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The very first time I learned what would become QUALITIES OF SUCCESS, my mind was blown! When I first learned them, they were packaged for Martial Arts as “Qualities of a Black Belt”, and it seemed like every possible aspect of my life was covered. I asked my instructor at the time, and he confirmed that without possessing each quality, I would never be a Black Belt. I might eventually wear a black belt, but there was a subtle distinction that I didn’t miss out on. Almost all of the traits resonated with me, and they made sense to varying degrees, but I questioned the placement of COURTESY at the time. After all, we all knew stories of Black Belts that were anything but courteous.
When I decided to write about the Qualities of Success, I briefly considered omitting courtesy from the list. Once again, there is no shortage of stories that talk about successful people who are clearly not courteous. Some names that come to mind: DONALD TRUMP, LEONA HELMSLEY, MORTON DOWNEY JR. , and a few others. So, if you can be a success while not being courteous, does courtesy still belong on the list? My answer is resoundingly YES!
Much like the whole black belt vs. Black Belt concept, just having money is not necessarily enough to qualify someone as a success. The people on that list absolutely have money. No question that they have monetary wealth, but are any of them really successes? I think not in some ways. Each of them had multiple marriages, each of them faced professional failure, and they probably have all alienated many friends and loved ones over the years. So to recap: money, yes—success, eh?
So when you are at work, why do you need to be courteous? Simply because most people spend at least one-third of their lives at work! Being courteous is one of those things that have a habit of coming back to you, only magnified. Doing the simple things, things like saying “Good Morning” or opening the door for someone, or even holding the elevator for someone who just isn’t as fast as you are, will go a long way.
The payoff may not be obvious right away. You might go years without noticing anything happening, but you also may be looked at by your boss as someone who cares about the place you work enough to be trusted with more responsibility and (hopefully) more money. You may hold the door for someone who will be able to offer you a better job for more money. I don’t think you should be looking for either of those circumstances; I think that courtesy done in the hopes of being rewarded somehow isn’t really courtesy. That usually becomes sucking up, and nobody likes a suck-up!
Okay, I really thought that this was going to be a really hard post for me, because I feel that this is a really hard concept for me to meet up to. I sometimes feel that it is antithetical, not only to my own nature, but to SUCCESS in general.
Those who know me know that HUMILITY is not my strongest subject. I know what I am capable of (in most cases), and what is beyond my skills or knowledge to perform. I take PRIDE in being able to do a good job, and in becoming the best at whatever job I am doing. Sound good so far?
My wife, on the other hand, is way more valuable to her company than I am. She is every bit as good as I am at what I do, she probably cares a lot more about everything that I do, and she is way better looking (let’s face it: that counts for something!), but she is also way more humble about her abilities than I am. Sometimes I think that she is just better at acting or playing it off that way, but the truth is, she really is that humble, and it makes her a much stronger asset than I am. Where it might hurt her is in dealing with people who are clearly not as good at their job as she is. Most of these people are management types, and some of them are really good at what they do, but there are a few…, let’s just say that the only reason she isn’t a big-time CEO somewhere is because she isn’t willing to put up with all the headaches that come with the job. The problem is, because she is so humble, people mistake that humility for weakness, and because she isn’t willing to deal with the headaches, she lets them go right ahead.
My dad used to tell a story of when he used to work in a hospital. The nursing staff of a particular floor had a party, and made a mess. One of the head nurses yelled at a housekeeper to clean up the mess. The housekeeper asked why she should clean when she didn’t make the mess. The nurse told her that if she had done the work and went to school, she would have been a nurse, so she had to do what the nurse said. A doctor was there, heard the exchange, and told the housekeeper not to clean, and called the nurse to account. He told the nurse that if SHE had been willing to do the work and go to school, she would have been a doctor and wouldn’t have to clean up after the party.
When at work, it is important to maintain humility, especially when dealing with bosses. Bosses usually have strong egos and thin skin, and because they are the boss and you aren’t, you need to learn how to maneuver around these people while keeping your job in tact. I’m a firm believer in the philosophy of NEVER GIVE ANONYMOUSLY, but there are ways to do a thing, and there are proper times and places to do these things. In every company that I’ve worked for, there was usually some sort of meeting where the boss would ask what I had accomplished since the previous meeting. I made sure to list off what I had accomplished, but I also made sure to give credit to anybody else who had helped me succeed. This was sometimes more important to my contribution. If someone helped me, no matter how much, I would always give them the majority of the credit and praise for the accomplishment.
Remember when I said that I also know what is beyond my knowledge and skill? This is another important part of humility. I know next to nothing about the processing of mortgage loans. I’ve had a couple of training classes, and I might be able to survive with the help of a strong mentor, but on my own—useless. I know that. I also know many very good mortgage loan officers that I would trust with my reputation, so I will gladly tell clients to see this specific person or that one.
When dealing with finances, you also need to keep in mind that you may not be the best at every investment vehicle. Maybe you understand one better than another, or maybe you just like one better than others. Either way, stay honest, especially with yourself.
Also, if you are doing well, don’t make the mistake of bragging about it to the point that you are annoying other people. In addition to losing out on friends and loved ones, everything that goes up must come down, and KARMA has a way of calling at the most inopportune times.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
How many times do you think you’ve heard that in your life? I stopped counting somewhere around a bazillion. I used to think that was a great phrase, and I endeavored to hold myself up to that standard. I really wanted to be successful, and since that phrase had the word “succeed” in it, it had to be good, right?
PERSEVERANCE is, in my opinion, highly misinterpreted. The document that is linked to above has some great information about perseverance, but it also has some that is counter-productive to becoming successful. I included it for the good information, obviously.
We all know that you have to wait for good things to happen, but that’s just half the story: You really have to work hard for things to happen in the way you want them to, and the waiting really only comes about after you have exhausted your supply of hard work. You also have to know when and if you need to abandon something in order to be successful.
Let’s think about school. I know that your goal is simply to complete the required amount of time so that you can do other things. We all know that. But if all you do is show up, do you really believe that you will succeed in your quest to get out of school? You know that you need to wok hard, show up on time, pay attention, do well on tests, and not be a trouble maker. Perseverance comes in somewhere around October of each year, when school has just recently started, and you are already bored with it. The time when you would give almost anything to be anywhere else. It is in these times that you have to persevere, that you have to focus even harder on the goal, and the prize you get for achieving that goal.
In saving, you really have to work hard to avoid those stupid, little temptations that creep up and make you want to spend money on something that you don’t need, and probably don’t even really want. You also need to keep on the look-out for better ways to save money, better places to put your money, and better methods of making more compound interest. Believe me, I know how easy it is to make a quick deposit into my checking account and pat myself on the back because I’m saving money. Sometimes, I’m too busy to really think about it, others I have other, more important things on my mind to think about it, but if all I do is sit back and make those checking deposits, I’m screwing myself in the long-run.
Sure, I need to keep some money in a checking account, so that I can use it as needed, but attached to the very same ATM card is a savings account that earns interest (although, admittedly not much), that I could just as easily make a deposit to. I also know that opening up a higher yield CD (Certificate of Deposit) is only a phone call away during the day. If I really wanted to put the money in my checking, I still have access to a bill-pay system on-line, where I could transfer the money in my checking to another institution where I could make even more interest. There is no shortage of choices.
If saving is really important to me (which it emphatically IS), I need to persevere past all of the distractions; past the “I don’t have enough time”, past the “I have other things going on that are more important”, past even the “It’s been a while since I’ve been to a casino”. I need to persevere to save the money in a smart way, so that I can have all the “stuff” that I want at a later time.
At work, there will be times when things just aren’t working out in your favor. You may get fired for whatever reason. Whatever the case, you can’t just sit down and cry about it (note: The first time you get fired, it is perfectly acceptable to sit down and cry for a few days. This is the first time you’ve ever been fired for screwing up, and you’re still a little upset. Trust me when I say that it gets easier with time and experience), you really do have to brush off, get back to working, and get back to work. Just remember that stuff happens all the time that you have no control over. I’ve long believed that if you can’t control something, you shouldn’t worry about it either. Once you get that habit down, life gets considerably less stressful.
The last part of perseverance is knowing when to give up. Blind, stupid perseverance to a failing proposition is not good for you. Sometimes you have to stick with a loser in order to gain something else, but in general, once you realize that you won’t be successful at something, cut your losses and move on to the next thing. Trust me when I say that you will be doing yourself a favor.
***WARNING!!!***:
This post will contain some strong themes and language that you may not want your child to read without your supervision. Although I will do my best to refrain, I will point to a couple of links that I have no control over the content of.
Today, I’m sickened on a couple of levels, because of problems with the law. I normally stay away from politics here because this blog is about young people and finance and not my political beliefs, but these stories fit.
- ROCKY DELGADILLO has released Jack Mc Clellan, dropping charges of violating a restraining order. I’m sorry, but I always believed that our politicians were supposed to work for their constituents, not the criminals. This guy needs to be fired, tarred and feathered, or whatever it takes to get a city attorney that will work to protect our children over a disgusting time-bomb like Mc Clellan.
- This is not the first thing that Rocky has done that deserves termination (or firing, I’m flexible), but it really should be the last. In the interest of good taste, I’m not going to put links to all the stupid things. If you are interested, check out Google.
- LINDSAY LOHAN had the most serious of charges dropped by the LA County Attorney’s office. This girl needs help, but she also needs a sense of ACCOUNTABILITY, that going to real, grown-up prison will teach her much better than hugging and patting of backs.
I’m keeping this short, because for me to go longer would strain my ability to restrain myself from calling these people for what they are.
I’m sorry for the hi-jacking of this site, but these stories are too important to have not been mentioned.
When you were younger (or perhaps still), your parents had a set of rules for you, and if you didn’t comply, you were punished. For some, this punishment was in the form of “Time Out”, others had privileges or “stuff” taken away, and still others got spanked or other physical punishment (let’s face it: You got the beat-down).
Despite the form, all of these punishments were designed to teach DISCIPLINE. They were trying to prepare you for the future where they weren’t going to be around to smack you upside your head for screwing around.
Continuing the series of QUALITIES OF SUCCESS, today we will be talking about DISCIPLINE, and how important it is for you to have if you want to be successful.
In the savings arena, it is just common sense that you need to have discipline, and that you are able to discipline yourself when it comes to spending money you don’t strictly need to. For example, if, for some reason, your company doesn’t offer direct deposit, you are going to have to make a trip to a branch (or ATM) of your financial institution in order to deposit your check. Most people, in an effort to reduce the amount of trips to the financial institution will take out some money for the next week or two. I’m guilty of this myself sometimes, but I kind of guesstimate how much I will need, and hope I’m right. Of course, if I’m off, there’s always the ATM, right?
Wrong.
That’s where discipline really comes in: Technically, there is an abundance of ATM access for me, but I’m disciplined enough not to abuse an ATM (as it stands, there is an ATM standing no further than 5 feet away from me) whenever I want. Part of that discipline is because I want to save money to buy nice things. The other part is this nagging voice in the back of my head that tells me I can’t spend money (sometimes, she’s not in the back of my head, but on the phone, standing beside me, wherever you can generally find wives).
When at work, discipline can be the deciding factor between a screw-up and a good employee. Your boss shouldn’t have to sit on your lap, watching you do your job. When they hired you, they hired you with the expectations that you would be able to do the job necessary without their interference. Of course they want you to come to them when you come up to something that you don’t know how to do (especially if it’s something completely new to you, that they have never covered before), and of course they want to be able to oversee what you are doing on a random basis, just to make sure you are performing up to the promise you showed when they hired you.
At some point in your job, you will be alone in your job assignment. You have choices there. You can either do what you were hired to do, and impress the heck out of your boss, or you can screw around, talk on the phone, go on MySpace, or something else that isn’t what you should be doing. Most of the time, you will probably get away with it. In fact, I am willing to say that you will almost always get away with it. But that really isn’t the point. The point is, that you need to be able to discipline yourself, to focus intently, on the goal that you have set for yourself: Success.
Once you have put yourself into the habit of disciplining yourself in one situation, you will see that it becomes easier to adapt to other situations, and that you are adding a lot of prestige to your reputation and name. While this may not sound as important today, as you advance in the workforce, you will eventually learn this fact: More important than your education, more important than your experience, even more important than anything else you will do, your reputation will either build or destroy your career.
