Experience

Experience helps you learn about the everyday realities of working life and most importantly equips you with the soft skills needed to succeed at any organization. In addition to having knowledge and experience in a trade or profession, expert implies extraordinary proficiency and connotes knowledge and technical skill. Popular belief is that the key to becoming an expert is to devote at least 10,000 hours to the study and practice of a subject. Expertise is defined as exceptional, elite, or peak performance on specific tasks in specific domains. Expertise is perceived as being the result of hard work and practice. Life experiences are the events and situations that shape our individual journeys and contribute to personal growth and development. The happiness provided by new material possessions is short-lived. Over time, people's satisfaction with the things they buy decreases, whereas their satisfaction with experiences over time increases. Experience is making mistakes and learning from them. The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it. Experience is what you get when you did not get what you wanted. Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. Fill your life with experiences. Not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.         

Of all the things needed to do something right, experience counts the most. What counts most is the energy or enthusiasm to do it. Finding both of these together is rare, which explains why our world is less than perfect. The famous saying "If one could learn from watching alone, then even the dog would become a butcher" elegantly outlines why and how experience counts. Experience is better and there is a very thin line between experience and monotony. Several companies has seen a paradigm shift from the experienced candidates getting preference to freshers being hired in large numbers and now it is shifting back again to the experienced. How far this is correct remains a question of debate. For all that youth lacks, experience can compensate. For all that old age is incapable of achieving, youth could become the instrument. There has been growing acceptance of the need to make retirement a gradual process. This could be done by reducing working hours gradually till retirement or breaking the monotony as retirement approaches by setting more enjoyable roles for them. By recognizing the worth of the experienced and the potential of the youth and making them work together, youth would know much more and aged could do much more.   

 

Parents can help children to succeed in life

In the wake of the recent college admissions scandal, in which rich parents paid thousands or even millions of dollars to bribe coaches or have someone else take standardized tests for their children so that they could get into elite colleges, there has been a lot of discussion about admission to elite colleges and about what it takes to succeed. Going to an elite college can help, mostly in terms of networking and resume-building, but it is not the ticket to success.True success and happiness in life comes from being able to create, persevere, roll with life’s punches, and work with others. Parents and caregivers can teach children these skills from infancy onwards. 

Here are five ways parents can set up their children for success.

1. Reinforce executive function skills
   Executive function skills are our ability to pay attention, plan, troubleshoot, multitask, control our emotions, negotiate, and delay gratification. These are skills that children learn as they grow and can be taught and reinforced. There are activities and games that parents can do with their children that help build these skills, many of which involve using their imagination and interacting with others — which works best when devices are turned off, and when time is not filled up with scheduled activities.
2. Let children be independent — and let them fail
   Many parents limit their children’s independence for good reason of safety. But children cannot grow into independent adults if they never get to explore the world around them and make choices for themselves, which inevitably means that they will make at least the occasional bad choice. Learning from mistakes is some of the best learning we do. Control temptation to jump in and save them, but limit that to the real emergencies. They will do better, if parents are supportive and help them think it through. They will also learn to survive the mistakes.
3. Foster resilience
   Resilience is the ability to manage adversity, to deal with setbacks and failure and get back up again. Letting children be independent and fail helps build this. Having the consistent support of loving adults is key.
4. Build social skills and empathy
   Children need to learn how to make and keep friends, how to listen to others and care about their thoughts and feelings. From teaching “please” and “thank you” and taking turns, to getting them involved in activities involving social interactions, to getting involved in community and volunteer activities, there are many ways that parents can build these skills.
5. Encourage curiosity and creativity
   Go places like parks or museums or historical sites. Explore together. Go to the library and get books. Have lots of paper and paint around. Make things together. Watch documentaries; read the news and talk about it. Make up stories. Build things. Help your child see the world as full of fascination and possibility. Help them understand how much ability they have to create.

These are the skills that make a difference, not where someone goes to college. These are the skills that help people find their way, succeed at what they do — and have fun doing it.

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Things that destroys your career

Some good, hard-working people makes honest mistakes that often carry hard-hitting consequences killing their careers. Most people kill their careers in subtle, decidedly undramatic ways. While some people had made a blunder that had catastrophic results for their career, reputation, or business, and some had done other things that had damaged their careers. The consequences could be denial of a promotion, a raise, or even a job. Sometimes it damaged a working relationship and destroyed their reputation. Little things can add up over time and undermine your career just as much as one huge lapse in judgment. But if you stay aware of them, these are all things that you can control before they creep up on you and kill your career.

1. Playing politics. Instigating conflict, choosing sides, undermining colleagues, spreading rumors, and all of the other things fall under the umbrella of “playing politics.” If you find yourself sneaking around or if you’re embarrassed if some of your behind-the-scenes manipulations come to light, that’s politics. Stick to strategies you’d be proud to discuss in front of your colleagues.
2. Over-promising and under-delivering. The moment you promise something to someone, they expect nothing less. You end up looking terrible when you fall short, which is a shame. You could have done the same quality work in the same amount of time with great results if you’d set up realistic expectations. Perception matters more than reality. Just be realistic about the results you can deliver so that you’re certain to create expectations that you will blow out of the water.
3. Complacency. If you become complacent, and complacency is a real career killer. It’s what happens when you’re just along for the ride and assume that nothing will ever change. But we’ve seen enough disruption - technological and otherwise - to realize that change is inevitable. If you’re always too busy to learn something new or to expand your network, you’ve got your priorities mixed up. If you make continuous growth and development a priority, you’ll be ready for whatever comes your way.
4. Fear of change. Fear of change is another form of complacency. It actively works to keep things the same. Things are changing too fast these days to latch on so tightly to the status quo, and the costs of doing so can be huge. Successful employees are the ones who can adapt to the changing workplace. Change is a constant part of our lives, both personally and professionally. You don’t have to love it, but you do have to learn to stop resisting it and to start adapting to it.
5. Having an inflatable ego. Success is great. It definitely boosts your career, and it feels really, really good. If you start thinking that success is going to last forever and that you’re entitled to it. Never, ever be content with resting on your laurels. Once you start thinking that you’re the cat’s meow, you’re setting yourself up for very painful failure.
6. Low emotional intelligence. Everyone knows that you can get fired for being unable or unwilling to play nicely with others. If everyone can tell when you’re bored or irritated or that you think something a colleague says is stupid, this lack of emotional intelligence will catch up with you. Emotional outbursts, belittling others, shutting co-workers down when they speak, low self-awareness, and just generally being difficult are other ways that a lack of emotional intelligence will do great harm to your career.
7. Sucking up to your boss. Some people suck up to their boss and call it managing up. That doesn’t go over well with colleagues who are trying to make it on merit. You might want to bolster your relationship with your boss, but not by undermining your colleagues. For a boss-employee relationship to work, it has to be based on authenticity. There’s no substitute for merit.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they can only damage their careers by making one huge misstep, but the reality is that it’s usually not that dramatic. 

What ever is worth doing, is worth doing slowly & correctly.

My View:
The bottom line is that you will have your job/career as long as you give more than you take. Be nice to all and productive and you earn respect. Punctuality & discipline are ways of respecting others. Always find a way to be punctual, no matter what it takes. Try to achieve goals with merit and hard work, never by manipulations. Honesty makes your presence warmer and simplifies communication. Strive to avoid mistakes and blunders, which at times could be expensive or even catastrophic. Remember accuracy is more important than speed. The secret is filling vacant time slots intelligently rather than wasting it. Never procrastinate, it won't solve any of your problems. Be a patient listener to know others better. Never compromise long term big benefits for short term small gains. Finally, be worthy of it than having it and never have it and not deserve it.