I am using a personal example here but I have talked on this topic to MANY people and the experience has been the same. Today I received a mail from an acquaintance. It was a long email about a milestone that their organization achieved. It included a detailed explanation of what the milestone was with… Continue reading
Post Category → Distinguish
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #194 – Copy "being" rather than copying "Doing"
You aim to become like someone (may be a role model, hero or just someone that you aspire to become) and start copying what they are “doing”. You soon realize that you are not getting the results that they are getting. Simple reason – you are not them. You simply cannot recreate everything else that… Continue reading
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #193 – Watch your Effort-Value Curve
When you are at the beginning of your career, you really work hard and for all that effort the “real value” that you add may not be that significant. This may not be a problem as people know that you are just “starting.” As you learn and become better at your job, it takes less… Continue reading
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #192 – Get In Their Shoes
I mean really really get in their shoes. Well, not literally! At a basic level, getting into someone’s shoes is to think “how the other person may be thinking.” If you really want to get into their shoes, you need to find out the “worldview” of the person. What is their outlook and approach to… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself #191 – Add an extra "Thank You"
Come to think of it, saying “Thank You” just once more in a day in your life costs you almost NOTHING. However, for the recipient of that thank you, it is invaluable. Imagine when someone genuinely thanks you for something – isn’t that a good feeling? Does it not feel like they handed out a… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself #190 – Stop punishing yourself un-necessarily
My teacher told me that moods are the most under-rated characteristics. I agree. Typically people set themselves a big hurdle to be in a great mood. They need only one small thing to go wrong to get into a rotten mood. Recently I was talking to a close friend who told me that he was… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself #189 – Disproportionately shift the baseline over time
Think about any reasonably successful person and you will see that his or her career path will be plastered with a series of successes and failures. While the media and the outside world may only paint a picture of what his or her successes are, the person will know clearly how the career was a… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself #188 – Avoid Graffiti
If you want to be an amateur graffiti creator, you don’t require a lot of skills. You can pretty much get away with anything. Of course, there are professionals here too. I am not talking about those 1% of the people – 99% of the people that engage in graffiti are doing this for a… Continue reading
Ways to Distinguish Yourself #187 – Raise Awareness on your offers
Distinguishing oneself is not easy for anyone and it is not a one-time thing. If you are distinguishing yourself by the kind of expertise you have and if that expertise is in demand, soon others will follow suit and commoditize. If you are distinguishing yourself by writing a book and the theme of the book… Continue reading
Ways to distinguish yourself #186 – Stop Pushworking
Yesterday I was speaking a conference and one of the topics I was going to address was “Networking”. During the informal get-together, several people approached me and exchanged cards. Three of them though gave their card and quickly explained what they do and ran away to give their cards to someone else. They didn’t seem… Continue reading