Silicon Valley's Secret "C"s For Career Success
In 2008, I read a story in Fortune about silicon valley's best-kept secret. It was about how silicon valley top performing leaders like Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page actively build their companies and their career. It revealed one element that was common but not commonly known in the careers of silicon valley's top leaders like Ning's Marc Andreessen, Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt, Venture Capitalist Al Gore, Numenta CEO Donna Dubinsky, and YouTube's Steve Chen and Chad Hurley.
It validated the truth that I have observed clearly and consistently throughout my twenty-three years in the high tech industry which is:
It validated the truth that I have observed clearly and consistently throughout my twenty-three years in the high tech industry which is:
Successful careers need much more than raw talent and degrees.
When we see people succeed in their careers, it often looks like they were at the right place at the right time, knew the right people, were able to present themselves confidently to get what they wanted. It often seems that luck played a part in their success, that their personality or their inborn talents gave them the needed breaks.
Is it all luck, personality and unfair advantage, or is there a method for a successful career that anyone can adopt?
There is a method to build career success, and it consists of four crucial cornerstones plus a catalyst
Career Success = Four Career Cornerstones + Catalyst
Successful Careers are built on these four cornerstones:
Clarity, Confidence, Competence, and Consistency
Clarity
Clarity of mind is the foundation of success. Clarity brings direction, control, and certainty to your career trajectory.
Top performers have clarity on what they want to do and why they are doing it. They achieve this clarity through by consciously thinking about the most essential.
You need to be clear at least about the following two areas:
1. Who you are, how you want to use your strength to add value to the world, and what rewards you want to experience along the way.?
2. Where is the world heading, what it needs, and what is trending?
Most people are too busy with day to day routines to reflect on these crucial questions. However, investing some time periodically to do self-reflection and some research about what is going on in the world goes a long way in establishing a firm foundation of clarity.
Once you have clarity, you know what to look for, and you know what to avoid. Clarity is needed to set a clear intention and direction. It gives you control and puts you in the driving seat. Without clarity, a career drifts like an abandoned raft on an ocean.
Is it all luck, personality and unfair advantage, or is there a method for a successful career that anyone can adopt?
There is a method to build career success, and it consists of four crucial cornerstones plus a catalyst
Career Success = Four Career Cornerstones + Catalyst
Successful Careers are built on these four cornerstones:
Clarity, Confidence, Competence, and Consistency
Clarity
Clarity of mind is the foundation of success. Clarity brings direction, control, and certainty to your career trajectory.
Top performers have clarity on what they want to do and why they are doing it. They achieve this clarity through by consciously thinking about the most essential.
You need to be clear at least about the following two areas:
1. Who you are, how you want to use your strength to add value to the world, and what rewards you want to experience along the way.?
2. Where is the world heading, what it needs, and what is trending?
Most people are too busy with day to day routines to reflect on these crucial questions. However, investing some time periodically to do self-reflection and some research about what is going on in the world goes a long way in establishing a firm foundation of clarity.
Once you have clarity, you know what to look for, and you know what to avoid. Clarity is needed to set a clear intention and direction. It gives you control and puts you in the driving seat. Without clarity, a career drifts like an abandoned raft on an ocean.
"It's a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration. Those emotions are poison to any living goal."
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Confidence
Confidence is the doubtless certainty about one's abilities to figure things out.
It is an emotional state. It requires trust in yourself and also faith in the way things are. Confidence allows you to take risks, to negotiate, to persist, and to walk away when needed.
Contrary to the popular belief, certificates and degree do not automatically bring confidence. Confidence needs to be consciously worked on and strengthened.
Build confidence like a muscle by taking calculated risks, by stretching beyond the comfort zone and persisting until you prove it to yourself that you can do what you decide to do.
Confidence takes a massive hit if you have had traumatic experiences in the past. It requires mind deep-dives to be aware of the emotional blocks that are eclipsing you, and dissolve them systematically.
Once you release all the emotional baggage that was holding you back, confidence springs up again.
Confidence is the doubtless certainty about one's abilities to figure things out.
It is an emotional state. It requires trust in yourself and also faith in the way things are. Confidence allows you to take risks, to negotiate, to persist, and to walk away when needed.
Contrary to the popular belief, certificates and degree do not automatically bring confidence. Confidence needs to be consciously worked on and strengthened.
Build confidence like a muscle by taking calculated risks, by stretching beyond the comfort zone and persisting until you prove it to yourself that you can do what you decide to do.
Confidence takes a massive hit if you have had traumatic experiences in the past. It requires mind deep-dives to be aware of the emotional blocks that are eclipsing you, and dissolve them systematically.
Once you release all the emotional baggage that was holding you back, confidence springs up again.
"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit." ― E.E. Cummings
Competence
Today's fast-paced and competitive world requires staying competent with in-demand skills. You need to know what your core competency is and build up skill sets around it. It is not only essential to learn the latest and greatest, but the skills you invest time learning need to be aligned with your strength and your passion.
For details, check out an article I wrote, which goes in depth of the topic of technical competence:
One Mistake Loyal Employees Make That Ultimately End Their Careers
Technical competence is essential, but more important than that is emotional competence. You need to be competent enough to invoke the most empowering emotion for the situation at hand.
Today's fast-paced and competitive world requires staying competent with in-demand skills. You need to know what your core competency is and build up skill sets around it. It is not only essential to learn the latest and greatest, but the skills you invest time learning need to be aligned with your strength and your passion.
For details, check out an article I wrote, which goes in depth of the topic of technical competence:
One Mistake Loyal Employees Make That Ultimately End Their Careers
Technical competence is essential, but more important than that is emotional competence. You need to be competent enough to invoke the most empowering emotion for the situation at hand.
"They all have excellent resumes... So what I'm trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure." ― Hyman G. Rickover
Consistency
Like a melody, we compose our lives with repeating patterns of routines and habits. It is, therefore, crucially important to consciously choose, build, and maintain habits that will promote peak performance and ultimate rewards.
Consistent mindfulness practice and regular exercise are the secrets of highly successful people. In addition to these, one needs to be consistent in sharpening core skills and maintaining a positive and open mind. Consistency builds reliability. People who are consistently high performers are seen as reliable and tend to get promotions, rewards, and exciting opportunities. Consistency, therefore, is an essential cornerstone for career success.
Like a melody, we compose our lives with repeating patterns of routines and habits. It is, therefore, crucially important to consciously choose, build, and maintain habits that will promote peak performance and ultimate rewards.
Consistent mindfulness practice and regular exercise are the secrets of highly successful people. In addition to these, one needs to be consistent in sharpening core skills and maintaining a positive and open mind. Consistency builds reliability. People who are consistently high performers are seen as reliable and tend to get promotions, rewards, and exciting opportunities. Consistency, therefore, is an essential cornerstone for career success.
"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals." ― E. James Rohn
People with a strong foundation of these career cornerstones stay in sustained states of motivation, discipline, and creative persistence for however long it takes. Success for them becomes inevitable.
Clarity, Confidence, Competence, and Consistency come together to build emotional mastery that sets apart the successful from the rest.
Clarity, Confidence, Competence, and Consistency come together to build emotional mastery that sets apart the successful from the rest.
The Silicon Valley's Secret Catalyst
In addition to the four career corner stones, a catalyst is need to jump start the career growth.
The story in Fortune was about a behind-the-scenes catalyst to the successes of companies like Apple and Google. Away from the limelight and fame, this person worked closely with famous tech leaders like Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page.
His name was Bill Campbell. Bill wasn't a technologist, nor a programmer or an engineer. Bill was their coach.
Coach Bill Campbell was so influential that he went on a weekly Sunday walk with Steve Jobs, and the Google founders said they wouldn't have made it without Bill's coaching. Bill coached some of the finest and most intelligent minds. These legends proactively sought Bill's coaching because they knew how important it is to have another competent mind for deeper self-reflection, accountability, and insights.
In the recently released book "Trillion Dollar Coach," author Eric former CEO of Google, underscores the crucial role coach Bill Campbell had on him and many technology leaders like Ning's Marc Andreessen, Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt, Venture Capitalist Al Gore, Numenta CEO Donna Dubinsky, and YouTube's Steve Chen and Chad Hurley.
All top performers have coaches not because they can afford to have a coach, but because top performers cannot afford not having a coach.
We All Need A Catalyst
Even when we have all the elements of success in our trove, we still may not be motivated to move or to take definitive action towards our career goals. We wait for something. We wait for a catalyst. Someone or some event which will motivate or compel us to take needed action. A situation, an opportunity, or a person can act as a catalyst. Coaches are catalysts who proactively put all pieces together for you and with you.
In addition to the four career corner stones, a catalyst is need to jump start the career growth.
The story in Fortune was about a behind-the-scenes catalyst to the successes of companies like Apple and Google. Away from the limelight and fame, this person worked closely with famous tech leaders like Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page.
His name was Bill Campbell. Bill wasn't a technologist, nor a programmer or an engineer. Bill was their coach.
Coach Bill Campbell was so influential that he went on a weekly Sunday walk with Steve Jobs, and the Google founders said they wouldn't have made it without Bill's coaching. Bill coached some of the finest and most intelligent minds. These legends proactively sought Bill's coaching because they knew how important it is to have another competent mind for deeper self-reflection, accountability, and insights.
In the recently released book "Trillion Dollar Coach," author Eric former CEO of Google, underscores the crucial role coach Bill Campbell had on him and many technology leaders like Ning's Marc Andreessen, Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt, Venture Capitalist Al Gore, Numenta CEO Donna Dubinsky, and YouTube's Steve Chen and Chad Hurley.
All top performers have coaches not because they can afford to have a coach, but because top performers cannot afford not having a coach.
We All Need A Catalyst
Even when we have all the elements of success in our trove, we still may not be motivated to move or to take definitive action towards our career goals. We wait for something. We wait for a catalyst. Someone or some event which will motivate or compel us to take needed action. A situation, an opportunity, or a person can act as a catalyst. Coaches are catalysts who proactively put all pieces together for you and with you.
An intelligent mind operates at a speed of light, but it also tends to get stuck in emotional blind spots like overconfidence, self-doubt, uncertainty, and self-criticism. Sometimes it takes two for one to make progress!
Having another skilled mind who can facilitate deep self-reflection helps to save years of futile effort wasted in emotional black holes. You can quickly build up clarity, confidence, competence, and consistency if you are working with a coach.
There you have it! Anyone who can carry themselves with clarity, confidence, and competence consistently, are on their way to the heights of their potential. The foundation of success starts inside the person. But the inside work is helped tremendously with some help from the outside. Therefore a right coach is instrumental in initiating and expediting this process.
May we all strive to reach our fullest potential.
There you have it! Anyone who can carry themselves with clarity, confidence, and competence consistently, are on their way to the heights of their potential. The foundation of success starts inside the person. But the inside work is helped tremendously with some help from the outside. Therefore a right coach is instrumental in initiating and expediting this process.
May we all strive to reach our fullest potential.
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