More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Many people have the ingredients for success, but they mistakenly assume that just the presence of these will guarantee success. Unfortunately, that is not the case; it needs a catalyst, which comes in the form of specific actions and efforts.
My only suggestion is that each one of us try and invest it where it has the highest ROI.
my highest ROI was going to be in helping people in the corporate sector achieve even greater success in their careers and lives. Their success would catalyse social impact and, over time, create employment and, in general, create a well-rounded, values-driven society.
the inspiration to soar high and long, to achieve great success and a balanced life.
Career growth = Real individual growth ± Environmental aspects
the environmental aspects will not be the deciding factor in driving career growth.
your career will grow only as much as you are able to grow as an individual and as a professional—what I call real individual growth.
We do not focus on deserving more by increasing our capabilities, our skills and so on.
It keeps our focus firmly on what we can influence, working on ourselves, rather than distracting ourselves with the thought of career growth all the time—which can cause anxiety and result in poor choices.
the probability of getting the result you want increases when you stop thinking about the results and start focusing on the deeds for getting that result.
the more you focus on the deeds which lead to career growth, which is real individual growth, the more likely you are to have positive career growth.
Real individual growth, my friends, is the catalyst, the ‘deeds’ for the result called career growth.
Experience Needs a Catalyst
Higher Productivity Needs a Catalyst
Catalysts for Career Management
Life and Values as Catalysts for Success
One of the foundational drivers of real individual growth is experience.
Time does not become experience by itself, even at work; it has to be catalysed.
the better we became. Then the learning stopped as we started doing it mechanically/thoughtlessly.
is not the activity that determines whether something counts as experience or not, but the way in which it is done.
The presence of a learning model as a catalyst
determines whether the activity becomes exp...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
how we should define experience. Should we define it as what we have done in the past or should we define it as what it has built in us for us to do better in the future?
One of the greatest success factors at work, therefore, is our ability to convert time and activity into experience (the algorithm). My view is that what differentiates more successful people from less successful people is the effectiveness with which they convert time into experience.
The presence of the learning model and the will to want to improve—these are the two drivers
To summarize, having a target for the activity, measuring the actual performance and then reviewing the performance to understand why it was the way it was—that is the learning model that we need to employ in each and every activity to catalyse and convert our time and activity into experience, the algorithm. I call this the Target, Measure and Review (TMR) model—the most effective learning model at work.
However, the question we are asking is not ‘Does your role have a target?’ but ‘Are you converting your time into experience?’
The really effective people understand intuitively that they have to learn every hour and every day, and have a catalyst for converting time into experience on an hourly, daily basis.
I advocate adding a fourth R to TMR and making it TMRR. This fourth R is ‘Reflection’.
‘What could I have done better?’
Even if you have done well and achieved a lot of success in the project, only when you reflect on what you could have done better will it add to the algorithm.
A series of reflection questions like ‘What could I have done better?’ is crucial for truly converting time spent into valuable experience. If that is not done, then it is not time spent, but alas, time wasted.
Good intent gets converted to action when it gets ingrained as a habit.
One way of ensuring a habit is through the concept of anchoring.
Time is the single greatest investment and resource you put into your career.
To convert time into experience, you require a catalyst, and that catalyst is TMRR: Target, Measure, Review and Reflect.
you must build an anchored habit of reflection on the question ‘What could I have done better?’
develop an anchored habit of daily reflection.
they have all had the opportunity to be an integral, end-to-end part of a very important project or initiative or transformation.
Each of these projects or initiatives represents a potential learning cycle for individuals.
The TMRR is the ‘how’ of building experience and real individual growth, while the learning cycle is the ‘what’ of it—as in on what opportunity do you apply the TMRR.
Successful people seemed to have participated in more major learning cycles than those who are less successful. Successful people seemed to have extracted more experience and real individual growth out of the learning cycles they participated in than less successful people.
participate in a major project, initiative or transformation that can be the success-creating learning cycle that your career needs.
Another way is to conceptualize a transformational initiative as a part of your day job, and then lead that and make it a major learning cycle.
Many people get to participate in major learning cycles, but are unable to get real individual growth out of
The more effective the TMRR application on the learning cycle, the more experience a person extracts out of it.
adding the R of reflection.
adding the last R of reflection,
increasing the intensity of their engagement and prioritizing the learning cycle over the other activities they do on a daily basis.
The catalyst here is the intensity of engagement and prioritization, and the presence or absence of it determines what different people extract out of a major learning cycle.
