In this article, Harrison discusses the interesting concept of the fox and the hedgehog in association with your job search. The fox is intelligent and crafty and it can do many things at the same time. On the contrary, the hedgehog is an animal which knows how to do just one big thing and it is considered the more powerful animal. What Harrison means to put forward is the fact that those who do one thing well is more valuable and wanted than those who can do many things not so well. This is what separates those who make the biggest impact from all the others who are just as smart. Any person or group of people who achieve greatness in any calling generally do one thing in the best possible way. Harrison advises that to be good at your job and your job search, you need to bring a singular focus to it. Hence, you need to do what you do as well as it possible can be done.
In this article Harrison explains how your beliefs are controlling what is happening to you. Due to our early life experiences, almost all of us develop beliefs about who we are and our relationship to the world. These beliefs end up controlling how we evaluate ourselves in relation to the world. Most of us are acting and going through life largely unconscious to what we believe about ourselves. People want their experience of the world to be consistent with what they believe. The drive for this is so strong that people will do almost everything to be right about their beliefs. The key to a successful career and life is to start choosing what to believe about the world and about yourself. You need to manage your mind and understand how your beliefs about yourself, the world and the people around you are controlling your destiny.
Want Powerful Career Advice?
Get my free newsletter and strategies that make people successful
Make a list of the bonuses that you can offer an employer if hired, whether they be contracts or additional capabilities. Your extra assets may form a tipping point in the employer’s decision whether or not to hire you. Many businesses and career failures result from people focusing on their own needs rather than the incentives that they can offer others.
Imagine you are a doctor working in a small clinic in the suburbs of Chicago. You are surrounded by uninspired doctors who are happy going back and forth to work each day in exchange for a salary. You, in contrast, have no interest in money and are concerned with curing a fatal heart disease. In fact, you have been working on curing this disease for the past 15 years.
Everything you do is a form of preparation for your job interviews, as you are always under some form of scrutiny. The best employees can always spot other good employees, and you cannot “fake it”; merely doing a good job in your work is a form of interview preparation. Always put your all into your work, therefore, even if you do not have long-term plans to remain at your current employment. Switch jobs as infrequently as possible. The time to prepare for a job search is before you even realize that you need to do so.
Bad habits will cause you to fail at things at which you should succeed. Develop habits that empower you rather than hold you back. Habits make up the only real differences between those who succeed and those who fail at life. Habit separates those who achieve what they want in life from those who only talk about their goals.
Ranking people, assets, opportunities, etc. is one of the most powerful practices that you can implement. Ranking people against one another motivates them to grow, improve, and get progressively at what they do. Ranking naturally motivates people to improve, and companies who fail to do so often find themselves mired in mediocrity. Many people, however, mistakenly avoid rankings and the implied judgment of their abilities. You must use rankings as a means of escaping your protective shell and seeing the truth about yourself and your situation.
Do work that you love, and make it part of your life and identity. Success comes to people who love what they are doing, because their work becomes part of their lives, and there ceases to be a separation between work and pleasure for them. If you are not doing something that you could not imagine yourself doing into your old age, then you are probably in the wrong profession.
The best way to attain your goal is through small, incremental steps on which you can build. Establish a routine, and make sure you are consistently working towards some kind of goal. Start small, and always build upon what you have done before. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they believe everything should happen quickly and at the same time, instead of progressively building upon their past achievements.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
True self-esteem comes from within, not from the acceptance of others. When your sense of worth comes from within, you free yourself from comparisons with others and will enjoy a greater sense of internal security. You will no longer be bogged down by the experiences of others and can become much more self-reliant.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
Everyone tries to maintain a certain emotional state, and learning to control your own emotions will have a profound impact on your career. While everyone allows their emotional states to be influenced by outside events, there is no advantage in basing your own emotions on things that you cannot control. Allow yourself to discover happiness and fulfillment naturally, rather than making your emotions dependant on external circumstances. Your outlook will have a tremendous impact on your psychological health, as well as that of those around you.
Want Powerful Career Advice?
Get my free newsletter and strategies that make people successful