KACHARAGADLA

Applying for jobs just out of college or grad school, comfort may have seemed like the ultimate goal: to find the perfect job that was a natural fit and have a long, fulfilling career there. Forget all of that: comfort is the enemy. If things are easy, it's time to shake up your career. Remember when you were young, and you first attempted to write a bicycle? Were you scared at first? Absolutely. Was the end result worth it? I'm betting it was.  Hopping into a new job or career path is indeed a lot like that first ride on a bike: a heart-pumping, adrenaline-inducing risk-- and the payoffs can be as meaningful as the life-changing freedom of mastering two wheels.  Getting out of your comfort zone is a must if you want to achieve extraordinary success. I like to think of it as a shift into your "strength zone": identify, highlight and hone in on what makes you unique and lean into it so you stand out. The hardest part of shaking things up is taking

I don’t blame anyone who has become frustrated and disillusioned with the working world. It is a huge disappointment to grow up and realize that most of what we’ve been taught about how to be successful is bad advice. We were taught “Just work hard at whatever job you get, and things will work out.” That’s false. Working hard at your job does not get you much. When you work hard at a job where the boss doesn’t value your efforts, all your hard work gets you is taken for granted. Just working hard by itself will exhaust you and shorten your lifespan without any benefits to you. There has to be more to success than merely working hard, or millions of people around the world would be a lot more successful than they are! If you are at work right now, think about the investment of time and energy you are making. Imagine that you only went home to sleep for four hours a night, and gave up all the rest of your personal time to get more work done. Imagine that you practically lived a

I absolutely love my job. I almost feel like life isn’t real. That’s how much I love it. I have fun, flexibility and I’m working in the industry of my dreams.  Yet I just accepted a new job. Let me elaborate. A few weeks ago, I was invited to interview for a new position. Several days later, I was offered the job. This unleashed a world of struggle inside me because I love my current job.  I’ve been at this company for a little over a year now, and it’s been an amazing experience. I have learned a lot and grown as a person. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a mentor who has guided me and propelled me along. And I’ve had flexibility: I can, for the most part, work the schedule I set for myself. There’s something invaluable about that. So when I was faced with the decision of accepting a new job, I had to take a really hard look at my options. I kept thinking, Well, I have fun at work. I have a flexible schedule. I like the people I work with. There are certain perks I’d b

Heed the advice of those who have reaped success. Here are six skills used by self-made millionaires that you should be using and building upon each day. 1. Be able to identify fruitful opportunities. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican business magnate and philanthropist, said, “When there is a crisis, that’s when some are interested in getting out, and that’s when we are interested in getting in.” Learn to identify open doors when they appear, then consider the risks and weigh them against potential benefits. An opportunity can be a great one regardless of whether no one or everyone is rushing to grab it -- if no one is, that’s your cue to move forward; if everyone is, that’s your chance to prove you’re better than the rest. 2. Focus on actions over words. “Actions speak louder than words,” supposedly, and the late Andrew Carnegie agreed. As his career grew, he said, “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” Understand that a shinin

The first step to becoming an entrepreneur is surrounding yourself with founders and startups. When it comes to determining your ability to  succeed  as an entrepreneur, it may be less about who you know and more about where you grew up. People who grow up in areas with lots of startups are more likely to pursue  entrepreneurship  as adults, according to a new study from the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance. Including individuals who describe themselves as "self-employed," the study looked at two sets of workers in Italy and determined that as the number of startups in a certain area increased, so too did the likelihood that people who grew up there would become entrepreneurs later in life. "These results are not driven by better access to external finance or intergenerational occupation choices," the authors of the study write. "They are instead consistent with entrepreneurial capabilities being at least partly learnable through social

When it comes to success, it’s easy to think that people blessed with brains are inevitably going to leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from Stanford University will change your mind (and your attitude). Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ. Dweck found that people’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed. People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new.

Ask any successful entrepreneur about the key to his or her success, and confidence is likely to be near the top of the list. That’s because entrepreneurs must be independent while connecting with the right people, level headed while taking risks, and big-dreamers while being utterly realistic about their prospects—all of which are fueled by self-confidence. Conventional wisdom says that confidence is something you’re born with or learn early. But the fact is that confidence can be achieved through effort and determination. Here are four concrete ways to increase your confidence, and therefore your possibilities, productivity and success as an entrepreneur. 1. Rid your life of negativity. If you want to live a positive, joyful life, you cannot surround yourself with negative people who don’t support or encourage your happiness. There will always be consistently negative people who constantly try to bring you down. Don’t allow these people to sap your confidence. This may be

5 Easy Actions You Can Take To Create Career Success How do other people describe the way you work? Are you approachable and collaborative? Or maybe judgmental and controlling? Or perhaps even inspiring and empowering? The actions you take each day build your personal brand. The way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave shape the stories people tell about who you are and what they can expect from you when it comes to your work. Over time they become the trademark your colleagues and clients use to describe you and determine the opportunities that you're offered. It is the foundation on which your career is built. So what does your personal brand say about you? Source: Pressmaster/Canva If you're struggling to describe your personal brand, you're in good company. In my experience, few of us have intentionally thought about the personal brand we want to be building. Instead we hope that if we put our heads down and work hard, other people will