Career | Leadership
How to Find the Luck You Need
A great way to rise through the ranks in any business
One of the first lessons everyone should learn in business is the better you understand the industry and your business, the greater your potential.
If there was ever a place to take literally what a famous Roman philosopher once said, it is in this matter of your ability to achieve more in business.
“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” Seneca
Being lucky has never been easier than it is today. Did you know there is a simple way to become one of the most knowledgeable people in your field or industry? Imagine the value you add as a more knowledgeable individual to your employer. This one simple thing can propel you to the top position in your company. It can take you to the highest levels in your industry.
We are fortunate today to have accessibility to volumes of information at our fingertips via the internet. If you are in an industry and want to excel, reading, studying, and researching online is easy. You can quickly learn more than most of your colleagues when you do this. This knowledge will come through in what you do and who you are, and before you know it, others begin to see you as an expert. By putting this reputation to proper use, accolades and achievements can follow.
“It is well to read up everything within reach about your business; this not only improves your knowledge, your usefulness and your fitness for more responsible work, but it invests your business with more interest, since you understand its functions, its basic principles, its place in the general scheme of things.” Daniel Willard (1861–1942)
Becoming an expert and more
Most of us are familiar with the 10,000-hour rule. If you are not, it is a theory that to become an expert in or at anything in life requires 10,000 hours of learning, practice, and work. Whether you believe the theory or not isn’t the point here. The point is that you can easily surpass most people by simply taking time to learn about a subject, field, or profession, doing the work, and developing your skills. Taking these actions will help you excel at anything in life.
“Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.” W. Clement Stone (1902–2002)
I speak about this subject from experience, not something I read about in a book. Many years ago, I stumbled on this idea and rose rapidly through the ranks. I became a technical manager in short order. Eventually, I held the top technical position in the largest company in the industry. How did I do it? By reading every book, technical manual, industry and association publication, and anything else I could get my hands on. This was before the internet. It took a real investment to read and study the materials. It is so much easier today with the internet and the tremendous resources available at our fingertips at little or no cost!
Having started in operations before taking the technical position, I had learned all I could about operations and production before mastering the technical side of the business. Realizing I did not want to get pigeonholed in the technical side of the business, I later took a sales job. Although I am an introvert, my operational and technical expertise worked to my advantage! Many customers purchased from me because of the knowledge and help I could lend them.
“Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience.” Denis Waitley (1933-present)
I applied the same learning methods to sales as I had to the operational and technical end of our business. I read and studied everything I could about sales and marketing. In no time, I became sales manager, then was promoted to VP of sales and marketing for this international company.
Always on the move, I soon became concerned I would get pigeonholed once again — this time in sales and marketing. I long had ambitions to run a large company. As I continued to prepare, learning more about business, the opportunities started to come. Before long, I got “lucky” and became president and CEO of a rather large company.
Everything I accomplished directly resulted from my desire to learn as much as I could about the specific field I worked in and about the industry. Believe me when I tell you, if I could do it, anyone can!
Getting ahead in your profession
How can you apply this knowledge to where you are and what you are doing now? Follow my lead as I provide a current example of using the concept of gaining knowledge and experience. This time it relates to my retirement and making a mark in a new profession, or maybe I should say hobby.
A little background first. Upon retiring, I went back to school to use some of the talents I had picked up over the years and became a professional, certified executive coach. Yes, I have had a busy retirement!
When I was in the business world, I wrote a couple of articles for a large publication and helped a magazine with its “ask the expert” column for a year. Other than that small amount of experience, I would say I was a rank amateur when it came to writing.
I had dreamed of writing a book for quite a few years but made little progress. I have for many years journaled and continued to purchase and read many, many books (thank you Amazon!)
Finally, I decided to take some of what I had learned in leadership and self-improvement with my stack of journals and began applying it to finish my book. Uncommon Sense was published and went on sale in late 2019. Thankfully it has sold and continues to sell very well!
The thought of writing articles did not cross my mind for several months. Then I decided to try to publish some short articles on LinkedIn and a new website I built. I have to tell you, the articles were pretty rough, as were most of my early writing attempts! A few months passed, and I came across Medium, opening an entirely new world to me!
I cringe when I look at my earlier articles. This article is number 542 on Medium, totaling nearly 600,000 words (my book has only 50,000). I have learned a great deal along the way! I started republishing many articles on NewsBreak this past February and have had great success. Since I regularly receive bonuses presented to the top writers on Medium, I must be doing okay there as well!
To think, I had practically zero experience writing a short time ago, and now, through reading, learning, and practicing, I am a legitimate author and writer! All because of the desire to learn and grow in this new hobby/profession.
You, too, can achieve whatever you put your mind to if you invest the time and effort to learn it well!
One more thing needed to get ahead
Besides gaining expertise and broadening it, we all need one other thing to achieve more in life. You can never begin too early to work on yourself and your abilities to get along with other people.
You can be the foremost expert in the world, but if you can’t get along with others, few will want to hire you, much less be around you. In other words, working on your people skills and yourself is vital to achieving anything in life.
Read what the wealthiest person in modern history had to say about this subject:
“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.” John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937)
Final thoughts
Yes, you can do it if you want. You can achieve anything in your career by becoming an expert in your field of endeavor, expanding your expertise to other fields that complement the first, and learning to get along well with others.
Moving up the ladder and arriving in the top position has more to do with investing in yourself than formal education alone. Looking back over the decades of work I enjoyed, most of the people that worked for me had far more formal education, yet few of them rose to the top. Very few, in fact!
Now that you know the path to achieve what you want, what will you do with it? Make the best choice for yourself, but don’t forget those you love and how what you do and who you become will affect their life as well. May you be successful in all of your future endeavors!
LinkedIn |Twitter| Medium| UncommonSense| AmazonAuthorPage
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION
Thank you for reading this article! If you enjoyed it, I’m sure you will like the others below.
