re a money-maker. And guess what, when you are the money maker, the money comes to you automatically.
Let me give you an example in terms of the Soccer/Football. In today’s World Soccer, who do you think are the two most indispensable players.
If you ask me, they are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They have reached a point where they are so crucial to the team that they cannot be replaced, at least in the short run. They did this by consistently delivering performances or possessing skills that made the team win over and over and over again. It certainly did not happen overnight. They are the money makers in their team and so the money comes to them. They are the MVPs of the team, the most valuable players.
If you are seriously wondering how to succeed at work, Ask yourself, what can I do to be the MVP of my team? Even if there are others who are better than me at something, how can I do something differently that would immediately make me stand out. Is there something I can do that others cannot? Do I have a strong point which others cannot compete on? Or can I do something so different that others will have a hard time catching up to?
In other words, if others are making candles, your goal shouldn’t be to more or better candles. Your goal should be to invent the bulb. If others are busy running a postal service, your goal should be to invent email. When you are doing what everyone else is doing, you have tons of competition. When you go into unchartered territory and create something of value, you eliminate it completely. In doing so you become the MVP of your organization. If you run your own business, you become an innovator and are much likely to become an industry leader if starting from scratch (Like Google did, starting from scratch but creating something totally superior as compared to well funded organizations like Yahoo or Altavista.)
Summary
How to Succeed at Work: Point 1) Always try your best to be number 1. The benefits of being so are exponential, not just marginal.
How to Succeed at Work: Point 2) If you can’t be number one in a big field, be so in a smaller niche. You will still enjoy the benefits of the Zipf’s law.
How to Succeed at Work: Point 3) Either run your own business or treat your job like your business. Treating a job like a job is for average people and average people never do great things.
How to Succeed at Work: Point 4) Become the MVP or Most Valuable Player of your team. In other words become number 1. either through hard work, or innovation or both. When you do so you become indispensable.
