NOTE; For this week’s post, you can watch a 90 second video – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d9-220rEZCSSkcQTfplTqkmi_hD0sS38/view?ts=6a2194b6 or read!
At age 21, as a recent college graduate, I started my first full-time job at the IBM Corporation. In less than seven months, I earned almost an entire year’s salary due to the incredible amount of overtime I worked.
It began to consume me. I thought about it when I wasn’t at work, and I sometimes worked on weekends – even on Sundays – trying to do the job I was hired to do.
It wasn’t a great fit, and my performance began to suffer over time. I was put on a 60-day improvement plan, with the understanding that if my output didn’t change, I would be let go. It was in that moment of despair, at rock bottom, that I picked up a book I had been given as a college graduation present called The Greatest Salesman in the World.
I devoured the book. I read it exactly as the author, Og Mandino, suggested – three times a day. I would read the same chapter over and over again and think about how I could apply that content to my life. It was that spark that changed me.
I went from being one of the lowest performers in my office to winning an award given to less than 1% of IBM employees.
Ever since that time, I have paused on a regular basis for self-improvement and self-development. These moments of self-study and reflection changed me, and they can change you.
