Tip 2: Expand Your Mind
What does that mean?
People say knowledge is power, and man, is that true. However, it’s not the knowledge which creates the power; it’s the confidence from having knowledge that does the trick.
Knowledge is king, knowledge is truth, and one should know thy self. All the great philosophers are in agreement on the virtues of knowledge. For our purposes, let’s focus on you and how knowledge might assist in career advancement.
To expand your mind means to really learn something new. While a more creative person would say there are endless ways to expand your mind, I am an accountant by nature, so let’s boil it down to three general strategies for gaining knowledge.
1) Learn, hone, and expand your technical skills
2) Develop your personal life
3) Go through an education process
First, learn, hone, and expand your technical skills. This is the easiest to grasp of the three strategies and is certainly the most direct route to confidence and career advancement. You should always be looking for ways to improve your technical skills. And “technical” doesn’t mean you need to work on your rocket science or quantum mechanics skills. A technical skill is simply something that can be used in your current or maybe a future job that will make you more efficient, will allow you to solve problems in a more creative way, or will allow you to more effectively communicate with peers.
I’ll give you an example. During the mid 1990s I was an internal audit manager and during my first assignment in a new company (and, for that matter every audit assignment in that company thereafter), I was completely overwhelmed with massive amounts of data. The data was inconsistent in format and incomplete across multiple systems. Processes were completely manual, everything was on paper, and we were sitting on a gigantic pile of literally thousands of records to both audit and build processes around. Microsoft Excel was helpful, but that software tool simply was not robust enough to help with our data plight. So I decided to learn Microsoft Access. I figured it couldn’t be too difficult since it came with Microsoft Office, and I wasn’t a complete dummy, so I took an online tutorial and went to work. Needless to say, the tool was a huge help in developing a database to track and monitor progress as well as in creating a process to perform audits. The first year we created the processes (which were still largely used eight years later), and our team generated over $9 million dollars in incremental cash as a result of the audits we performed. I still use Microsoft Access today and amaze coworkers with my technical skills.
Now your new or enhanced knowledge doesn’t need to be technical, but it should in the end provide you with a concrete skill which can improve your future performance, or at the very least increase your confidence. So your technical skill could simply be that you become more accomplished in the acronyms used in your industry, or you begin reading trade magazines, or any other thousands of efforts which may allow you to become a greater expert in whatever it is you are doing or want to do in the future.
The second idea is develop your personal life. No one is more fun to work with than someone who is happy with their personal life. Think about the times in your life when things were really good outside of the office. You were probably more focused at work and more positive in your approach to problems, both of which increase your chances of success. That’s not to say you have to have the perfect relationship, 2.5 kids (or no kids, if that’s your dream), and be in perfect physical shape, but small changes can have a big impact on your performance. If you’re not sure what sort of personal development is right for you, here are some ideas;
• Take a class you’ve always wanted to take: French, painting, sailing, etc.
• Join a social club: book club, sewing club, outdoors group, etc.
• Work on your romantic life: go on dates with your partner or online dating
• Work on your physical life: work out, change your eating habits, stop smoking
• Get a pet
• Write a book
• Just get out and do something new!
Joining Toastmasters or a professional networking group is not the same thing as developing your personal life, however. These types of activities are primarily for businesses, not your personal life, so don’t fool yourself. I know, I know: it’s hard to believe you even have time for a personal life. Believe me, I didn’t have one either for a large part of my career, but you need one if you’re going to stay sane enough to be valuable to your employer.