I always say that you should listen to advice no matter who it comes from, especially if it sounds reasonable. Some advice we understand on the spot. Other advice we only tend to understand later on.
Whether you want to work for a company or start your own business, you need to look at your own character. Are you someone who settles, or are you ambitious? People who settle are happy with much less, at least in the short term, because in the long term settling can take its toll.
Ambitious people (which has nothing to do with being greedy) need much more. It was a businessman and investor who gave me this advice when I was complaining about how little I was valued at a company:
What was that excellent advice?
Look for opportunities where the outcome is either success or a resounding, spectacular failure. But don’t stay in the middle.
Believers in “the many shades of grey” may not believe in all white or all black, but in reality almost everything is black or white: you either take drugs or you don’t. There are no semi-addicts. You either love someone or you don’t. You can’t love halfway, because grey love is just affection, like the kind we end up feeling for our pets. You either succeed or you don’t. There is no such thing as half a success.
You have to be like a rocket at launch. Either you explode or you reach orbit.
If you join a company, you’re ambitious and you expect to move up, being stuck in your starting position for 20 years is death for that kind of person. Of course, for someone who settles, that is exactly what they need: a permanent job that pays the bills and supports their family. And there is nothing wrong with that way of thinking. But if settling isn’t in your character, that situation is not for you.
When it comes to business, don’t stay stuck in a small business for too long. It’s fine for learning, but the business has to grow, and you have to grow as a businessperson. Otherwise, sooner or later your business will die, either because you get tired as an entrepreneur or because a more ambitious entrepreneur has eaten your business. (Read: How much your business needs to grow each year to be profitable)
As a Julio Iglesias song puts it: “Fly high, because when you fly too low, people shoot to kill.”
Sooner or later, a medium-sized business ends up becoming either a large company or a small business. In the second case, the next step is desperation and exhaustion, and probably the death of the business.
When it comes to your career, I have seen many great professionals in sales who were talented and ambitious. Over the years they kept doing the same thing, with fewer and fewer professional challenges, and there came a point when it looked as if someone had cut their balls off and put them to simmer in lukewarm water. As if they had gone from tigers to little lambs.
In a set of tips we published in a previous article, one line in particular caught my attention: “If you feel the need to ask your boss for a raise, maybe it’s time to look for another employer.” The fact is that we should always be growing, and our work should be recognised or criticised; but when we know we are doing a good job, it should be recognised with something more than a pat on the back.
A career is no different from a business. Our income and our responsibility in the company should grow. Otherwise, the company would be looking for a mediocre worker. Is that worker you?
When should you sell a stock? When it hits a lasting resistance level, also known as a “ceiling”. If you are ambitious, when you think you have hit the ceiling in your career, you should ask yourself whether what comes next is what you dreamed of. Sell the stock or hold it. If you are going to hold it, at least make sure the dividends make it worthwhile.
Read: There is only one way to motivate salespeople: it’s called money
Featured image: NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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