Journal

If you aren’t a good team player you won’t go far. The fastest way to make it in your career is to be a great team player. The way to stardom is to be a leader of a great team. It’s a much better place to be than being a brilliant but eccentric loner.

Work for an inspiring boss. I can’t repeat that often or loudly enough. Find a boss you like and admire and whom you think has extraordinary qualities. Study them, emulate them, learn from them.

It’s sometimes hard to do but take a deep breath and say, every morning, ‘I’m really looking forward to today and I’m going to calmly smile my way through it’. Calm is such a good word, be it so long as you are energetic too.

Be a pleasant, happy presence. Be the person everyone want to go to lunch with. Can you never be grumpy and short tempered then? Yes, when you are the boss and not before.

Your job is to make your boss look good. Their job is to allow you to be as good as you can be.

When you wake up next Monday say to yourself ‘I’m going to have a great week’ and then try to make it actually happen. Be one of the few people determined to enjoy your work and you might get on faster and further than you thought. If you are going to succeed, it will start with your enthusiasm.

If you hate your job, change it or change your attitude.

The art & science of comprehension. Don’t anticipate what’s going to be said. Let it come to you. Earn a reputation for listening. Making fewer notes and paying greater attention will also make you better company. Good listeners are believed to be nicer and kinder people.