To help clear your mind of all the nonsense that you've heard recently, here are ten of the smartest career lessons ever. Each comes from the comic books, and each leads you towards a spectacular career and life:
1. Listen harder than normal people do. If you had to send a superhero nine emails and four phone calls just to get on his calendar, he wouldn’t be much of a superhero. Don’t hide in your office.
To create an outstanding career, you have to be proactively listening for problems, like Superman or Spiderman. In reality, you have to recognize that something is wrong while everyone else is still happily going about their business.
2. Help people even if you do not know them. Does Iron Man only help people in his immediate family? Of course not! (That was a trick question; he has no immediate family.)Superheroes care about all people. If a steel girder is falling from a building towards a crowd below, the hero won’t stop to ask, “Are you in my group? How did you vote in the last election? What’s your race?”
Do not ration your proactive efforts. Help more people than you can count, even if they never help you back.
3. Focus on the needs of others more than your own needs. If you want to have a vibrant life, care deeply about the needs of others. If all you care about is having a neat house and maintaining your current salary, do nothing more than protect the status quo.
But before you take the selfish, lone wolf, all-about-me career path, consider this: You don’t see Wolverine agonizing over whether he is paid more than his colleagues, do you?
4. Be highly creative in your efforts to save the day.The same solution won’t work every time. There’s always a bigger problem, or a fiercer villain. Giving all you have to give one week won’t be nearly enough the next. Get used to outdoing yourself.
5. Be relentlessly optimistic. It’s okay to grumble and wisecrack in the face of obstacles, but your basic mindset has to be a hardcore belief in yourself and your allies.
The odds will always be against you, but you don’t care. That just makes life interesting. Laugh at the odds.
6. Maintain a great sense of urgency. When was the last time you saw a memo like this?
TO: Damsel in Distress
FROM: Me
SUBJECT: HELP!!!
Thank you for reaching out to me. I understand that you are concerned by your current plight, which appears to involve being strapped to an alien missile that is headed for Earth. I may be able to help you early next quarter, as long as my committee approves the rescue you requested, and I can get the necessary funding.
Superheroes do not communicate via a memo. They do not consult committees, or "socialize" ideas over a period of three to four months. They ACT.
“Save the day!” means today, not some random day in the future.
7. Never tolerate bullies.
When a superhero encounters a bully, one thing is certain: sooner or
later, that bully is going to get what he deserves. You cannot tolerate
loud, obnoxious, mean, ugly jerks. There is no room for such people in
your universe.8. Don’t stop trying until the job is done. Your job is not to try. It is to succeed. “I’ll do my best to save the planet” is not an option. In business, it can be too easy to say, "Wow, it's 6 p.m.? Gotta go."
Once you commit to a goal, stay committed. Be a person who delivers results, not promises.
9. Take no pleasure in the misfortune of others, even if they sorta deserve it. No matter how much pain and suffering you have endured, take no joy from watching others suffer.
When you vanquish your enemies, do so with a bit of reluctance. Do not gloat over your superpowers. Respect them, and use them only as necessary.
When you win – and you will win – be noble and reserved. You don’t see superheroes doing self-congratulatory dances in the end zone.
10. Know your Achilles Heel. Think: kryptonite. If you ignore your weaknesses, they can kill your career. Superheroes know what makes them vulnerable and that it could be used against them.
Collaborate with other people who are strong where you are weak, and vice versa.
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