The 4P’s for cultivating success
You probably know about the 4Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion); here are my personal 4Ps for cultivating success.
PASSION
Passion cannot be cultivated; you either have it or you don’t. Life’s too short to do something you don’t love and if you’re doing something you love then life’s too short because you would not want to stop doing what you’re passionate about. Makes sense? You have to be passionate about everything you do in life. No halfmeasures. Playing with Lego, learning how to strum a guitar, learning to code, building a business? Make it count. Passion is born from your tastes, values and beliefs – your external environment influences your passion and if you’re young then you need to ensure you’re expanding your external circumstances to embrace everything new and nourishing. Listen to French jazz, travel to Fiji or get into yoga. Passion is discovered when you are exposed to new perspectives. If you live in cliques, you become clichéd. Get out there. Travelling and storytelling are my passions and, now that I look back, it’s what I have done since my childhood. I think truly passionate people are brilliant at pursuing perfection and have the potential to become outliers. They see a silver lining before they see a dark cloud. I have people in my team who are passionate about design and they work weekends, not because they need to but because they can’t enjoy sitting at home while they know there’s some- thing niggling them about a project that’s not quite right. Passionate people live their lives; there’s no such thing as ‘work’, it’s a love affair with your vocation.
PERSISTENCE
Stay with the question long enough and answers will come. Today, people are impatient and want instant gratification. This doesn’t work in the real world as life’s not fair and you will face your own set of challenges down the road. How you work it will shape your life. Bad things happen to good people every day, so self-pity is not going to get you anywhere worthwhile. You must deal with challenges and face adversity with humility and strength. Learn from mistakes, then move forward. Momentum is everything; direction follows. Also, you do your best with what you have. Sorry, it’s not a question of having the perfect kit for your craft, it’s your passion to master it that makes you succeed. We have heard stories of that child in Brazil who learned how to play football barefoot, then made it to the big leagues. Persistence and passion shaped that success. Rejection is guaranteed in life, at some stage or the other. People say no, but you believe in your idea. You’ve got talent, they don’t see it. If you’re passionate, then be persistent but don’t suspend common sense. All delicious dishes are garnished with pragmatism.
POSITIVITY
I avoid negative people and would rather not be in a room with them. There: I have said it and now it’s in writing. Negativity is toxic. It will poison your passion, bleed your stamina and blur your horizons. Reject it passionately. I am all for being a realist and approaching life with a sense of rationality, but I want to work out the solution, not just dwell on the problem. People who whine don’t belong in your life. Those overentitled ones, who complain about the traffic, the weather, the crowded elevator, the poor coffee, the uncomfortable journey – step away from the radioactivity. Similarly, you worked hard on a project and it got rejected. You had a big idea and no one liked it. It’s about perspectives and sometimes you deal with negative situations, but you must deal with them in a positive way. Have a private moment to contemplate and learn from it. Being positive is critical to shaping your life story. Don’t camouflage positivity with ridiculous optimism that’s devoid of logic. Don’t dress up pessimism as a realistic perspective – it’s a fine line and you should learn to walk it. When positivity, passion and persistence hit the blender then you’re guaranteed great results.
PARANOIA
This is a spice that is an acquired taste. Remember, we’ve already got passion, persistence and positivity in the kitchen, the essential ingredients for your personal dish of success. Paranoia is the truffle of life’s successes. Too much of it and it’s overbearing, killing all the rich flavours of passion, positivity and persist- ence. It is the perfect antidote to complacency. It is intuitive and instinctual. When a passionate person is persistent in his or her pursuit with a positive outlook, paranoia evaporates quickly. A whiff every now and then keeps you ahead of the curve. It nudges you to get up earlier than others, it makes you stay up longer than others. When people ask me who’s my competition, I usually say everyone and no one. I run a business in a world that’s evolving rapidly and I am paranoid about becoming redundant because either my operating model is dated or I am not embracing new technologies as quickly as I should. This is an internal monologue that’s essential to keep you agile and energetic as you protect what you have built or are planning to build. Being ‘positively paranoid’ is great – it gives you a skip in your step.
These 4Ps are the way I mentor, manage and measure people’s contribution to my bottom line. It’s not about their skills alone but their character and their intent to live life to its fullest potential. When you have people like these in your life then acquiring skills is as simple as grocery shopping at the supermarket. You’ll fill the basket quickly. The World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs 2018 takes a look at how today’s jobs are being transformed by the introduction of new technologies. Data on the skills that millions of members report on LinkedIn can give us additional insight into how AI is impacting different industries and job functions globally.
As culture and tastes change and new technologies are created, industries and jobs evolve accordingly.
As it turns out, the industries with the most AI skills present in their workforce are also the industries that are changing the fastest. If we consider “change” to be a proxy for innovation, then this indicates that the presence of AI skills correlate strongly with innovation within an industry. It also means there’s an opportunity for many industries to invest more heavily in their AI capabilities. AI skills are among the fastest-growing skills on LinkedIn, and saw a 190% increase from 2015 to 2017.
The countries with the highest penetration of AI skills are the United States, China, India, Israel, and Germany.
The findings suggest that while changes driven by AI technologies may still be in their infancy, we are already seeing their impact across the global labor market.
MANTRAS Interdependent values like passion and positivity are crucial in steering a person towards success, prosperity, and happiness DON’T DRESS UP PESSIMISM AS A REALISTIC PERSPECTIVE – IT’S A FINE LINE
AND YOU SHOULD LEARN TO WALK