In Retrospect: Growth

Recently, I have had the opportunity to share with early-career professionals how to navigate and potentially fast-track growth within corporate America and its evolving culture.

With two-plus decades of learning, re-learning, and scars to go along with it, this short post was to share key things that have stood the test of time in retrospect, aiding me with my own career and growth.

Note that everyone's journey is different, and so will yours. Still, at the minimum, these would be points to ponder and perhaps embrace as you embark on any career phase. If you read this and it resonates, do let me know. And if I missed something, please do share.

• Build and invest in your network. Be thoughtful and deliberate.?Who you know > what you know.?
• Leave your ego at the door.?Your ego is a beautiful thing when in control. Don't let it cloud your judgment of yourself or create an alternate reality.
• You are a product of your ability to go beyond your excuses.?Always.
• Give more than you take.?Just because you are perhaps earlier in your career, don't self-discount. Your perspective, energy, and bias-free opinion always matter and are of tremendous value. If you are lost as to what is valuable to someone senior in the organization, just ask. You'd often be surprised at the answer, and it's way better than guessing.
• Work ethic > Talent. Talent is almost always trumped by an excellent work ethic. So build consistency into your core competency.
• Grow yourself and the people around you equally. As you progress in your career, the people you help and grow with will accelerate your growth further.
• Growth is never constant and is interspersed with painful plateaus.?Patience and focus on long-term goals?will be crucial to staying the course mentally, physically, and emotionally.
• Discipline is the foundation for growth.?It is ok to have ups and downs in your energy surrounding your career, passions, and purpose. Life is a marathon. Stay disciplined. Leverage motivation for quick boosts.

• Stay outside your comfort zone often. Define and govern how much discomfort is too much, but to quote me, " It's never a good thing if I am bored!"
• Finding apt?mentors and sponsors?as you progress through your career is crucial. Recommendation: Have 2-3 mentors to ensure you have diverse perspectives to leverage and experiences to tap into.?NOTE: Your boss is not your mentor. He/She is just doing their job.
• Invest in your own growth. Take training and attend classes on your own dime. Spend your hard-earned money on yourself.
• Embrace constant learning. There is always more to learn and acquire in terms of knowledge. Apply what you learn. But more importantly, share what you learn.
• Keep your skills and knowledge current. Consume relevant certifications, classes, training, seminars, YouTube videos, etc. Everything today has a video, a channel, or online notes. So leverage alternate methods outside of the traditional.
• Seek knowledge outside of your realm of professional focus. Knowledge is almost always situationally transferable in its value to what you do professionally, especially when it comes to leadership.
• Be organized. This could be its own post with a discussion on how, but everyone is different and has different methodologies. The HOW does not matter. Staying organized helps you focus on the right things. And along those lines...

• Manage your time. Be present and engage. Ask yourself if your presence in a meeting does one of two things; you are giving and/or gaining value. If not, humbly decline wherever possible or identify how you can play a better role in that engagement.
• Prioritize what matters. Your family, loved ones, or whatever you define as priorities need focus and uninterrupted time. No one but you can create the space to enable the right amount of focus on those priorities.
• Build strong instincts. If it doesn't feel right, perhaps it isn't right.?Be curious, seek to understand, and listen. To quote the Stoic Epictetus, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."
• Your communication skills are the platform for your growth. Spend time building fluency and proficiency to articulate your depth or breadth of knowledge and acumen.
• Build and maintain rituals and habits. Suppose you are like me and are an introvert in an extrovert environment. In that case, these rituals and habits could be the pillars on which you build your day and drive higher productivity.

• Consistency, creativity, and composure?are often forgotten when we think of personal growth. Invest your energy into growing these attributes.
• Surround yourself with people with dreams as big as yours, if not bigger.
• Express gratitude often!?There is enough kindness to go around.
• Experiential learning almost always trumps theoretical, so seek out broader avenues to gain experience that you can transfer to your work or life adventures. Examples include doing something good for the community, engaging in a non-profit organization, joining an employee resource organization, etc. All those communities of common interest will help you gain exposure, experience, and connections that are transferable to your career.
• Embrace your identity as your superpower. The moment you embrace your identity, you will become the true powerhouse you were destined to be on your own terms.
• Focus on what you can control. Not what you think you can control. It will maximize your personal SNR and keep you motivated and positive.
• You create more of what you focus your energy on. If you focus on growth, you create it. If you focus on gossip and what-ifs, you create more noise. So pre-frame your mind to always focus your energies where it matters most.

So many of these that I have listed are things I constantly look back at as either foundational pillars of my success or critical tenets that I often rely on to shift, enable, or accelerate growth. If you are still reading, I am thankful if this quick read resonated, was thoughtful, and gave you more things to ponder.

Here's to more growth for all...