EPT
1. Concentration and Focus are two totally different things. You just need focus.
Every idiot educator talks about concentration, but the reality is you'll always be concentrated on a task automatically if it's of interest to you or if its important. Most people tend to use focus and concentration interchangeably. Here it is point blank, you can concentrate on a number of projects with 100% of your concentration, but with your focus all over the place, you are very unlikely to accomplish anything. If you want to achieve anything in life, you need focus, it not even a question of prioritizing, but to singularly pick out what needs to be done, not first, but what simply needs to be done completely and fully. This isn't about keeping your focus and staying away from distractions or whatever crap like that, its about making a choice what is the singular important thing that need to get done. For every element of your life, whether it be business, education, family or your faith, you need to have focus.
This entire idea of multi-tasking means that you already screwed up in your planning and preparation and now if you don't concentrate on every little details the entire house of cards is going to collapse on your head and if you get through this, you've been lucky and that working like this is unsustainable for the long term because you'll be burned out eventually as well.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying just do one thing in your life, but in each aspect of your life, if you want to achieve something, you need to focus. In the case of business, you see most failed start-ups having concentrated and worked hard on a number of things, but not fully putting in all their efforts and focus on the one thing that only mattered. Even balance sounds good in theory, but its not what creates that competitive achievement.
2. High Risk and High Return are for desperate broke people, Consistent preparation is what creates the choice in choosing the right opportunities.
Wealth and business is build on preparation and decisive execution when the opportunity presents itself. Because you are prepared you can take on whatever opportunity presents itself. The reality is that any company or person can get a lucky break, but is it sustainable?, and can you build on top of the lucky break? Everyone on the top rich lists didn't make their money because they were lucky on some big gamble, only con artists, the inexperience or the desperate ever engage in some high risk high return projects. It is not to say that we do not take some risks in business, but those risk come from competitive pressures to stay on top or to move into a better position, they are not risks where it is either do or die. Preparation is what creates the space that will allow you to pick which are the best opportunities and there are always more than one opportunity.
3. Be strategic, don't simply react.
If you are in a stable situation, if you are focused, if you are prepared for new projects, then be strategic meaning, be clear about your long term goals. In most cases your short term goals need to contribute to your long term goals, and the way it does is what is strategic. But if your short term goal doesn't match up with your long term goal, you need to be honest with yourself...are you working smart, or are you just reacting to whatever problems are occurring. Its the same why when I hear some crappy executives say, 'Oh I get about 150 emails a day and each one of them are critical to our business' and I'm like, 'so what, are you in customer service department or something?' How the hell can you be strategic if you are simply letting others dictate your daily priorities by their needs? Unless you are running 2 companies like the Nissan/Renault CEO, its just idiotic unless you really like your position and want to stay in it forever and its not a strategically important position (or else they've made it like that). Sometimes you need to troubleshoot and fix what was screwed up by some environment reason, but it should never be a habit because it shows that that either you're low on the necessary resources or you're completely off course.
4. Don't be a troubleshooter, be a grower; position yourself to do the most good, not just where you are most needed by the business- there is a difference.
Its cool if people know you as the guy who can fix whatever problems come up, but at the end of the day, its sucks because, you've used your time and personal resources to ensure that something didn't' fail, but you could have use you same time and resources to make a crap load more money. Even if you save something, no one will know the true value of what you saved (likely just the job of the idiot who made the problem in the first place), but while the CEO or owners might praise you, everyone else will be praising the guy who secured the entire firm's bonus. Your time and ability need to be put into the right place.
5. Always be ambitious.
Its funny, all the top CEOs will always say some crap like: I wish I had more balance in my life, blah blah blah, but none of them did, because they were ambitious. We all know what we are doing, what we are giving up, when you have achieved a certain milestone in your life, then reflect, but if you're still working, then damn WORK HARDER, WORK SMARTER AND FOCUS AND PERSEVERE TILL YOU GET IT. Ambitious doesn't mean being cut throat, that will only get you so far when all your senior colleagues know what a real ass you are and then leave you hanging out to dry. Sure if you want to be head of sales or a senior manager, go be cut throat, but if you want to be professional executive, then simply put the firm's objectives first, take initiative, take responsibilities for mistakes and make things work out and be a good leader and report properly and consistently. The top management will clearly see you as a rising star and they will promote you and if they are too dumb to see how good you are, then screw them, there are a lot of good companies for ambitious professionals, why be stuck in a loser company anyway.
When I applied for PwC in Korea, I'll tell you, I was nervous as hell, and my senior director of the gov't agency I worked for, said, 'look, they are professional company with the best of the best guys, they'll look at you and they'll see your drive and your talent and that's that.' And I've come to know, there are a lot of great companies and lot of crap companies, just because they don't pick you, doesn't mean you weren't good enough, maybe they are too crappy to see your potential. Now I'm not saying this as something bitter, not at all, if you know you are good, you are ambitious and put the firm first and are able to take on responsibility for your actions, then any company would be lucky to have someone like you, because in any given company there are only a handful of people like you who are willing to put their jobs on the line first for their ambition to be the best for the firm and yourself.
6. Enjoy the competition and pressure and the challenges.
There is this book called 'blue ocean' where it states that firms need to find a space in the market where there can be potential market demand, but no competition. The opposite of blue ocean is red ocean where there is a lot of competition and its fierce. What I say to that is, give me a red ocean any day, and I'll destroy the competition so that it becomes blue. Competition is the heart of innovation, it's better for the entire economy, and its not the strongest survive, but rather all firms will become better. In business, you need to be decisive, you need have confidence that you can take on this competition, because ultimately, if you don't truly most won't. But that is what makes you a professional.
When someone asks me, how do I deal with the pressure, I say, 'I love the pressure, I love the pace and love it when the competition can't keep up' for me the pressure isn't pressure as long as I am focused. At the end of the day, people talk about challenges and to be #1 in your school or some test or whatever, I'm a firm believer that you can be #1 in your field for business, why not go for it, what is really stopping you. Now a lot of this sounds like false bravado, but its not, its more of a mantra, because sometimes it will be so damn tough when you are moving up the ladder, but sometimes its only by facing the difficulties head on, does it make it manageable.
7. Reality Check always.
When I was studying theology at grad school (crazy eh?) the definition of a prophet wasn't that they could see the future,but rather they could see the current situation the way God saw it and the future results were pretty obvious. Whether it be a sanity check on your forecast or a re-examination of the marketing conditions, you need to see the results around you for what they are, not what you hope them to be, you need to really recognize, is the growth from the growth of the market or rather our real competitive edge. You need to know, who are your good managers, and who's potential really hasn't panned out. You need to know when you have to take a shot at a new market because you have really no choice and when you need to make the tough decisions. You also need to know when your long term strategy is right and while the short term results don't reflect that, that, the reality is, things are on track. How tough is this, its so tough on so many different levels, but you need time to reflect, you need a good nights sleep, you need a couple of days away from the madness and then have the conviction that you have a good pulse on the reality.
Focus, Preparation, Position, Ambition, Competition & Reality. I could think of some clever acronym to make you remember, but then I'd think you were an idiot not a geek. Think about these things and just get the simplicity of it first and when you eventually get its impact, it makes for a completely different way of working as a business professional.
