How to sustain Professional success …

I have been a startup mentor and a coach to senior industry professionals for several years. This unique role has exposed me to two sets of professionals: one set that is able to sustain success consistently over time, the other that struggles with this consistency. As I set out to understand the reasons for this difference, I found some common qualities that characterize the former. I have found it helpful to use a series of axioms - classified into each professional area - that define these qualities.

I hope you find these useful as you fulfill your purpose in life.

Purpose

• If your current professional work doesn’t come as naturally to you as breathing, you haven’t found your purpose yet. Success can be sustained only if work aligns with purpose.

Expectations:

• Setting the right expectation is the beginning of every meaningful endeavor: Well begun is half done.
• 4 expectations that will definitely impede success at work:

1. Assuming others understand your feelings without talking to them
2. Expecting others to make you happy
3. Thinking you can change others
4. Believing everyone should agree with you.

Authenticity

• You can fool some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all people all the time. Be authentic to sustain success over time.
• Everyone has the ability to light up a room: the authentic people do so when they enter, others when they exit.
• A smart person takes a difficult thing and explains it in such a difficult language that others thinks the smart people is really smart. An authentic person is one who explains the same difficult thing in such a simple language that others think they are smart.
• Sustaining success involves understanding self: The more we know ourselves, the less dependent we are on the approval of others.

Relations

• Those who alienate people on their way up the corporate ladder will meet the same people on their way down.
• Relationships are like rubber bands: highly flexible initially, but taken to extremes, they snap rather quickly.
• A skilled photographer rarely judges a scene as good or bad: she understands that adjusting the camera settings and timing can lead to a good shot. Likewise, a skilled relationship builder rarely judges a person as good or bad: she merely realizes that adjusting her own setting and choosing the right timing can lead to a good relationship.

Compassion

• There is a lot of difference between Human Being & Being Human. o sustain success over time, practice being human.

Emotions and Thoughts

• The sustenance of success is inversely proportional to the outward display of negative emotions.
• The left half of the brain makes a person logical and the right half creative. Without positive thoughts, what's on the left, nothing is right, and what's on the right, nothing in left.

Perseverance:

• It isn’t the strength but the consistency of effort that sustains success.
• There is nothing called stress in life: either you are enjoying your work or doing the wrong job.

Association:

• Remember the 1/2 rule: spend half your time with people either half or twice your age to reduce your stress by half
• Cultivate a mentor. You are either mentored or tormented.

Communication:

• Be careful who you vent out to. A listening ear is often a running mouth.
• Wise professionals talk because they have something to say: fools talk because they have to say something.
• To communicate effectively, express, don’t impress. What's right isn't always popular, what's popular isn't always right.
• How many PowerPoint's you make is insignificant compared to how many powerful points you make.

Listening:

• God has given one mouth and two ears for a reason: use them in the same proportion.
• Cleverness is when you believe only half of what you hear.....But brilliance is when you know which half to believe.

Conflict Management

• In conflicts, it isn't what you say but how you say that matters. 10% of conflicts are due to difference of opinion. 90% are due to tone of voice used.
• Don't be so much emotional in life that it hurts you And Don't be too much practical in life that it hurts others

Balance practicality with relatability.

Adversities

• Everyone has to face adversities in life. There are two 'S' choices: take Stress or Smile. The next two 'S' results follow in the same order: Sleepless nights or Serenity.
• The sweetness of success is in direct proportion to the extent of adversities.

And finally Success

• SUCCESS in life depends upon three important things....

Vision of seeing the invisible opportunities,

Mission of solving the apparently impossible things.

Strategy of avoiding the naysayers

• 97% of people who quit on their dreams are employed by the remaining 3% who follow their dreams all life.
• About 15% of one's professional success is due to one's subject matter expertise and the rest 85% is due to people skills, personality & the ability to lead people.

Do some of these axioms relate to you? What are some other factors that have helped you sustain professional success? Please add your suggestions in the comments box below 

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Raja Jamalamadaka is a TEDx and corporate speaker, entrepreneur, mentor to startup founders, "Marshall Goldsmith award for coaching excellence" award winning top 100 coach to senior industry executives and a board director. He also serves on several CEO search panels. His primary area of research is neurosciences - functioning of the brain and its links to leadership attributes like productivity, confidence, positivity, decision making and organization culture. If you liked this article, you might like some of his earlier articles here:

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