October 10, 2025
A couple of days ago I had a technical problem downloading some files from my beloved former employer. I called the Help Line and a very helpful new employee picked up. And as happens, she asked me for any career advice I could give her.
After 45 years, I had plenty, both as a senior partner and supervisor, but also as a businessperson. Time was short and so I had to condense. But after the call, I came to understand that the advice I had for her was, I thought, universal. Basic employment truth applicable in any employment setting. My readers here tend to be well-established with a positive checking account balance, so feel free to forward this one to children, grandchildren…say any one under age 30?
If you want to be successful in your career, here are some ideas. No, truths actually.
Apply yourself every day!
People tend to apply themselves unevenly. They get into a Friday mindset or give themselves a Monday hall pass…it’s OK to be slow getting started. Or they’re on the Saturday shift so they lay back. If your employer is paying you to be there, it is only fair their return from you is the same, all the time. They don’t discount your pay depending on the day and more likely, they may increase it for weekends or holidays or whatever. No matter, give it your full attention every day because you will not waste your time. Which time waste computes into a lower career trajectory. Thus…
Time is your most precious asset.
While we’re on it, be very jealous of your time and how it is spent on the job. It is all well and good to banter with other people, and everyone does, but I never forgot that my primary reason for being there was to do a good job and advance the needs of my employer. And the only way I could do that was to apply my time to it. If I ‘stole’ time from my work, then my effort was less than I would have liked.
Just consider the cumulative effect. Let’s say you take a full hour for lunch each day. That works out to be 250 hours each year, or 5-6 weeks of total time. Add in vacation time, and you are working on something like an 80% total effort. And that’s before sick time and all of the other time leaks that occur throughout the year.
If you are going to excel, you need to be tough on how your time is spent.
Make yourself useful, especially to the people above you.
Make sure you’re solving problems and accomplishing the things people need done. Develop the reputation of being someone who should be on the team, someone who is a positive influence and plows the road for other people. Once you develop that reputation, you will be in play when new assignments (especially tough ones) are surfaced. You’ll get the ask.
Thoughtless people will call this ‘sucking up to the boss.’ Don’t be misled by that. Because…
Spending your time politicking and kissing up is a negative.
First, you’re wasting your time. Don’t think that people aren’t extremely sensitive to that kind of behavior. And more, even if the boss isn’t aware they’re being played, you are setting your reputation among your colleagues that can’t possibly bode well for you. No one loves a kiss up.
Second, you are stealing time from the work that needs to be done and anything that’s a time steal from the task needs to be examined and cut out if required.
Just don’t.
You are working for the owners, and they pay you so check yourself at the door.
We see time and again people who confuse their position in a company with their personal needs/wants/desires/opinions. As an employee, you are bound by the rules set by the company and that includes leaving your own political/social opinions at the door. If you fundamentally disagree with the direction your employer is taking, the honorable thing to do is resign and get to a place where your personal stuff is in harmony with your employer. You’ll do better for your employer, and you’ll do better for yourself. Don’t then lapse into a complainer, a whiner, someone down on the company. Not attractive, and you won’t last.
Never turn down an opportunity to learn new things.
I found that I needed to reinvent myself every seven years or so. I was always working for clients and always managing money, but the “lean” needed a refresh every once in a while. And that meant learning new things. My last big learning event…Artificial Intelligence in 2012.
Every company gives opportunities to take courses, sign up for seminars and similar training events. Just do it. The more you know, the broader your reach, and the more people you meet, the better your future. There is nothing like having a need and one of your people says “I took training on that last year. Can I look?”
This may sound hokey but learn how to speak to a group.
If your employer doesn’t offer training, just sign up for Toastmasters. It is a non-profit dedicated to “helping people improve their public speaking and leadership skills.” But the main thing is speaking skills. If you are going to advance you will have a constant need to “sell” yourself or your point of view. You will have to bring people around to your way of seeing things. If you can’t speak to a group, you have shut that off and that will absolutely have a negative effect on your career. And the corollary…practice good phone technique, good conversational technique, know how to conduct yourself at meals…you’ll have a lot of them.
The quickest way to be promoted is to excel at the job you currently have.
So many people spend so much time strategizing about how to get the next promotion. They make an assumption that being clever is the way to go about it. Actually, the way is to be known as someone who is competent at her work and can thereby be trusted with more difficult work. In general, you can get lucky and be promoted when you really didn’t deserve it. But over the arc of your career, if you’re promoted when you shouldn’t have been, you are doomed failure. At some point, your lack of skill will torpedo your career.
Put your head down and work hard at what you’ve been given to do.
If you don’t like your job or career, change it.
Success in today’s highly demanding economy is hard enough without being in a daily struggle against the work you do. Not everyone should be an accountant, or a manager of people, or a salesperson. If you find yourself as the square peg in the round hole, find a square hole. Your goal is to feel your work is actually play, that’s it’s fun and enjoyable.
No one is naïve. Every job, no matter how much you love it, will have its moments of regret and negativity. Things you have to do as part of the menu. I found that my enthusiasm for my work never faltered. I retired because it was time for me to move onto new things, and also, because I had a lot of younger people behind me who deserved their own chance to take the lead. But that I could function for as long as I did with enthusiasm illustrates that perhaps longevity in the career is more a function of the fun you feel than anything else.
Don’t underestimate the power of love for your work.
Finally, I would say this. There is entirely too much belief that work is punishment, that a life of leisure is preferable. You hear, “No one ever says they didn’t spend enough time in the office.” That is patently untrue. I got to know a lot of people who, if given the chance, would have doubled down on their efforts. Worth the mention that I “retired” from my career on a Friday, and on Monday, opened the doors to Working Profit and my trading business.
I love to work and hope that you can find that enthusiasm for yourself.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
