Learn, and use, the ABCs of success

Time for another lesson in the ABCs of success. Ponder these definitions as you review where you are in your career and your life; use them to plan where you want to be six months from now.

Ardent — passionate; enthusiastic. You truly have to love what you do in order to do it well.

Bodacious — impressive; remarkable. Too many people settle for the ordinary because they don’t believe they are capable of the extraordinary.

CEO — Chief Executive Officer; the head of a firm — Each of us is the CEO of a personal business, Me, Inc., and must Create Extraordinary Outcomes.

Disengaged — detached; without involvement. If you want to succeed, you have to

Jim Pawlak make things happen rather than let them happen.

Enjoy — to take pleasure in something. If you don’t really like what you’re doing, you won’t do it well.

Froward — stubborn and contrary in nature. “Sticking to your guns” won’t help you understand other points of view.

Gutsy — showing courage, boldness and determination. If you don’t take risks, you’ll never succeed.

Hubris — excessive pride or arrogance. Successful people don’t brag about “what they’ve done” because they are too busy finding the answer to “What’s next?”.

Initiative — ability to act on your own. Empowerment comes from within.

Jargon — language that is understood by a particular profession, group or culture. The key to effective communication lies in using the language of your audience.

Kink — minor difficulty in something. Implementing personal and career plans rarely goes smoothly, but that doesn’t mean that the plan is wrong.

Lambaste — to criticize severely. Showing someone how to do things correctly is more important to learning than telling someone what was done wrong.

Madonna — singer, actor and author with an uncanny ability to change her style and image to maintain audience appeal for more than 30 years. Reinventing oneself is the key to enjoying a 40-plus-year worklife.

Natter — trivial or gossipy conversation. Social conversation is a necessity of any workday, but it shouldn’t fuel the grapevine.

Outcome — the result. You have to have a clear picture of what you want to happen before you can develop a plan to make it happen.

Persistence — tenaciously continuing despite problems or difficulties. Thomas Edison tried to invent the light bulb more than 10,000 times before he finally succeeded.

Query — a question. If you don’t ask, you’ll never learn the answer.

Respect — showing consideration and thoughtfulness toward someone or something. You get what you give, so remember The Golden Rule.

Sales pitch — the statements made and assurances given by someone trying to sell something. A job interview is a personal sales presentation; Me, Inc. is the product.

Tarot — fortune-telling with a special deck of cards. Forget about the hand you’re dealt; make your own luck.

Underdeveloped — not grown to a full extent. Too many people play “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda” when their career plateaus prematurely, as they regret not seizing ongoing learning opportunities.

Vibes — the atmosphere, feeling or ambiance somebody senses from a person or group. The type of people with whom you associate shapes your outlook on life and your actions.

Whine — constantly complain. Whiners never win; winners never whine.

Xenophile — someone who likes foreign people, cultures and things. You learn more from those different from you than those just like you.

Year — a period of 365 days. What you do each day has an impact on successive days.

Zambezi — a 2,200mile river in Africa. A river appears the same, but is always changing. No person is the same from day to day.

— showing consideration and thoughtfulness toward someone or something. You get what you give, so remember The Golden Rule.