Failure

Not many people are willing to give failure a second try. They fail once and it is all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces. (Joseph Sugarman)

Failure

When I was 17 I bragged that I had gotten every job I applied for. That was 5 jobs at the time. I set my own expectations and hit them. I continued to get every job I applied for. Looking back, I was lucky and that luck kept me from doing better.

I always had enough money to survive and my desires weren't huge. I was going to college by then and just wanted to graduate. That is why my luck hurt me so bad.

After I left college I found out that my Geology Department would have gladly given me jobs while I was at school. I just never asked. I could have gone on to graduate school and jobs would have been lined up for me so I could do it. I never asked. During the summer break there were jobs available for aspiring geologists, but I had already lined up something else selling books or working in the library. It was so easy to get the jobs I applied for that I never got the jobs that would advance my career.

Even when I graduated I applied for a job in geology that was being filled by high school graduates at the time. Of course I got the job. And I earned less than I could. And I didn't look for another job until I was laid off.

It took me 3 years after that lay off to get a good job with a bright future. It took me that long to learn that if I accept every job I can get, I get jobs without a future.

I was a slow learner. I didn't start failing until after I was laid off. I finally learned. Sometimes getting every job you apply for means you aren't aiming high enough.

Something to do today

Do you have a real career plan?

This week I was talking with programmers earning $50,000 per year and others earning $120,000 per year. They had the same basic talents. The better paid ones had chosen to work in SAP instead of Visual Basic. They really had to pay a price to get into SAP. Now they are reaping amazing rewards compared to the programmers who applied for jobs they knew they could get.

Do you really have a career plan? Or is it just a downhill career path?

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Later: Simplicity

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Copyright 2006 by Bryan Dilts. "How to REALLY get a GREAT JOB" and "REALLY get a GREAT" are trademarks of Bryan Dilts. Connecting the Best People, With the Best Companies is a trademark of AGI. All rights reserved.

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Message Added: March 20th, 2008 at 9:11 pm