Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2016. The author writes today, at 37, and refers to the hard job market of the time, reflecting Spain’s post-crisis unemployment.
There are lessons we can only learn with the passing of time, through victories and failures, the easy way or the hard way, but lessons they are. Today, at 37, when I look back, I realise that for a long time I may have been wrong in the way I thought, in my impatience to want things to happen immediately, forgetting that some things simply take time.
I have also noticed that the moments when it seemed I wasn’t making progress were moments when “something” was taking shape, and later I reaped the rewards. And I have learned that, professionally, things often get worse before they get better. There are losses before there are gains, and you have to invest before you collect dividends.
We’re not only talking about money, but also about time and effort. Of course, I have also learned that if you always go out into the world with the mindset of absorbing new knowledge, with the humility to keep learning from people and, hard as it may be to believe, with the attitude of helping others, for some reason things end up working out and bringing rewards. Not always, but just often enough for you to know you’re on the right track.
Drawing on both my own lessons and lessons from people who are wise thanks to their age and the experience they have accumulated, here are some crucial lessons for achieving success that we should all take on board, so as not to make mistakes others have already made.
See also: 17 hard life and career lessons you need to learn in your twenties
1. Always be courteous and keep in touch
Why do I say this? Over the years you meet a lot of people in your professional life: bosses, managers, clients, colleagues and competitors. It’s true that we can’t always be liked by everyone, but at least try to always be honest, courteous and polite, even with the people who have it in for you.
As a great business strategist once told me: “be kind to your competition, even when you are destroying them.” On occasions when I have needed a good department head or a good salesperson, I haven’t always turned to former colleagues. Sometimes I have turned to the person who, working for the competition, made life very hard for me.
Life takes many turns. I have seen a former boss fill up my car at a petrol station, and I have seen a young man who worked under me become a great businessman. I’m fond of both of them, and I believe both of them are fond of me.
Many business opportunities come from people you met 15 or 20 years ago, so the more people you know, the more business opportunities you’ll have.
I admit that I personally haven’t nurtured all the professional relationships I could have, mainly for lack of time. Don’t make that mistake: as far as possible, keep up your relationships with the people you meet who, because of the kind of people they are, are worth it. And not only for the possible professional opportunities, but for the personal satisfaction.
See also: 10 life lessons people learn too late
2. Plant many seeds. Over time, some will live and bear fruit, and others will die
Most things that are worthwhile tend to develop gradually. Sometimes you acquire knowledge and decide to do something, but because you don’t see results immediately, you switch to something else.
An entrepreneur makes a big investment in a business and, when it doesn’t turn a quick profit, decides to give it up. Perhaps it would have been better to follow the advice of starting small but thinking big. Don’t try to sell 1,000 products at once: sell 10, then another 10, and then 20. That is organic, healthy growth, in which the foundations are laid and we invest progressively as sales grow.
If you’re developing an app, building a website or anything else, be patient, gain knowledge in different areas, test what you learn and plant those seeds. Only time will tell which will live and which will die.
3. Desire and passion
Sitting on a hiring panel, over time you learn something that human resources departments often forget. A CV tells you nothing, and a person’s qualifications and talent don’t say much if that person doesn’t feel a desire to grow and isn’t truly passionate about the purpose the company is offering them.
When a person lacks knowledge but has passion, they will find a way to acquire that knowledge so they can keep growing. If another person has the knowledge and skills but lacks that “something” (desire, passion, or whatever you want to call it), they will soon be overtaken by the passionate person.
We’re not talking about the desire to work, because with things as they are, most people have that, but the desire for that particular job, for that profession. When I worked in sales, I was more motivated with every month that passed. The more turnover grew and the more clients I had, the keener I was to win new ones. With many others, on the other hand, you could clearly see their interest in the job fading after a few months.
4. Pay yourself first, and not only in your finances
Financial education teaches the importance of paying yourself first, but in life in general you need to do the same, and not out of selfishness.
Before worrying about others, take care of yourself; before helping others, help yourself. For example, on a plane, put on your own oxygen mask before helping a child. It’s the only way to help that child.
In other words, you can’t help anyone else from a position of weakness. So help yourself first. And this applies to health too.
5. Learn from every experience
They say you have to fail to succeed. And that’s true, as long as you analyse and learn from that failure. If you don’t, the failure won’t have helped you at all. Life is not linear, and for some reason we are sometimes so naive that success goes to our heads, and so foolish that failure ends up hitting us in the heart.
Always draw a lesson from each of the ups and downs you’ll go through in life. You’ll never be clever enough to have nothing left to learn. In fact, as it happens, the people I’ve known who thought they already knew everything started a downward trend in their lives.
Go through life as an eternal apprentice, because it’s the only way to keep moving forward and improving.
See also: 8 hard truths you’ll learn sooner or later
Featured image: Sneha G Gupta, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
