My advice to younger me at work

I valued skill and intent over experience in my 20s and 30s. I believed the ‘experienced’ as team members had little much to do except delegating tasks.

I felt ‘leadership’ to be a jargon and my seniors benefitted from the hard work of youngsters in their teams.

My days as a mid-senior arrived pretty soon. I am trying to be ‘different’ and ‘indifferent’, at the same time. I am listing pointers as advice to my younger self:

a. Own your work and job, like your own kids and family

b. Ignore thoughts of taking ‘job’ as a ‘job’. Make it personal.

c. Be as flexible and receptive as possible. Forget if you critiqued for being spineless. You learn a lot by being flexible.

d. Thinking about work during non-working hours is ok.

e. Prepare to commit and focus on building a work ethic.

f. Execute and forget about outcomes. No outcome good or bad stays for long.

g. Never ask for compensation revision instead change jobs if not feeling rewarded.

h. Consider ‘Settled’ and ‘Stable’ as a mindset and not in reality.

i. Be thick skinned to deal with criticism. Never have tears in your eyes.

j. Make friends at work but avoid getting biased.

k. Be humble.

l. Never take appreciation to your head.

m. Be polite.

n. Avoid sharing your personal life at work.

o. Never share your financial constraints, if any.

p. Remember that information is power.

q. Information is power. Better stay silent.

r. Strive for more Knowledge and focus on Practising it.

s. Talent hardly matters.

t. It still does but at par to Luck and it is like less 10%.

u. Luck is not in your control.

v. Acknowledge that you are what you destined for.

w. And be ignorant of your destiny, if known to you.

x. Feeling is the secret. You get what you want with consistency and persistence.

y. Never be calculative towards working and going overboard.

z. Be happy and stay withdrawn.