Advice for Success

Today we ate lunch with my father's friend and colleague Frédéric Samama. He gave me a few pieces of what I feel is excellent advice about how to be successful in career ventures.

1. Arrange meetings with important people. The worst that can happen is that they will turn you down. However, if they accept, the meeting can be incredibly helpful and productive. Do diligent research on them, and find out all the ways they can help you and, better yet, you can help them.

2. Do sports to deal with stress. Endorphins are an enormous help to dealing with the rigors of difficult work.

3. Do not worry! There is always room and time to try again, especially in the U.S.

I'm going to add a few more pieces of advice that I've found quite helpful.

4. Be disciplined in all the little ways possible. Making yourself do simple tasks like cleaning your room, organizing files, or eating healthy are great ways to practice self-control. The discipline and organization that you apply to areas of your life that appear meaningless will in fact influence all of your decisions. I become much more productive if I simply start the day by making my bed.

5. Believe in changing yourself. If you identify a problem with yourself - being too clumsy, too shy, too lazy - find ways to fix it. Letting it beat you down is counterproductive.

6. Keep track of what works. Maybe drinking coffee at a specific hour one day made you more productive than usual. Maybe working out in the morning makes you work better during the day. Whatever your cup of tea may be, write it down, and keep track of it.

I will keep adding tips as I learn new ones that work well.