How To Succeed in Business

How to Succeed in Business
by Thomas Murcko, CEO of BusinessDictionary.com
Our mission at BusinessDictionary.com is to help people succeed in their careers. As

founder and CEO Im frequently asked for career advice, so I thought it was worth
compiling some wisdom Ive gained over the years, things I wish I had known when I
first started the company, to help you avoid mistakes I made and achieve more success
in your own career. Here they are; I hope you find them useful.
Work by design, not by default.

Many people choose a career with minimal knowledge of what skills are needed, what
the day-to-day work involves, and whether itll make them happy. Some start down one
path, pulled toward one of the careers that recruit the hardest, where corporate profits
are highest but employees are least satisfied. Then inertia and circumstance dictate
which direction their career goes. In effect, they let their career choose them, rather
than the reverse. Instead, be proactive. Decide what direction you want to go, and then
start moving in that direction, today.
Take responsibility for your career.

The days of working at one company for a lifetime and relying on a pension and social
security are long gone. Have an internal locus of control: you are in charge of your
career and your life. Design your own career, because if you dont, others will.
Have frames of mind that serve you.

Success is much easier with the right frames of mind, mental attitudes that color how
you think about things. Here are a few that will serve you well: 1. Be optimistic: Expect
great things to happen, and be enthusiastic about the path youre on. 2. Have an
abundance mentality: The more you give, the more youll get back. 3. Act with
confidence: Believe that you can achieve what you want. 4. Free yourself from limiting
beliefs: Dont accept negative frames of mind that constrain you. 5. Feel gratitude:
Learn to see your experience of work as a privilege, a chance to utilize your unique
talents in service of something bigger than yourself. 6. Make work fun: Youll enjoy it
more and youll be the type of employee that others want to work with.
Know yourself.
People are bad at predicting what will make them happy. Too many people devote years
or even decades to climbing the career ladder and reach the top only to discover that it
was leaning against the wrong wall. Decide what you want out of life, then do your
research. Which careers tend to bring people the most money, happiness, fulfillment, or
whatever youre looking for? Then examine yourself. Do you have what it takes, based
on your test scores, strengths and weaknesses, personality, and willingness to put in
whatever effort is required? Also talk to some people who have achieved what you want
to achieve, to see if it brought them the rewards youre expecting.
Have a career aligned with who you are or want to become.

What are your values? What do you care about? The answers to these questions say a
lot about who you are, and this should guide you in a career choice. If you value justice,
honesty, fairness, or integrity, factor that in to your career choice. If you want to make a
positive impact on the world, do something that helps others. Whatever course you
choose, be guided by authenticity, by who you are at your core.
Decide what a career is for.

Theres much talk about a work/life balance, as if work isnt part of life, as if work is the
stuff you have to do and life is the stuff you want to do. This is a false dichotomy.
Making a living is part of making a life. Your career should be aligned with you who are
at a fundamental level no less than any other aspect of your life is. My personal goal is
to maximize happiness, pleasure and meaning, in both myself and others, and I try to
do this when Im at work no less than when Im at play. Figure out what you want out of
life and then figure out what role your career can play in making it happen.
Have a healthy attitude toward money.

Many people let money dictate the direction their career goes. Either they take the
highest paying job they can get now, or the one that will give them the skills they need
to get the highest paying job they can get in the future. Money should certainly be a
consideration, but not the only one. In our culture of consumption, its easy to forget that
money is a means, not an end, and that promotions and raises dont always lead to
lasting happiness. The truly scarce resource is time, but too many people value money
over time when they should be doing the reverse. Having said all that, if you are
currently in debt or living paycheck to paycheck, do whatever you can to become
financially independent as soon as possible. This opens up more choices in your career
and your life, allowing you to focus on things other than money, think longer-term, and
take more intelligent risks.
Be guided by your passions.

What are you passionate about? What do you look forward to when you get up in the
morning? Expressing yourself? Creating something? Helping others? Whatever it is,
find a career that lets you cultivate and share those passions with the world. Passion is
a powerful source of inspiration and motivation, and the most successful people tend to
be the ones who are passionate about what they work on.
Think big.
Its amazing what a few people can do by thinking big and working hard. UPS was
founded by two teenagers with one bicycle and $100 borrowed from a friend. Others
have achieved greatness by thinking big, and you can too. The higher you aim, the
more youll achieve, even if you dont hit your mark. Dont be too quick to settle for less
than what you want. The system will occasionally present you with the opportunity to
sell out, and take money now in exchange for selling a piece of your dream. Resist the
temptation, because if you do it once it becomes harder not to do it next time. The best
way to think big is to be guided by passion, authenticity and optimism, not money.
10
Be less afraid.
Thinking big is the first step, but to actually make it big, youll need to fight fear. Fear
takes on many forms in careers as in life, and many of them are counterproductive.
Fear of making mistakes leads to a perfectionism that reduces productivity and stifles
creativity. Fear of getting rejected causes people to ask for less and therefore get less.
Fear of criticism keeps people from speaking up and sharing their ideas. Fear of failure
holds people back from even trying. Comfort is comfortable. But its not the route to
success. Get out of your comfort zone. Move toward challenges, not away from them.
And ask for more, even if it means getting turned down more. Remember that its not
the batting average that counts, its the number of hits.
11
Set smart goals.

Dreams dont make themselves happen. Youll need structure and discipline to have the
career you want. Intelligent goal setting is an essential step. The best goals are
aggressive but achievable. Work with a sense of urgency and monitor your progress, to
make sure youre moving in the direction of your goals. Dont be satisfied with things
staying the same and just not getting worse; try to make everything in your life a little
better every month. The mantra at Apple is plus it: even when something seems
finished, keep asking yourself, is there some way I could make it even better? Also be
sure to write down your goals, with deadlines. And wherever possible, make them
quantifiable; only that which gets measured gets improved.
12
Get motivated.
Dont look for motivation from your employer, your boss, or anyone else. Be internally
motivated. The most successful people in business (and life) are the ones who push
themselves rather than waiting for someone to push them. Dont let inertia win.
Motivation is easier when youre passionate about what youre doing, and when you
have clear goals and a clear idea of why you want to achieve those goals. This will give
you the energy you need to keep moving forward in good times and bad.
13
Learn.
Obviously you need to learn in order to succeed in your career. But how you learn and
what you learn are both essential factors. As for how you learn, having the right frame of
mind can help you learn much faster. Have a natural curiosity about the world, let
everything be your teacher, and dont limit yourself to learning only those things that are
of immediate value to you. As for what to learn, this depends on your chosen career, so
talk with some successful people in your desired field and ask what skills helped them
succeed and how they developed those skills. Some skills are useful in nearly every
field, including communication (listening, speaking, writing), teamwork, selling (your
ideas, your opinions, yourself), negotiating, analytical and quantitative skills, leadership,
and creativity. When learning, dont focus on diplomas, certifications and titles. Instead,
focus on skill development, and transformation of mind and character.
14
Become an expert.
To have a truly brilliant career, and to have an impact on the world, you need to be
exceptional. You need to bring something to your company or the world that it lacked.
By becoming an expert and exercising your expertise, youre likely to be paid well and
also to feel a high degree of job satisfaction. As a good first step, try to become
noticeably more valuable to your employer with each passing month; within a few years
youll be essential, and your compensation will probably reflect it. Then remember to
think big: once youre the office expert, try becoming the worlds expert. What should
you become an expert in? Thats up to you. My suggestion is to find something that
youre passionate about and that has a positive impact on the world.
15
Create real value.

The most successful people focus on the intersection of passion, skill, and value:
something theyre passionate about, and theyre skilled at, and the world needs. Skill
can usually be developed with enough passion, so the focus should be on passion and
value. When measuring value, think not just about the value to your users, but also to
the world overall. If you arent sure what would create value for the world, ask what
would create value for you. Many successful businesses have been started by a
founder who was frustrated by something and developed a solution for themselves, only
to find that many others were frustrated by the same thing. If youre not interested in
entrepreneurship, there are still many ways to create value within a company; for
example, by mentoring other employees to make them more valuable. Of course, your
work doesnt have to be your lifes primary value contribution to the world, but given how
much time most people spend on their careers, to not create any value while at work is
to miss a big opportunity to make a dent in the universe.
16
Focus.
The world is big and life is short. You cant know or do everything. In your career as in
life, you need to focus, and to focus on the right things. Focus on the activities that will
propel your career in the direction you want to take it. Dont let the urgent crowd out the
important. Learn to say no to make time for yes. Simplify, prioritize, delegate, do
whatever it takes to focus on what really matters.
17
Surround yourself with amazing people.

Rather than taking the job that pays the most, consider taking the job that will let you
work with the smartest people you can find, people who will challenge you, give you
objective feedback, and help you learn faster. In his early twenties Warren Buffett went
to work for his idol Ben Graham without even knowing what his salary was until he
received his first paycheck. That decision worked out pretty well for him. Also try to work
with people you respect and whose company you enjoy. (For me, one of the most
rewarding things about having started my own company has been the ability to build a
team of awesome people I genuinely enjoy working with.) But dont limit your network to
your office mates; some things cant be learned sitting at a desk. Get out of the building,
be social, engage with the world, meet new people, and continue to expand your
network of contacts.
18
Be open.
Flexibility is essential to career success and it comes in many forms. Be open to
different viewpoints and to being shown to be wrong; its the fastest way to learn. Be
open to working independently and as a member of a team; most careers require both.
Be open to change; the world keeps changing faster, and those who cant adapt get left
behind. Be open to trying a lot of different things at work; by default people know less
about what theyll enjoy and excel at than they think. As an extreme example, Robert
Greene had eighty different jobs before he found his calling as an author. Despite the
late start, his books have collectively sold over two million copies.
19
Develop and exercise power.

To change the world, you need power. Power assumes many forms. You can start your
own company. You can manage a team. You can become an expert in something and
develop a personal brand around it. You can influence people with your ideas. You can
rally supporters around your cause with passion and charisma. Im not advocating a
Machiavellian power grab (although I do recommend studying those tactics so you can
be alert to when others try to use them against you). But I am saying that to have a
more impactful career, to change the world in positive ways, you will need to gradually
build up your power and then utilize it.
20
Think like a company.

Companies have developed many techniques for achieving their goals. You can use a
lot of the same techniques to achieve your goals. Companies think about the value
proposition of their products; what is your value proposition, to your employer or to the
world? Companies do competitive intelligence to see how their products differ from their
competitors; what differentiates you from the other candidates a potential employer
might consider hiring? Companies quantify nearly every aspect of their businesses in
order to track and improve them; what metrics in your own career are you tracking and
improving? Companies have mission statements that guide their growth; what is your
mission statement for your career or your life? You can use these and many other
business techniques to turbocharge your own career.
21
Dont give up.

There will be tough times, when youre tempted to give up, when you question whether
its worth the pain. Maybe it is, maybe it isnt; thats up to you. But determination is what
sets winners apart. They persevere when others turn back. They are resilient, and dont
allow challenges to be an excuse for settling. They follow the motto I will find a way, or I
will make one. Youll find its easier to handle adversity like a champion if you love what
youre doing, and if the work is aligned with who you are at a fundamental level. So find
something youre passionate about, something youre confident will give you the
happiness and meaning you desire, something the world needs, and then set
aggressive goals, start pushing on them, and dont give up when times get tough, and
Im confident that youll accomplish amazing things.
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How to Succeed in Business

by Thomas Murcko, CEO of BusinessDictionary.com

Our mission at BusinessDictionary.com is to help people succeed in their careers. As

Work by design, not by default.

Take responsibility for your career.

Have frames of mind that serve you.

Have a career aligned with who you are or want to become.

Decide what a career is for.

Have a healthy attitude toward money.

Be guided by your passions.

Set smart goals.

Create real value.

Surround yourself with amazing people.

Develop and exercise power.

Think like a company.

Dont give up.

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