16 Great Career Tips From Successful People You Must Try In 2016

The New Year holidays have ended, and ahead of us is the year 2016, which opens up new horizons for us - a year with many blank pages for new stories and achievements. You have every chance to make it the best in your life.

Of course, the next 12 months will not do without some troubles and setbacks of various sizes. However, they will be accompanied by many new opportunities, victories, achievements and new experiences. We have prepared for you 16 interesting tips from successful people that will help you realize the maximum of what was planned in the new year, will lead you to thoughts and encourage you to new successes.

Richard Branson: Don't waste your energy on so-called “failures”

Richard's mother taught him that regrets are wasted time and energy. According to the founder of the conglomerate and the head of the board of Virgin Group, he was always surprised at the amount of time people devote their thoughts to their defeats, instead of putting their efforts and energy into a new project.

“It gives me pleasure to run all kinds of business in the company, and failure for me is just a falling curve on the general schedule, but not a bad experience,” the founder of the Virgin Group corporation shared his thoughts with The Good Entrepreneur.

Mark Cuban: learn to listen

One of the first mentors of Mark taught him that the most important skill of a person is the ability to listen.

He advised Kuban to write the word “LISTEN” at the very top of his notebook before each meeting, and use it as a reminder of the most important thing during the event. This advice does not mean just silently waiting for your turn to speak. The mentor had in mind the maximum concentration and the desire to really understand what the interlocutor says.

Soulmates founder Becca Brown: act in the style of "all is well, no matter what"

Becca Brown managed to work at Goldman Sachs, which is famous for its strict selection criteria for employees, before launching its startup selling accessories for women's shoes. Her company now supplies goods to more than 3,000 stores.

She received the best advice in her life from her university trainer in lacrosse, who told her to act in the style of "all is well, no matter what." As Brown herself explains, this is a state of mind, a way of thinking, a vision of the world. “Far from always everything goes as you intended, whether it’s your own business, career or personal life. Failures and disappointments happen, and then the temptation is great to start feeling sorry for yourself or to engage in self-flagellation, ”says Becca. “But you must act as if everything is fine with you, and nothing bad has happened.” It’s as if nothing bothers you, and everything goes as you intended. ”

Emily Hughes: Chat with a lot of people

When Emily was still in high school, she managed to get into the US Olympic figure skating team and go to the Tokyo Olympics in 2006. She is currently giving business advice for Google Fiber.

But during the intermediate stage, from the athlete’s career to the choice of a new professional development path, Hughes felt somewhat lost. “I didn’t have a resume, and I didn’t even imagine what consulting was,” says Emily. So she just started talking to completely different people.

“I started a conversation with people to learn as much as possible about work areas, specialties. I wanted to understand what this or that person is doing for a particular company, the current consultant explains. “For me it was an opportunity to define my own skills, as well as those skills that I would like to learn in order to do what I like.”

Pat Wadors: Put Potential Experience Above A Beautiful Post

LinkedIn is a well-known Silicon Valley company that helps users create their resume and find work. The project is also famous for its good salaries and various “goodies” for employees.

LinkedIn's senior vice president of recruiting has given this advice to people who are just starting their career path. However, these words will be useful to each of us at any stage of our career.

“Throughout your professional development, you will move not only forward, but also to the sides,” says Pat. - You are likely to change the scope of work. Look not for a beautiful position, but for the experience and skills that a new job will give you. “Do not get attached to the effective title of your position, do not focus on stable career advancement.”

Jerry Seinfeld: Focus on quality work, not self-promotion

Some time ago, famous comedian Jerry held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit, offering readers a couple of great career tips.

According to Jerry Sainfield, one of the wrong tips that you can give a comedian newbie, or any other young specialist, sounds like "you have to try harder to PR yourself." This is the worst advice. The best advice is simply to do your job efficiently, and then you don’t have to worry about anything else. ”

Google for Work President Amit Singh: Sometimes you need to go from the flank to success

About six years ago, Amit Singh left a promising job at Oracle in order to help Google build a new, then still unknown Google Apps for Work service.

Then Amit consciously took this risky step, and moved with his family from Boston to the famous San Francisco Bay Area. Looking back, he can give others excellent career advice: “When you get a great chance, use it. Of course, some may say that this did not mean at all some grandiose changes in my life, but in reality they are mistaken. "I had a great career at Oracle, and the offer from Google has brought enormous changes for me." Thus, the current president of Google for work realized that sometimes "on the way to something important, you need to go from the other side, although this does not seem something obvious at that time."

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst: Strive to maintain the right balance between work and leisure throughout your career

Jim Whitehurst boasts several turns of his successful career. He has gone from a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group to an executive director at Delta Arilines and CEO at Red Hat.

Jim says that each of us should not consider our career as a kind of sprint race, during which we need to give all our best and work a huge number of hours until the moment when the job knocks you off, and then repeat it again and again.

“Of course, your career will have difficult times, full of stress - it was the same with me when Delta Airlines was preparing to declare bankruptcy, or, for example, during the first 100 days at Red Hat,” says Jim Whitehurst, “but in general, you must find the rhythm for work and everyday life that you can maintain constantly. Find a balance in which you have enough time for family and friends, learn to be emotionally happy and at the same time remain unsurpassed in your work. This is very important because building a great career can be compared to a marathon, not a sprint. ”

Professor at Yale School of Management Amy Wrzesniewski: Try to make your work more meaningful

Amy Wrzesniewski is well known for her research on how people find meaning in their work.

In her opinion, the happiest workers make their work more meaningful by doing “working crafting”. So she calls the process in which employees, on their own initiative, find some significant tasks and add them to the work routine. Instead of waiting until the boss gives you some new projects or promotes you, they ask themselves: “What can I do in my work right now so that it makes more sense?”

For this, you can, for example, set aside part of the day to help other people, or try to find tasks that allow you to use your best, favorite skills. The point is simply to make such things a part of your work.

Pop Country Artist Taylor Swift: First Know Yourself

Taylor Swift is one of the most successful pop singers in recent years, and she is also known for her prudent attitude to her career.

The singer said in an interview with GQ that she was able to comprehend the nature of failures in her childhood. According to Taylor, she literally raved about the Behind The Music TV show, which talked about the ups and downs of famous music artists: “I thought about it a lot and concluded for myself that it was the lack of self-awareness that caused all the failures: loss of significance, ambition, skill. Therefore, the desire to comprehend myself has always been among the main tasks that I set myself daily. "This is much less relevant to reputation management, strategy and vanity, the main thing is attempts at all costs to maintain your self-awareness, since it is the easiest to lose when fame comes to you."

Investor and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk: Compile your career

Gary Vainerchuk, co-founder and CEO of VaynerMedia, is also known as an advisor and investor, leading his activities in the field of technology. During his career, he managed to make a hand in the creation and development of more than 50 startups, including Twitter, Tumblr, Medium, Birchbox, Uber and Venmo. Vainerchuk became a millionaire by the age of 35. “If I had to choose one habit that really changed everything around me, I would call decompiling the last stage of my career today in real time,” says Gary. - When I talk about decompilation, I mean the analysis of events - step by step, from my big dream to the current moment. I’m trying to make out each step in detail. ”

According to Vaynerchuk, you cannot just copy what someone else has done: you should only do what is right for you.

Journalist Katie Couric: Say Yes to New Opportunities

In her book The Best Advice I Ever Got, Katie talks about parting words from Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board of directors at Google, who once told her, “Learn to say yes "In response to the opportunities that are provided to you in life. Answer by consent to an invitation to a new country, to a meeting with future friends, to an offer to learn something new. It is the word “yes” that gives you both your first job, and your new job, and your spouse, and even your children. ”

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: Learn how to interrupt an interviewee if necessary

Being an American diplomat, Madeleine Albright gives unusual advice. This parting word is relevant for every person, but it will be especially difficult for women to do: learn to feel the right moment to speak when you are listening to another person. Interrupt the interlocutor, if circumstances so require.

“It was an important lesson even for myself, although I had a different opinion before,” says Ms. Albright. “As a member of the Security Council, I doubted the correctness of this approach and reflected:“ Maybe I should still wait and not speak from the very beginning? ” However, if you raise your hand and your opinion is not asked at the right time, later everything that you wanted to say will no longer matter. ”

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs: Ask for help

When Steve was 12 years old, he called the legendary engineer William Hewlett and asked if he had spare parts for the computer. It all ended with the co-founder of Hewlett Packard Corporation offering Steve a job.

In one of his interviews back in 1994, Steve Jobs said that he had then received one important lesson: most people are not provided with such opportunities just because they “do not ask others.” Therefore, the key to success, according to Jobs, is very simple: ask for help: "I have never met people who would not want to help me if I asked for help."

Marc Andreessen: Focus on helping others, not your “favorite business”

Marc Andrissen’s successful career began at Netscape. Subsequently, he launched and successfully sold other projects, and now Andrissen is known as one of the most influential venture investors in Silicon Valley.

His career advice has two parts. Firstly, he says that the idea of ​​“following one’s passion” is “dangerous and destructive,” because it can only be supported by those who succeed in becoming successful while doing what they love. But the world also knows many entrepreneurs who could not achieve success, following their hobbies.

Thus, according to Andrissen, it is better to focus on creating benefits for other people who make them happy.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: Don't let fears stop you

Cheryl Sandberg boasts many successful projects related to her name, starting with the post of chief of staff of the US Treasury Secretary, ending with Google’s help in establishing the company as a phenomenon in the contextual advertising industry. Now she does the same on Facebook.

Cheryl became world famous by founding the feminist movement LeanIn. She gives a lot of career advice, but we will write about the best of them: “Believe that you can do anything in the world. This is important for every person, and especially important for women. Do not let anyone tell you that you will not be able to build a successful professional career and at the same time live a full personal life. When someone tells you that you cannot do something, know that everything will work out for you - and immediately start thinking about how to organize it. Ask yourself: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”