What the SCOTUS ACA Decision Teaches Us About Career Success

Last week I experimented with shorter career success blog posts.  I asked for feedback – it was unanimous; go back to longer blogs.  So that’s what I’m doing.  Thanks for the feedback.  Here with go with a longer post…

Last Thursday Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his conservative colleagues on the Court and voted to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  This move surprised many on the left and angered many on the right.

Regardless of your opinion on his decision, there is some career advice here.  If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve, you have stay true to yourself.

Tweet 20 in my career success book, Success Tweets says, “Your values come from deep inside you.  Spend the time necessary to discover them.  Then hold fast to them.  Honor them with your actions.” “Justice Roberts holds the US Constitution near and dear.  When he weighed the arguments for and against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, he decided that it was a constitutional law.

This took courage, as most conservatives expected him to vote the opposite way.  That’s what your values do for you.  They give you the courage to do what you believe is right, regardless of what others might think.  But first you have to get clear on what you value

A while back, I read a copy of Masha Malka’s book, The One Minute Coach.  It’s a great little book.

Masha has organized The One Minute Coach into bite-sized chunks.  One three-paragraph chapter makes a great point about being true to yourself…

“Focus on who you are and not just what you look like.  People fall in love with the essence of you – your energy, the sparkle in your eyes, your passion for living, your unconditional love, everything that makes you unique and special…people fall in love with your beautiful soul.”

What is your essence, your beautiful soul?  It lies in your personal values.  Do you let your essence and values shine through?  Or do you keep them both under wraps, thinking that you won’t measure up in others’ eyes if you let your true self show?

Last week Justice Roberts let his essence shine through when he ruled in favor of the Affordable Care Act.  He honored his personal value of putting the Constitution first.  Some may quibble with his thinking – I thought it was a bit of a stretch to define the individual mandate as a tax, and therefore constitutional as the Constitution gives Congress the right to tax.  Nevertheless, it was his understanding of the act and the Constitution and the argument he made, and it was one that probably took some courage to make.

When I was in high school and reading Hamlet, we got to the point in the play where Hamlet is setting off to avenge his father.  Polonius gives him some advice.  We were reading the play out loud.  I was reading just before Polonius’ advice.  Mrs. Yothers stopped me and said, “This is some of the best advice on life that you will ever get.  Read slowly Bud, and the rest of you should listen closely.”

I can’t remember the entire verse anymore, but there was one line that has always stuck with me.  “And above all else, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”

When my nephew Matt Seaton was going off to college, his grandfather and my father-in-law, Roy Blackman, gave him a piece of advice written on a scrap of paper.  It read “TTOSBT – figure it out and live by it.”

Can you figure it out?  Here’s a hint: read the quote from Polonius.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  We are all unique human beings.  Each of us has wonderful traits.  Our best traits come from deep inside ourselves, our personal values.  We all need to have the confidence to let our wonders shine through.  Chief Justice John Roberts did that in his majority opinion on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  You create positive personal impact when you live by your values and let your essence shine through.  Pay attention to the advice in Tweet 20 in Success Tweets: “Your values come from deep inside you.  Spend the time necessary to discover them.  Then hold fast to them.  Honor them with your actions.”  Honor your values in the way you live your life.  Let your values shine through the next time you are in a room full of strangers.  You might be surprised at the way people respond to you.

That’s the career advice I found in Justice Roberts vote on the Affordable Care Act.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for taking the time to read my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, I suggest that you check out my career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is 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.

PPS: Have you seen my membership site, My Corporate Climb?  It’s devoted to helping people just like you create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about it by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

 

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