If you’re passionate about your field, your desire should be to become the go-to person for any and all information that relates to it. You career growth should lead to a natural progression that makes you indispensable. Although your job may not require you to be an expert, in this day and age branding yourself as such would contribute to a healthy career path. Catherine Clifford of Entrepreneur explores five ways that someone could make themselves the best in their field based on tips from author Robert Greene.
1. Chose a topic to focus on that you are deeply in love with. “Masters and highly successful people are emotionally and personally engaged in their work” on a level beyond intellectual curiosity, Greene says. It’s the personal commitment to a topic, problem or skill that is ultimately necessary for motivating and maintaining the long hours and fervent curiosity required to rise to the level of “mastery” in a field. “Otherwise you are never going to have the energy, the patience, the persistence, the ability to put up with the criticism, you will give up too easily, you won’t push through all the crap the world is going to throw at you.”
2. Skip all the extra school. Learn by doing. According to Greene, learning entrepreneurship in school is inane. “Being an entrepreneur is making something, it’s like Legos,” Greene says and the best way to become an entrepreneur is to try building businesses.
Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed miserably, notes Greene. “You want to actually psychologically desire failure because it is how you are going to learn.” If you aren’t going to start your own business, at least work in as small a company as possible to learn as many skills as possible. Avoid large corporations and business school, Greene says. As an entrepreneur, “you are going to hire the people that have the MBAs. They are going to bring in that nuts-and-bolts knowledge.”
Read more at Entrepreneur …