Actually, what got you here will get you there.

Marshall Goldsmith wrote a book called "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" The subtitle says it is a book about how successful people become even more successful. Think Dale Carnegie 3.0

The prices of everything seem to be skyrocketing, including books, so, to save you some money, here are the Cliff Notes:

• The higher you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders.
• Getting praise can be dangerous because it becomes easy to delude yourself when all you hear are positive things.
• Delusional self-confidence causes you to resist change.
• You can't control the outcome, but why wouldn't you want to try to control what you can? Even if the cards are stacked against you in life your best bet is to try your hardest.
• Successful people believe they are in control. They don't see themselves as victims of the world.
• Lottery ticket players: serious lottery players think success is random. Successful people think success is within their control and thus don't play the lottery. Both mindsets are delusional in their own way, but the successful approach seems to work better overall.
• People will only do something and change when it is in their own best interest and aligns with our values.
• The four drivers of self-interest: money, power, status, popularity.
• Smart people know what to do. They need to know what to stop.
• Create a To-Stop list rather than a To-Do list.
• Not all behavior is good or bad. Some behaviors are simply neutral.
• The fallacy of adding too much value is that by adding value you kill the ownership of other people's ideas. When you add to the idea it no longer feels like it is their idea.
• When getting feedback of any type, positive or negative, accept it from a neutral place and say, “Thank you.” If you don't reply with a judgmental comment, you can't get into an argument.
• The question to ask yourself when making a destructive or critical comment about someone is not, “Is it true?” But “Is it worth it?”
• Don't tell people how smart you are. Nobody gives a damn.
• Withholding information is a problem for me when I don't communicate well. If you don't communicate what is going on it feels like you're keeping people in the dark. That annoys people.
• Create a list of people you should give recognition to and then review that list each week to see if you should send someone praise.
• Give away ALL the credit.
• Clinging to the past: “Many people enjoy living in the past, especially if going back there lets them blame someone else for anything that's gone wrong in their lives. That's when clinging to the past becomes an interpersonal problem… When we make excuses, we are blaming someone or something beyond our control as the reason for our failure. Anyone but ourselves.” When we talk about the past it is NOT about change. It is about understanding. And often about blaming others.
• Just say “Thank You” to more comments rather than making a bigger fuss about things. We often have issues with accepting compliments.
• Hearing people out does not make you dumber. So listen and say thank you.
• Gratitude is not a limited resource. Express your thanks more often.
• People who think they can do no wrong usually can't admit they are ever wrong. Which, paradoxically, makes you more wrong. Owning up to your mistakes is essential.
• Your personality is not fixed, and improvement does not require you to become a radically different person. You don't have to change your whole life, just improve one tiny trait. However, it is much easier to change your mindset than your personality.
• Goal obsession is the blindness of goal pursuit at the expense of more important things.
• You should feel no shame if your pursuit of a difficult goal fails.
• Goal obsession is not a flaw, it is a creator of flaws.
• Princeton theology students research study and the story of the Good Samaritan. Goal obsessions: we are so focused on shortsighted goals and the task in front of us that we miss the bigger point. Use this as a jumping off point for talking about goals in life. Is working really the point?
• Main lesson: you can do a lot worse than questioning your flaws. We often get so defensive about these things, but what do we really have to lose? Usually, little.
• Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.
• The higher you go the more your problems are behavioral. Interpersonal behavior is the difference between being great and near great.
• Knowing the answer to, “How do you feel about me?” does not matter when it comes to getting better. What matters is, “How can I get better?”
• Apologize, apologize, apologize. Just step up and make the apologies you need to make.
• When you make an apology say, “I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.” And then shut up. Don't try to justify it.
• Frances Hesselbein, CEO of the Girl Scouts. Claimed to be greatest executive by Peter Drucker.
• When you listen to someone, make them feel like they are the only person in the room. Devote your attention to them.
• We can't change in the long run without following up. Follow up shows your colleagues that you care about getting better and that you're taking the process seriously.

This advice, at least most of it, seems applicable as you climb the career or corporate ladder. moving from a doer to a manager to a leader. The cynics in the crowd will say it has more to do with who you know and the kinds of toxic people we promote.

But, what about when you are thinking of a career transition, where you are moving the ladder to someplace else instead of climbing another rung? Then, you should be thinking about what kind of transferable skills you have that can be applied to a new industry or a different part of the same industry, like non-clinical careers in medicine?

For instance, here are eight characteristics of an exceptional systems citizen.

Such physicians:

• Are generous, selfless, humble, adaptable, and resolute.
• Express values that drive behaviors “above and beyond” their colleagues’ expectations.
• Are intentional about—and experts at—teaming.
• Are calm in the “eye of the storm.”
• Employ a wide array of creative systems thinking skills to solve problems.
• Have exemplary interpersonal and communication skills.
• Teach systems-based practice as part of clinical care.
• Identify personal and professional mentors as key to their development.

When these consultants asked the question “What barriers — if any — get in the way of you changing your career?” five answers topped the list: not knowing what to do next, limiting mindsets, inadequate networks, financial constraints, and lacking the right skills.

Economists, sports scientists, and psychologists have analyzed Olympic performances and chess matches, as well as thousands of online quizzes to determine the average age when people peak mentally and physically. They are trying to understand how our brain and bodies work and if there are lessons on strengthening each.

The good news is that while we may have peaked in one endeavor, we are getting better in another. 

Here is a list of skills employers want. Here are 50 more. Do the skills match with those required in the job description?

Take teaching, for example. Burned out teachers are leaving the classroom for jobs in the private sector, where talent-hungry companies are hiring them—and often boosting their pay—to work in sales, software, healthcare, and training, among other fields.

The rate of people quitting jobs in private educational services rose more than in any other industry in 2021, according to federal data. Many of those teachers are exhausted from toggling between online and classroom instruction, shifting Covid-19 protocols and dealing with challenging students, parents and administrators.

The exodus is worsening a nationwide teacher shortage and proving a boon to hiring managers in industries such as IT services and consulting, hospitals and software development. Teachers’ ability to absorb and transmit information quickly, manage stress and multitask are high-demand skills, recruiters and careers coaches say. Classroom instructors are landing sales roles and jobs as instructional coaches, software engineers and behavioral health technicians, according to LinkedIn.

Here is why actors and actresses make great entrepreneurs.

Here is a list of 50 transferable skills. I'm sure you can add several more to the list.

Here is a list of competencies of physician entrepreneurs.

Here is why physicians can be great entrepreneurs.

The red, yellow, green exercise helps to determine many things, like time management and project management.

It can also be useful to identify potential career or job opportunities that are the right fit for you, i.e. where you can use your previous experience and transferable skills to another place.

Here are some tips on how to craft a better resume. McCaskill says “transferable people skills” are in high demand right now, so spend some time going through your old roles to figure out how you can highlight those. If you're struggling to figure out what other "skills" your past experience has given you, check out this list for inspiration. You can highlight soft skills like leadership, communication, and problem-solving, or hard skills like project management, data analysis, or SEO proficiency.

Try this. List your transferable knowledge (domain expertise), skills (what you learned), abilities (what came naturally) and competencies (what you need to do to get the job done). Now, go to LinkedIn and identify 10 job titles in each industry that interest you. Then, do some research, scan the job descriptions, and note the knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs) and competencies to do the job.

NB: Many job solicitations, particularly from startup founders, won't tell you these things. If you are looking for candidates, don't make the same mistake. Create a job scorecard =a list of measurable accountabilities, core values, and behavioral competencies that describe a person who will perform at a high level in the role.

• Then, take a red, yellow and green highlighter and mark the KSAa on the Linkedin jobs that you listed that you have with green, close but no cigar with yellow and not a chance with red. Are you seeing a pattern? Where do the circles overlap and by how much? Also, use quantifiable metrics that talk about your performance in previous and present roles. If you don’t have these, you can estimate them or ask peers/managers for the data.

WARNING: This is not foolproof. Just because you made a gazillion dollars selling stuff on the internet does not mean you can necessarily crack the sickcare nut with digital health tricks. Sickcare ain't Uber.

Here are a few signs that you're more successful than you might think--and, in all likelihood, happier too.

• You have enough money that you can make positive choices.
• You have 2-3 close friends.
• You choose the people around you.
• You see failure as training.
• You don't ask for anything.
• You let others grab the spotlight.
• You have a purpose.

When we think of self-improvement, we tend to focus on our weaknesses. But that means we often underestimate our strengths — or even don’t recognize them at all. In this article, the author explains why we’ve developed this focus on weakness, and she then lays out a program for identifying and developing our strengths, with a particular focus on natural abilities that we might take for granted and therefore overlook.

Here's how to keep your job as your company or the one you are advising grows.

When I was an academic surgeon, my missions were teaching, research, patient care and service

Now I am using those transferable skills to do entrepreneurship teaching, research, company care and community service running an international non-profit entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Indeed, getting from here to there means you sometimes have to come down off the mountain. But that does not mean you leave the gear you used to summit all the fourteeners in Colorado behind to climb the next ones in a different place. That includes your golf clubs.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship