Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! Success Training

In my last post “How Come They’re Rich and I’m Not?!?” I wrote about the main reason that everyone else seems to be doing better than you. That’s because they have figured out what is VALUABLE in their career and then gain those skills and knowledge to become valuable themselves.

And as you all know…beautiful things start to happen when you become valuable.

There are no exceptions to this.

If you take a look at any major celebrity in the world today or any of the most successful people around they all share this one common trait. They have figured out what is valauble and then have worked hard to develop the skills and gain the knowledge to become just as valuable.

And in order to do that they STOP WORKING SMARTER!

That Still Doesn’t Make Sense

Okay let me break it down for you.

The old world myth is that you have to work harder to get ahead in life but a bunch of bright spark consultants throughout the 90′s spread a new idea: Work Smarter!

But when you think about it, working smarter is just a way for you to manage your time at work. working smarter allows you to work more efficiently which means you can get more things done quickly. It allows you to free up more time at work.

But Isn’t More Free Time Good?

Do you honestly believe it’s a good thing to have more free time at work? More free time means that you are either not doing enough work OR you don’t have enough to do. And that’s always a bad thing.

What this usually leads to is MORE WORK! Working smarter is a totally ingenious way of revamping the whole industrial age mentality of office drones working in a well oiled machine. PURE EVIL!

And this is where it gets crazy, because if you have a look at anyone successful in the world today it really looks as though they became rich, powerful and successful simply because they worked smarter. But what you don’t hear very often is their “back story”. Like I said I’m obsessed with people’s back story because I love finding out how they became so successful.

Are You Sure?

YES!!! Every single one of them have a common trait. NONE of them worked smarter to begin with. They all worked hard to build up something of value first and that’s what really made them valuable in their career. Once they had something of value then and only then did they work smarter to increase their level of success and wealth.

Trying to work smarter to become valuable is a bit like trying to sell products at a market when you don’t have any of them infront of you to display. You’re trying to sell the promise of a product. How successful do you think you would be?

So that’s the main reason why I want you to stop working smarter. If you really want to become valuable in your career then you have to work harder. Have you heard that saying “The Harder I Work the Luckier I Get”? It’s so true.

Having said that, you’re probably going to rush out and start working harder now but again you’d be making a huge mistake. In fact it’s such a huge mistake to rush out and start working harder that I developed my entire “How to Become More Valuable in Your Career – Free Training” series around it.

Congratulations! You’ve Confused Me!

Yes I know I just said you need to work hard to get ahead in life but most people misinterpret that to mean they need to be working longer hours at your job. And that’s simply not true. No one EVER became valuable by working harder at their job. If you work harder at your job then you will become indispensable to that job and you don’t want that.

Seth Godin talks about this in his book Linchpin but again it’s very easy to misinterpret what he’s saying to go work harder on becoming more valuable in your job. When you understand how businesses work you realise that everything is about minimising risk and maximising rewards.

So when you become indispensible to your job your organisation won’t let you leave because replacing your perfectness will be a huge risk to the organisation. You want to be indispensible to the organisation or better yet indispensible to the industry!

So How do I Work Harder?!?

Okay let me break it down for you. It’s a really simple two step process but it requires a LOT of hard work behind the scenes to become valuable in your career.

Step 1 – Find out What is Valuable to your career, industry or organisation

It could be different for each industry, job you are in or even the organisation you work for. It could also be different for the person you report to. My first boss valued the fact that I had an attitude to learn whatever I could that would help them in their job. My second boss valued people who knew they were the boss.

Step 2 – Work HARDER to develop those skills and become valuable!

One you know what is valuable you need to develop those skills yourself by reading more, asking better questions and talking to people who are valuable themsevles. I could do an entire series on this topic alone. (Oh wait I have…How to Become Valuable In Your Career)

But incase you’re still unsure if this works, let me give you a quick outline of what I would do if I was you.

THANKS HEAPS!

You’re welcome.

Now utilising these two steps together you could build up a successful career by reading the annual report of the organisation that you work for and try to understand what their goals are as an organisation. What do they really value and from there you can identify certain skills and knowledge that would be quite valuable to them.

To take it further, you could identify the top five companies in your industry and read their annual reports to find out what they find valuable. Chances are you will be able to find a few common traits and if you develop those common traits then BOOM you’re goin to be hot property in your industry.

That Sounds a Bit Businessy to Me

HELLO!!! In case you haven’t noticed everyone successful today has developed some sort of business skills even if they don’t run a business themselves. The world of business is all around us and the sooner you learn to think like an entrepreneur the sooner you will be able to develop skills to make you more valauble in your career. Have you ever heard of anyone committing career suicide by treating their career as a business?

Okay Fair Point!

Thank you. Now here’s what I want you to do as soon as you finish reading this post.

1. Decide to yourself that from this moment on you are going to BECOME VALUABLE in your career – no exceptions.

Make this commitment to yourself and you will avoid this stuck in a rut feeling that you have right now – or as I like to call it Hamster Syndrome.

This means stop looking at others and feeling jealous or trying to rationalise their level of success based on your circumstances. Instead STUDY THEM! Find out what makes them so successful and in the grander scheme of things look at what makes them more valuable and you’ll start to see traits within your industry or even your career.

Now that you’re thinking like a Success Champion:

2. Start researching what is valuable to your organisation and industry

Read company reports, talk to people hire up in the company than you. And please whatever you do, don’t ask a dumb question like “How Much Do You Earn?” They probably earn more than you so any figure they say is useless to you AND you run the risk of annoying them. You should ALWAYS be asking Powerful Questions. Do my “How to Become Valuable In Your Career” and you’ll know exactly what I mean by Ask Powerful Questions.

3. Develop Those Skills and Acquire the Knowledge to Become Valuable

It’s not rocket science really but like I said it takes time and committment to follow this formular through if you really want to be more successful like everyone else.

Anything Else?

YES! Luckily you reminded me. As you start to seek out knowledge and become more valuable in your career you’ll encounter a whole bunch of people looking to give you advice. Some of the advice will be good. some of the advice will be very bad and will put you further from your dreams of success than you ever thought possible.

The best example of this is a bit weird one but it really illustrates the point of choosing your advisors carefully. The advice comes from my Dad who always encouraged me to study hard, get a good job and everything else will work out for me in life. I know he means well by saying such things but it was totally in the opposite direction that I wanted to take my life. I was never that great at school and so I never got the best jobs. And when I did find the best job I got a bad boss who killed my career.

For me the defining moment that I knew I was successful was at the Young Achiever awards. My Dad was in the audience and enjoying the complimentary beverages perhaps a bit too much. As soon as I won both my awards he grabbed my best friend in excitement and told him: “See he NEVER followed any of my advice and now look at him on stage!!!” In fact to this day I still think my Dad has no idea what I do exactly but he enjoys reading about my adventures in the papers and magazines and seeing me on the internet on something called “YouTube”.

To me, seeing the puzzled look on his face every time he sees my adventures, and hearing the pride in his voice when he tells all his friends about me, is worth more than any of the money I earn, the people I meet, the experiences I have or even the opportunities I create for others along the way. That is something truly Valuable in my career. Imagine how different your life would be if you could create something just as valuable in your career?

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!…and STOP WORKING SMARTER!

AJ~

p.s. I’m always on the look out for stories so if you have a great story of how you or someone you know has become valuable in their career post it in the comments section below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Do you ever feel frustrated that everyone else is doing better than you? When you look at others it seems like everyone else seems to be getting more money, more opportunities to travel and just generally all the luck seems to be going their way. Yet when you have a look at your own life it seems as though you’re struggling hard in comparison.

Remember those dreams you had when you first started your career? You thought you would travel the world. Meet some amazing people. Make a million dollars before breakfast. And now all your doing is working lonnggg hours and getting no where fast!

Welcome to the real world! Or is it?

Yes unfortunately it is the real world. If you feel as though others are doing better than you then they probably are. But there’s hope. The reason they are doing so much better than you is that they’ve figured something out that you still haven’t figured out.

Those people who are doing better than you, they’ve all figured out how to become VALUABLE in their career!

And believe me…beautiful things start to happen when you become valuable.

Are You Sure?

YES! I am sure. See it really used to bug me when other people were more successful than me. Well maybe “bug” is not the right term here. I wasn’t jealous of them. I was happy for them but I wanted to know what they knew that made them so valuable. And you might say that this turned into a bit of an obsession with me.

I was obsessed with finding out how people got to where they were. I’d read books on my heroes in business. I’d watch any interviews that they did. I’d even buy their products to find out how they would think about a particular topic.

Throughout all of my research I found that the one common element that they all had was one basic fundamental truth. They had discovered what was valuable to their industry and then strived to gain the skills, knowledge and mindset to become just as valuable themselves.

Got Any Examples?

HEAPS! If you look at anyone successful in the world today and delve in deeper into their “back-story” you’ll find the same thing. But since I’m not famous enough (YET!) for you to include me in your research, let me tell you what happened when I started becoming more valuable in my career.

Long story short, I started off with an amazing career fresh out of University working for an ICT consulting firm and it was pretty much my dream job. I had a great boss who always threw new opportunities at me because they knew I could handle it with my “I don’t know but I can learn very quickly” attitude. My career blossomed and I began building up a network of contacts in the ICT Industry. And then came the knife…

You Were Stabbed For Being Successful?!?

Not litterally! But kind of…

Once the local office started growing I found myself under the command of a bad boss and I was no longer given any opportunities to further my career. In fact all opportunities thrown at me were steps backward and this frustrated me even more. Pretty soon my career was dead and I was left with two choices:

1) Roll over and accept that I would never be successful, or 2) take a good look at my situation and understand what my options were. Me being me I chose the latter and disected everything around me to find out what exactly was wrong and what I could do to improve it.

What Did You Find?

I found that my current situation was the result of one person’s actions that were out of my contro land I couldn’t change things. Lord knows I tried!!!

No matter how much faith I had in the company, I would never be considered valuable because of my boss. So it was time to accept my situation and start to think of options.

I knew that I had faith in my skills. I also knew that I had great relationships with my clients. So my bad circumstances only came down to one thing – my boss. If I could remove him then everything would be alright.

And thats when it hit me. My crazy idea. Why don’t I start my own company?

THATS HUGE!

Yes it was huge. I quit my job armed with only $200 and a Ferrari (LONG STORY! You’ll just have to come see me
speak sometime!) and I started my new company BLKMGK ICT.

Remember how I said when you become valuable in your career, beautiful things start to happen? Well they did!

During my first year of working on my own I earned four times more than what I was earning in my job.

That’s One Hell of a Pay Rise!

Yes it was, but the whole idea of starting my business wasn’t just about the money. I wanted to do some amazing things with my life especially with my “Change the World” philosophy and my job before wouldn’t allow that. Sometimes you just have to take control of your own life.

I soon started creating opportunities for other cool Young People to get ahead in their career like mock interviews, where I trained uni students on how to perform in job interviews.

My community development activities began to make me even more valuable and I soon found myself on boards and committees where I was often the youngest person on them by far.

What Else Did You Do?

HEAPS! But one day I got an opportunity to go crazy and turn one of my dreams into reality by creating a technology training centre where small business owners could come in and learn how to use technology to improve their business. The course was the first of it’s kind in Australia and I was so proud to be able to create that in my home town.

The actual story of how I did this is pretty crazy and I share it in my FREE Training series “How to Become More Valuable in Your Career“. Check it out if you get a chance.

So after creating all these amazing things and becoming valueable in my career an amazing thing happened. I won the NT Young Achiever of the Year Award for building my amazing career AND creating opportunities to help other Cool Young People get ahead in their careers.

Congratulations!

Thank you! But it didn’t end there. I started speaking and teaching my techniques to other Cool Young People who wanted to have similar results in their career and I created Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! – motivation and inspiration to help Cool Young People turn their dreams into reality.

And that brings us to my new philosophy Stop Working Smarter! Because this is essentially the secret to becoming more valuable in your career. And as you know by now:

Beautiful things start to happen in your career when you become valuable!

So let me break this whole “Stop Working Smarter” philosophy down for you.

YES! Tell Me All About “Stop Working Smarter”

Okay well… no wait. Hang on a sec. This has turned into an EPIC blog post and I didn’t really want to ramble on like this because I know you’re really busy. So how about this.

I’ll sum up this post right now with the main reasons that everyone else is doing better than you, and then I’ll write a new post that breaks down how you can be just as successful as them. Deal?

Okayyyyyyyyyyy

Good. So here’s the reasons why they’re rich and your not:

1. They have figured out how to be valuable in their industry
2. You haven’t.
3. I have.
4. I want to teach it to you.
5. You can be just as valuable as anyone you want if you STOP WORKING SMARTER!

Run through these rules and I’ll see you in the next post. Don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed otherwise you might miss it and not become valuable in your career.

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!…….and STOP WORKING SMARTER!

AJ~

WOW!!! I’m totally blown away by the number of comments and well wishes for the launch of Dream,Build,Inspire,Lead!’s Success Training Blog. I have been inspired beyond belief to hear of the impact that I’ve already had on so many people’s lives and I’m even more excited about the possibilities of what I can do to help take message in this blog out to the rest of the world. Thank you all for your amazing level of support!

One of the comments I got about my last post “Keep Punching” was from Cool Young Person Fiona Teakle (@FionaTeakle). Fi picked up on a comment I made about the failures in my life: “These days my boundaries are more defined by the failures I endured…”

and then asked me through Twitter:

“How do you prevent your failures from dictating your boundaries?”

Which is a REALLY great question. And my first reaction was “Get back on the horse“.

But then I started to think about it. Is getting back on the horse the only thing to do? Have I gotten back on the horse? Or am I now riding a different horse? Why am I even on a horse in the first place?!?

So in order to provide a meaningful answer to this question I examined all the crazy things that I’ve done in the past to compare them with what I would do right now at this very moment to create the same outcome that I was aiming for. A couple of stories came to mind.

The Lone Laugher

I was at an IT Industry Exhibition once and BLKMGK had a stall there. I was talking to potential clients when one of the organisers got up on stage and asked that everone be quiet and give him their full attention. I was just finishing up the conversation when the organiser singled me out on stage and said “AJ Stop talking! I can see you!” Now this was just plain rude and uncalled for but since I was a cool young person in an industry full of 50+ senior execs I’m used to being picked on quite a lot and I always stand up for myself.

So I yelled back “Of course you can see me, I’m smiling!”. The whole room went dead silent for a few seconds stunned by my remark. Then all of a sudden out of the back of the crowd came a roaring laugh “HAHAHAHA AHAHAHA HAHAH!” and then the proceedings continued.

Since this was an official function of the industry, The Minister for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) was in attendance and just happened to be doing the rounds visiting all of the exhibiting businesses – including mine. When he came up to me he shook my hand and said “Still smiling…HAHAHAH AHAHAHA That’s classic!”

WHOLY CRAP! The Minister was the one who laughed!!!! He posed for a photo with me and then asked me “Young Fella what do you do? Tell me all about it?” and I gave him a quick spiel and then I said to him “Minister, everyone here probably wants a piece of your arm and a bit of your leg but I want to flip the script and ask you, what can I do for you to help you in your endeavours?” He stared at me like I was from Mars and said “Young Fella no one has ever asked me that before…”

I knew that he had a strong interest in the youth of his community, in particular the prevention of petrol sniffing so I suggested that perhaps I could talk to his advisor and suggest some ways that the message could be driven forward in a manner that resonated with youth. He loved the idea, gave me his business card and wrote down his personal contact details on the back. VERY COOL!

So would I do something crazy like this again to stand out from the crowd? Yes. Without a doubt! Why? Because no matter what happens I ALWAYS hold my own when challenged. AND I like helping people…

Me vs The Board

I was the Vice Chair of the Australian Computer Society in the NT and the Society had decided to market it’s new Professional Partnership Program to big corporations in order to sign up their staff to become members of the Society. It was a great program and something I believed in quite passionately so I had no problems visiting local businesses and getting them signed up.

I remember visiting the largest IT Company here in the NT and I had to address the board. Usually I’ll stand and speak in front of any group of people but I must admit that I was slightly nervous about this because they were a multi-million dollar company with offices all around Australia. But in typical BLKMGK style I psyched myself up and went for it 1000 miles an hour.

The presentation consisted of facts, figures, benefits to the company and a whole bunch of other stuff. One of the key points of the presentation was handing out copies of the ACS’ Industry Magazine and I just happened to be on the cover. So I said to the board: “Most of you know me through my community development activities here in the NT and you should know that I’m not going to put my face on the cover of anything that I don’t believe in. I’m passionate about this program and I can see real results for you and your people so that’s why I want you to consider this program to help develop the talent of the cool young people that you already have…and for those of you who don’t know me, you can keep the magazine and have a read!”

Because I said it in such a light hearted and fun way I received lots of laughs and appreciation for my time and a few of the executives scrambled to hand me their business card – which is ALWAYS a good thing!

Now you’re probably wondering if the company signed up for the program…and the answer is no. Turn’s out that the CEO at the time had a really bad experience with the Society many many many moons ago and never wanted anything to do with them. So we lost that battle but won the war because even though we didn’t get the company signed up, a lot of their staff are members anyway.

So would I do something crazy like this again to stand out from the crowd? No. Well…not right now anyway. See in order to address the board of a big corporation and convince them that they should do something worthwhile – a) I have to be totally passionate about the subject and b) I have to have credibility as a person they should listen to.

In the story above, my reputation through my community development activities gave me the credibility I needed and entitled me to walk into that room and address the board of a multi million dollar corporation to speak to them as an equal. These days my achievements here in the NT don’t carry as much weight as they used to so I no longer feel as though I can do something like this again.  Talk about a fallen giant.

Now if the story were to end here then I really would be a fallen giant with my failures dictating my boundaries. And two years ago that’s exactly how I felt – worthless. But I never gave up. Something deep inside of me would never let me give up. Call it passion. Call it a drive. Call it sheer stupidity. Call it whatever you will but the fact of the matter is that I KEPT PUNCHING. And it all comes back down to a conversation I had with a friend and business associate of mine who helped me put together my greatest achievement in life so far: My Technology Training Initiatives.

Success Is You

I was in Sydney and I sat down with Grant or “G Dawg” as I like to call him (LONG STORY!) and he said the most profound thing to me. I was talking about how the NT is a great place because it’s so easy to connect with everyone and make things happen. I told him “I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t be as successful outside of the NT” at which point he almost slapped me and said “B@#%@#%! Mate with your talent you could be successful anywhere. It’s not the NT that makes you a success. It’s you.”

…and that got me thinking about how I achieved everything that I had achieved in my life so far. And one of the key points out of all of this was “Standing Out From The Crowd”. I took everything against me and spun it into positives. Too young? I can move quicker and bring you along for a fun ride. Not enough experience? I’m keen to learn. I don’t know you? You really should get to!

Hang On a Sec…

Now I have to make a REALLY IMPORTANT point about this whole “standing out from the crowd” concept. You HAVE to HAVE something concrete to back you up AFTER you get noticed. Otherwise it’s a bit like having a sports car without an engine.

“The greatest marketing campaign in the world is useless if you don’t have a product to sell.”

In this case the product is YOU…and you need to be as valuable as possible to your marketplace. That is the real answer to the question “How do you prevent your failures from dictating your boundaries?”

It’s Not Just About the Horse

When you fail at something you immediately get cautious and protect yourself. It scares you! And then you start thinking “I never want to go through this again.” or “I’m not going to try anything like that ever again.” and from there self doubt creeps in and makes a nice cozy little nest in your life. These are the boundaries and they exist for a reason.

It’s foolish to think that you can magically click your fingers and say “boundaries vanish!” because they’re not designed like that. As humans we gravitate towards pleasure and avoid pain and by having boundaries they help you avoid pain. So you should respect them. Acknowledge them. And only then attempt to change them.

Analyse Your Failures to Dictate Your Boundaries

The two questions I asked myself when I was ready to break out of my boundaries were:

1. Do I still feel exactly the same way about the subject that caused me to fail?

2. What lessons can I learn from this failure to help move me closer to my goals?

When I started asking myself the first question I realised that I was no longer passionate about a lot of things in my life. They just didn’t hold the same meaning to me and so the failures regarding those things – my boundaries, were designed to help me “weed them” out of my life.

Now I know what’s important to me, I start to look at the lessons learned from my failures and I use these lessons to become more valuable to my marketplace.

Failures Aren’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

The failures in your life may dictate your boundaries but this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are still pasionate about a subject despite your failures then learn from them and move forward OR use the failure to help you focus more on what’s important to you in the grand scheme of things.

Dave K left a comment on “Keep Punching” that sums up this entire concept:

“It ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky

Keep Punching!

AJ~

P.S.

I Need Your Help!

Remember my mission of taking the “Dream,Build,Inspire,Lead!” message around the planet? Well during my adventures so far I’ve collected a massive amount of information, wisdom and success techniques to help people turn their dreams into reality.

But here’s the thing.

I’ve got that much information that I don’t really know what would be most useful to share with you to help you overcome the challenges in your life and move you closer towards your goals. So I need a favour.

I need you to ask questions, give your perspective, tell your stories by commenting on each post or having a chat to me on Twitter (@BLKMGK01).

Today’s post was the result of @FionaTeakle asking me a question about “Keep Punching” and because she asked that question I was able to provide some information that might just help someone who was in the same boat as me to move forward with similar challenges in their own life.

So pleaseeee help me out and ask/comment/share a story below!

Photo: Marlboro Man by mikebaird