Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep151: 7 career advice I wished I knew before starting my career.

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

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Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. If I could turn back time, these are seven advice I wish somebody would have told me before starting my career in the corporate world and before starting my career journey. So if you are someone who is starting a new career right now,

or maybe starting your first career, then let's dive in. So the number one advice that I wish somebody would have told me about the corporate world is, you will be judged by everything and anything that you do at the workplace. Because at the end of the day, that's your professional reputation. Judgment, criticism, feedback, no matter how you see it or I guess whatever you want to call it, it will always happen, especially if you are new to a job, you're new to a role, you're new to a company, and you're working with people, maybe people that you know, maybe these are people that you have just started getting to know. So it's normal because we all make judgments

and we all have impressions of different people, right? So not just somebody is doing it to you, but you are likely doing it to someone else as well. So therefore, if you want to level up and you want to play a bigger game, then you should pretty much expect and be prepared for someone to disagree with you, make judgments of you, misunderstand you and so forth.

But what's really, really important is to improve yourself and be stronger and knowing how to not take these judgments personally. Now, moving on to the second advice in the corporate world, I wish somebody would have told me is the fact that winners and losers both have the same career goal, right? They both want career success. They both want career growth. They both want more money, more recognition, more salary increments, more promotions. However, what really differentiates them is action. So who is the one that takes action in the right direction is that person who will achieve the success and is very deserving of the success. So in James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, and you may have heard of this book before because it's a really popular one he said that for every olympian who wants to win a medal there are like thousands and thousands if not millions of people who may also have the same

dream so it's the same with if you're somebody who is looking for a job or you're somebody who actually wants a promotion at the workplace you are in competition let's be honest it's the same goal right but what differentiates between you that person who is getting recognition at the workplace versus somebody else who is invisible and not getting any appreciation or recognition is the fact that you're taking action and you're applying the right strategy in the right direction to get you the results that you want. And therefore, the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people that have the same goal. But the goals cannot differentiate between who is going to win and who is going to lose. It's your action at the end of the day that makes the biggest difference.

On to the third advice, and this may be a bit of a controversial one or an unpopular opinion, and it's about smart people get fired too. Attitude is really, really important and this is also commensurates with the rise of EQ, soft skills at the workplace as well. So, paper qualification honestly can only get you through the door, right, but the rest is up to you. So, career growth, long-term career success is really up to you. You know, there's nothing much a paper qualification can do for you because if you're at the workplace every single day and it's a bit of a disaster,

then it's definitely not going to work out. Because one thing you may not have realized, and I want you to realize it now, is that the corporate world is not like school or it's not like university where your grades and your exam results matter the most. It's not like that. But what's more important and what your boss cares about is your ability to get the job done

right and the job done fast and your ability to also get along with people at your workplace, your clients, your team members, your stakeholders in the process and in the journey of delivering your KPIs and achieving your goals. So if you don't understand this concept, this is really the fastest way that you'll likely get fired. Now, moving on to the fourth cliche advice I wish somebody would have told me at the beginning of my career is the fact that if you want a high salary, you should expect to do a harder job or a more challenging job. But if you want a low salary and an easy job the option is there as well because at the end of the day like whatever choices that you make there is a snowball outcome of the decisions right so there are consequences whether the consequences are

positive or the consequences are negative so if you decide to accept a job that pays a very high salary right but it likely means that that there's a steep learning curve. You need to invest time, energy, effort, maybe a bit of your personal time to adapt to the role and to prove your value and to deliver your KPIs. So it's almost expected because the expectations are going to be higher and you also need to make sure that you are adding value to justify your pay, right?

So the scenario where this could be a problem is if you don't have the right mindset or you don't have the right skill set to do the high salary job that you have put up your hand to say that you can deliver results. Now, this is a real thing because I have worked with clients before who got promoted or accepted positions as senior manager, director, senior director level when they barely have any right experiences, right? So, they have never really done this one before. They don't have the right skills. And also, the worst thing is that their mindset is still very junior. Now, there are a lot of things that are obstacles towards success, but the first step is really recognizing that if you want a higher salary, you need to be ready to work on yourself. So what I've seen in a lot of my clients and students in my program,

they sometimes join my program, The Corporate Survivors, because they really want to elevate their mindset and really want to start mastering the skill set so that they can perform and meet their KPIs and meet expectations at that more senior level. So it's just something for you to objectively decide on if that's something that you really want to do. Now, moving on to the fifth advice, I think we do not talk about enough, is the fact that your career is only as strong as the foundation that it is built upon. So one of the mistakes that I see in a lot of people, and I'm not going to name names here, but I can tell you that being in my community of like 20,000

people on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and so forth, I have seen so many people who only want shortcut for career success. They want to avoid the effort. They want to avoid learning the right step by step. They don't want the unsexy hard work, time investment, energy, effort, and so forth. They don't want any of that. They don't want to develop skills. But what they want is just quick answers. And the reality is that this does not exist because you may be, even if you manage to get something done, you may be building your career on a house of cards that can easily collapse. And therefore, in the long term, you will not be able to go further, you will not be able to go faster

because you just don't have the right skills, your career doesn't have a solid foundation, and therefore, over time, what's going to happen is that you will keep encountering roadblocks over roadblocks over roadblocks, and that's something not really fun. So therefore, what's going to happen is that you will keep encountering roadblocks over roadblocks over roadblocks and that's something not really fun. So therefore, what I would advise is that you start putting in the effort now, learning the right strategies, learning the right methods and tools to build a long-term career that is set up for success so that you can elevate and kind of like go through this like exponential success over the years and not stopping here and there everywhere, which is really not going to be helpful. And this perfectly leads us to number six.

And that's all about strategic, consistent, and quality execution beats sexy ideas all the time. Now, I'm not saying that ideas are bad, right? A lot of people have ideas. And if I were to throw a coin, it will hit 10 people, and 10 people probably have really brilliant ideas as well. However, what really makes the difference is who is the one, or rather, are you the one who is implementing and executing and turning those ideas into reality? Because let's be honest, it's actually not that difficult to come up with ideas.

You would be surprised the number of people that come to me with brilliant ideas about their career but have done nothing about it. Now, that's not cool and that's probably not going to get you anywhere. So talking about it is kind of not the same as doing it and doing it consistently in the right direction

and improving on your skills and steps to be able to do it faster, better over time. So this is something that nobody can take it away from you. And therefore, I always say that execution is more important than ideas and doing it is better than talking about it. And that leads us to the last advice I wish somebody would have told me in my career and it's all about a new job is not always the answer. Now, you may pause over here and say that, hey,

Mipin, how can you say that because you always teach us about career growth. How can you say that a new job is not the answer? Now, the reason is because you really need to assess why are you looking for that new job? Because if you are trying to escape the current job because you are facing some problems at work with people, with your workload, with time, with KPIs, whatever that is, right? So if you are always facing the same problems and it's starting to look like a pattern in your career, I can tell you right now, a new job is not going to solve the problem because you likely have some skills some soft skills deficiencies. It's not something that can be resolved in a new job.

It's not going to be resolved with another 10-minute video. What you need is really proper in-depth training, step-by-step training, which I think is going to be more helpful for you to nip it in the bud once and for all and really get rid of this challenge once and for all so that you're not always thinking about a new job. You're actually thinking about longer-term career growth. So with that, if you are someone who is looking for tangible, like real corporate world tips, career advice and so forth,

I would highly recommend that you check out my free training at www.growacorporatecareer.com. So I actually walk through a lot of the methods that I currently teach my clients, including mistakes that you need to avoid at every single stage of career development. So this is something that I think you'll really enjoy this 30-minute training. And I created it with you in mind because I work with a lot of 9- five professionals. All my clients are nine to five professionals across multiple industries in more than 40 countries. So I think you'll find a lot of value and a lot of insights through this training as well. So you can click on the link in the description box somewhere below. Definitely

check it out. I think it will give you a little bit more insights as to how you're supposed to work in the corporate world versus like kind of guessing around. So, with that, I really love to hear from you out of the seven cliche advice that I shared today.

Which one did you relate with? Which one can you relate with? And which one do you feel like you are not doing it right? Which one represents a block for you? So, drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram and let me know.

I really love to hear from you, to hear a bit more about your struggles and also maybe share with you some opportunities on how you can develop your career and how you can grow your career. So with that, I wish you all the best and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.