Best Advice!

Being open to learning from others and their mistakes is one way to achieve goals. In fact, having someone to ask advice from – a colleague at your level in business, an older, more experienced supervisor or mentor, or even a trusted friend, can make all the difference in your professional success. Over the years, I have been given some good professional advice that I still fall back on today.

When faced with tough decisions. Be prepared to listen to positive and professional guidance from those around you. They may have seen a step that you missed, a consideration you ignored or an option you overlooked. These people are your advice angels.

Own your mistakes and then move on. If you make a mistake, own up to it and move on. Don’t try to hide it or its impact. Don’t blame others—take responsibility. Then stop obsessing over it! It happened. Learn from it and let it go.

Be true. Consistently treat people with genuine respect and love and you will be amazed at how much of an impact it can have. Even those who at first appeared uninterested or unhelpful will often be very willing to lend a hand. Stand your ground, be bold, be loving, be respectful and polite and you will see how many closed doors start to open up for you. Often they’re doors you didn’t even know were there in the first place.

Separate the facts from the feelings. Take the emotion out of decisions. This is business, and business requires the facts, not feelings. However, simply because all the facts say “go,” doesn’t mean take the job, sign the contract or hire the person. Things that look good on paper or are legal sometimes don’t meet the smell test. Sometimes business decisions require weighing ethical factors, too.

Listen to your gut. There’s a reason it’s called a “gut feeling.” Often a decision that you ‘know’ is wrong makes your stomach hurt. Gut feelings can be a powerful tool when it comes to making important choices in your life. Though it may seem so on the surface, this advice is not contradictory to the above point. Start with the facts, then trust your instincts to weigh the action against your moral compass.

Two sides to every story. Always remember that when an employee (or even a friend) tells you a crazy story that there is always another side to the story.

Have an open mind and a hungry heart. Always aim to raise your game. Ask yourself, “How can I work smarter? How can I be better, more impactful, kinder, or more loving?” Never stop taking on new learning, reading, or professional development training. The day we do that is the day we stop moving forward. If you choose to stand still, you start falling behind.

Be responsive: A former employer once told me that 90% of professional success is returning all of your calls and emails. It was great advice, because it can be so easy to ignore certain requests, emails, or calls from people without even noticing. If you make the effort to respond to everything, big or small, you’re already way ahead of others who neglect the small stuff.

Work will still be here tomorrow. This was more great advice from my former boss; it was a dose of reality from an extremely hardworking person. You are never going to reach a place where you’re ‘done.’ What I took from it was perspective, focus, and strategy. You can wear yourself out trying to cross a forever-retreating finish line, or you can figure out how to approach your work in a meaningful way that addresses what you’re really trying to accomplish.

Have a back-up plan. Always have a plan B and know when to use it. Circumstances sometimes fall beyond the boundaries of reason or control – your company downsizes you, a new boss comes in and you don’t get along, a new client proves difficult. Fortune favors the prepared, so be prepared.

Follow your dreams. Follow your passion. Love what you do. Believe you can achieve your goals. Think about the steps you need to take to make the dream become a reality. Take the first few steps and set the wheels in motion.

Part of building a professional network is being open to learning from others. I hope you use some of this good advice and share it with others. Just sayin’.

Published: Apartment News Magazine – November/December issue 2013