Tips to remain at the top of your career in 2019

These are some of the tips I found interesting given by my friend Alexander Asomba during one of his AMA section.

If you find yourself in any industry, kindly use them as they would serve as pointers leading you to an excellent career.

These are basic principles every professional should know. Here we go.

• If you are not indispensable you are disposable.
• Don’t be comfortable with second place. That is the only kind of determination that makes everyone admire and respect you even if you are not first place yet.
• Focus on mastery. What you are good at is what makes you shine, what makes you memorable. What brings your name to the table when matters are discussed.
• Specific knowledge is the knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you. Back to Specific Knowledge. Don’t get it twisted, it doesn’t mean having knowledge of just one particular thing, in most cases, it is being an expert in a uniquely blended field. For instance, being a guru in social media marketing for everything is good but in the hospitality industry, a social media marketing guru with a wealth of knowledge in hospitality is more desirous than the general social media marketer and the pay gap between those two experts can be as much as times 5 for the expert with specific knowledge.
• Another example, you all know Digital Marketing but some people are known for their Design Prowess — you know them. Others Research prowess — you know them, others Pitch and presentation prowess — you know them, Paid advertising, Content marketing etc. When you think of those things, names pop to your mind that is because they have a specific knowledge on Lock-down.
• Ask yourself, “what skill am I the best at where I work”?
• “Is there something unique I bring to the table others don’t?”
• If your answers were no, then you are only as special as everyone else. And you know what that means? You are not special.
• Apparently, you deserve where you are and what you are given.
• In as much as you create time to grow the company you work for, you have to take time out to grow you too. Cover courses, read researches, join and collaborate in communities, get certified, join professional bodies etc.
• Doing all this shows your passion for personal and professional growth and improves the confidence of everyone you work with that you are current, relevant, reliable, disciplined (it takes discipline to follow a personal professional growth plan) and smart.
• Have you evaluated the areas you need improvement in? Develop a PDP (Personal Development Plan) for yourself. This helps you plan ahead on how and when to undergo trainings, meet a mentor or just do additional personal study to master the skill areas you identify your deficiencies in. And like business plans, you should periodically review your progress and take appropriate actions.
• Reiterating this. Many at times people bask in old success for so long that their vision gets impaired on what to do next and how to go about it.
• It is good to be your self but you should always want to get better.
• The understanding that there is room for improvement and the desire to get better keeps your mind open to learn and that is a good place to be. The truth is there is no such thing as stagnant growth. You are either growing or you are dying(my friend Isaac calls it getting sour). Please don’t sour.
• With this foundation in place , a foundation of character and the right attitude — a foundation which serves as the 20% input that brings about 80% of the result you achieve — a foundation called the right attitude to life and work. I’ll now proceed to tell you the other things. First-off, I’ll recommend that you belong to communities and learn to network strategically. Growth and success comes as a result of the people you know and interact with. Identify key communities that relate to you and participate, be helpful, contribute and ask for help. All opportunities come through people. Always remeber that and you want to be top-of-mind when they are considering who to share the opportunity with or at least be part of the commubnity that such opportunities are shared.
• On networking strategically, create time to check up on senior friends and mentors and where you can be useful to them. You’ll know where you can help as they talk about work, it doesn’t have to be hard work, you could just help them sought some quick items on their list and move on back to your life. This here has taken people places they never expected and in a short time. In summary, be resourceful, be useful to people.

So every once in a while ask yourself, am I growing or am I souring up?

• Win, celebrate then get your eyes back on the ball ready for your next win.
• It also helps to create media and push out content. If you have not started, you are missing out on a whole lot of opportunities. I restarted my blog because of this. Stop waiting for someone to write about you, start a blog and write about yourself. Stop waiting for someone to put you on TV, start a vlog, stop waiting for someone to interview you, start a podcast talk about your passion and interview everyone else. Two things make the new Billionaires of this world Media or Software. Based on stats, to attain great wealth in this web age you’ll need to either have one of those on lock-down. Software development is not easy to learn even if it pays so I’ll advise that at least you are leveraging on media. Think of it this way, the highest earning developers are the ones who blog and vlog about development, not necessarily people working at Facebook or Google. The highest earning anyone of any profession or career are the ones who have online media outlets, reach and influence… It’s no magic. It is how the world works. Start building your influence circle to boost your brand and how people perceive your relevance. That blog of yours you have always wanted to start, start it. Be consistent, nurture and grow your tribe and they’ll bring you opportunities and wealth.

If you found this post interesting, give as many claps as possible.

For more, you can follow Alex and of course me, Teri.