Most of the comments I receive on this career success blog, my tweets and my Facebook posts are very positive and complimentary.
However, last week I received a response to one of my career advice tweets that was somewhat cynical. I responded, asking the person who sent it what I could do to help him. He sent me back a fairly angry email telling me that he has not had a great measure of life and career success and that “140 character statements telling him to listen” won’t help.
I responded by offering him a free hour of career success coaching. I did this because I believe in the power of paying it forward, and because this guy seemed to be in a bad place. I was hoping that I could help him get moving in a positive direction.
The next day, I received an automated message saying that he had unsubscribed from my email list. That was OK. I can’t please everybody, and he has the right to seek career advice from people who he thinks can help him. Obviously, he thought that my thoughts on life and career success were not helpful.
On the other hand, I was kind of sad. Here is a person who is struggling. He is over 40, has two degrees and has never made more than $30,000 a year. If I were in that situation, I might be frustrated and angry too. But I know that I would accept help wherever I could find it. It appears to me that this guy would rather wallow in his anger than accept some free career advice.
Tweet 32 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career. Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.” I get the impression that quite a bit of bad stuff has happened to the guy in my story. And I feel bad about that.
On the other hand, you have to take personal responsibility for your life and career success – no matter what happens along the way. Tweet 33 in Success Tweets says, “Take personal responsibility for your career success. No one is going to do it for you. Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.”
When you take personal responsibility, you eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim. You take charge of your life. You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive. I offer this advice to my career success coach clients.
I had an opportunity to test myself on this one a couple of months ago. I got up very early to post my blog. When I got to my office, my computer was frozen. I could move the cursor, but could not actually open a document – or do anything else for that matter.
I was the first guy in line when the Geek Squad opened at 8:30. My buddy Nate was there. I showed him the machine and explained the problem. He found a minor virus, deleted a few files and said I was good to go. I went home, and the machine worked – for about a half hour. I went back to the Geek Squad and Nate worked on the problem for the second time.
When I got back to my office, I was able to post the blog. Then it happened again. Completely frozen, unable to read the blog post or open any other program.
I called Nate and told him I would bring the machine in for a full diagnostic – and pay the 24-hour service premium. I got back in my car, drove to the Geek Squad and dropped off the computer.
I had been meaning to read a couple of novels I had picked up the week before. I figured my computer problems presented an excellent opportunity to spend that afternoon and the following day doing just that. However, in the middle of all this, I realized that I was being presented with a challenge to see if I could walk my talk when it comes to reacting positively to the negative events in my life. Reading novels instead of working would not be demonstrating my commitment to taking personal responsibility for my career success – even if no one else knew I’d blown off a day and a half.
I knew that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with my backup computer. But there were things I could do. I chose to figure out what I could accomplish without the use of my main machine and set out doing it. I could still write blog posts. I could still continue developing learning modules for my soon to be released membership site. That’s what I did those days. And that’s my career success coach advice to you – when you run into problems, don’t complain about what you can’t do, figure out what you can do and then do it.
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their lives and for their career success. They choose to respond positively to the people and events in their lives – especially the negative people and the unexpected and uncontrollable problems. They keep moving forward. They don’t get distracted in their quest to create the life and career success they want and deserve. They accept help when it’s offered.
Follow the career advice in Tweets 32 and 33 in Success Tweets. “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career. Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.” (Tweet 32) “Take personal responsibility for your career success. No one is going to do it for you. Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.” (Tweet 33) Have you committed to taking personal responsibility for yourlife and career success? How do you react when life throws those inevitable curve balls your way? Do you choose to move forward, finding ways around life’s little problems? As a career success coach, I hope so, because that’s the choice that will put you on the path to career success.
That’s my career advice on taking personal responsibility for your life and career success. What do you think? Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
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