The Hindu Business Line : Be the president of your personal services corp

In the world of work, you will always be paid in direct proportion to three things, says Brian Tracy in Something for Nothing (www.jaicobooks.com). “First, the work you do; second, how well you do it; and third, the difficulty of replacing you.”

The key to your future, therefore, is to choose the right job for your special talents and skills, become very good at doing that job, and then make yourself indispensable, he explains. To earn in the current, continually changing marketplace, each person is responsible for regularly upgrading the skill-set, the author advises.

We create our own jobs, no one can make another person more productive, he avers. “A company can only create an environment where a productive person can utilise more of his potential to contribute value. But the individual is always personally responsible for his level of production and the amount he earns or fails to earn.”

From the day you take your first job until the day you retire, no matter who signs your paycheck, you are the president of your own entrepreneurial business, selling your services into a competitive market, urges Tracy. “As the president of your own personal services corporation, you are totally responsible for training and development, productivity and quality control, personal promotion, and financial management.”

The book looks at the common craving of ‘something for nothing' as an obsession with free money, a virus that can destroy the economy. When people strive to get rewards without working, riches without contribution, recognition without achievement, or power without service, they are manifesting the dark side of greed, the author rues. On the other hand, “when the entrepreneurial and creative energies of people motivated by greed are directed and channelled into productive activities, greed becomes a powerful and positive social good. It drives people to innovate and create newer, better, faster, and cheaper ways to provide products and services for others.”

Urgent messages.

D. Murali

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