Our Blog

BY Joel Junker

Being Great and Achieving Success

The Cameron-Brooks mission statement says, “Cameron-Brooks will help candidates and alumni reach their utmost potential – personally and in their career…” 

To help all of our candidates and alumni reach their potential, I want to share an article with you about being “great” that really made an impact on me and helps me every day to focus on getting better.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm

The article is titled, “What it Takes to be Great” and Geoff Colvin wrote it for Fortune magazine in October 2006.   

Highlights from the article:

– “Research now shows lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success.”

– Achieving success requires “painful, demanding practice and hard work.”

– Achieving a high performance level takes a minimum of 10 years and usually longer.

– High achievers overcome obstacles and forge on when improvement doesn’t come as quickly or naturally as it did in the beginning. 

– One has to approach work with a new goal: “Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it.”

– Feedback is crucial BUT you have to have the initiative and confidence to ask for it.

– If great performance were easy, it wouldn’t be rare.

– You have to practice regularly – make it a habit.

– Don’t give up.

You can dive deeper into these ideas by reading Colvin’s new book, Talent is Irrelevant or Malcom Gladwell’s new book, Outliers.

After reading this article two years ago, I no longer tell people, “Have a great day.”  Instead, I say, “Be great today!”

Joel Junker