The first job: glass half full or half empty?

When I went for training in the US to get used to the fast bikes and the fast roads, one thing the trainers would always say was, "Remember to look THROUGH each turn.... and if you encounter an obstacle, look THROUGH the obstacle to where you want to go. Don't look so hard at the obstacle that you crash straight into it!"

This phenomenon is called target fixation. There's a nice video about it here:


I believe target fixation happens in life as well. If you only see the obstacles, you are likely to hit many of them!

When you look at your first job, what do you see?

• Do you see the glass half empty? Do you see only the humdrum details of what you will be doing from day to day till the weekend comes around and gives you some relief? Do you worry about how you will manage to put up with the boredom or with the hard work, as the case may be?
  
  If yes, you are probably not going to do as much with your life as you could have. It's sad, but it's true. I am willing to bet on that.
  
  
• Do you see the glass half full? Are you excited by the bigger picture of where the company is headed? Do you feel that you can't wait to get started? Have you already identified the simple skills you plan to learn on the job that will help you in later life?
  
  If yes, you are certainly on your way to success. I am willing to bet on that.
  

For my first job, I joined Dr. Ramachandran Jaikumar, professor at the Harvard Business School, as a modestly-paid associate because I wanted to be near the great man and learn from him. As it turned out, those years were very precious. I realize today that I have copied many aspects of his style of thinking. Every venture that I have been involved in has benefited from that.

Sandeep Manudhane took up tutoring a few children not because it was a sexy job, but because in his mind was the vision that became Professional Tutorials (now PT Education) and led to Proton and SBM as well.

Tony Nicely joined the insurance giant GEICO as an insurance clerk at the age of 18 and rose to become its CEO. Some people think he may replace Warren Buffet at Berkshire Hathaway as GEICO is an important company in Buffet's portfolio. Not bad for someone who started off as a clerk!

Mark Hurd started his career selling computers in Texas for NCR. That must have been a tough job! But he rose to become CEO of NCR. Then he became CEO of HP!

Steve Jobs started his career with Atari as a technician, trying to save money for a spiritual trip to India. We all know what he did with his life!

Jack Welch was the son of a train conductor and a housewife, and started his career as a junior engineer... at GE.

Even Prof. Jaikumar started his career selling consumer products all over Africa if I remember right, to save money for further education in the US. That was not the kind of job that a typical mechanical engineer from IIT would have liked.

Don't get me wrong - all these people had big dreams and ambitions. Most of them had already put in a lot of hard work before they took their first job. But that did not mean that they were snooty about what work they did in that first employment.

In fact, what I really learned - or tried to learn - from Prof. Jaikumar was his unending optimism. He was never negative, always excited, always positive, never snooty. He saw an opportunity in everything.

So to those of you trying to decide on your first job - see the opportunities, don't see the pitfalls.

More to the point, your ultimate success will mostly depend more on what is WITHIN you - what you have learned and what you bring to your job, including hopefully a positive attitude - rather than where you start out.

It's very simple. Think about it for a while.


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