This is an old post that I wrote a long time ago, but I find is still relevant, maybe now more than ever…

Ever wonder what the most agile of gymnasts and successful career women and men have in common? Well, more than you may ever think…

As I navigate through my own career, and discuss, or plainly hear or read about accounts from other men and women alike around their own careers, it has become evident that making it at work is no longer a matter of just doing your job, even if excelling at it and/or being the smartest, most diligent employee in the room. No wonder so many PhD’s are baristas at Starbucks, albeit incredibly talented baristas, while still holding their Law or Natural History degrees…For our generation of millenials, and even back a few generations, the name of the game is no longer “Fake it ‘til you make it”, but rather “Fake it, dodge it, climb over it, slide under it, somersault across it, do a handstand, back flip, center split around it, all at the same time”, and you still won’t be guaranteed to make it to the now-glorious podium of career success and longevity…Yup, you read right, maintaining a career, especially in the corporate jungle anywhere, has become a feat of Olympian proportions, and if you ever thought that quirky brain of yours or rock-solid work ethics passed down in your family from generation to generation of working folks will save you, well…think again…

Modern career-building is not an exercise for the faint of hearts, mind you…Most of the geniuses I’ve come across during my high school and college years have now either remained geniuses in genius-oriented careers, like computer programming, financial modeling, or you know Einstein-type gigs, disappeared from the professional horizons, or simply, like many among us, are still struggling to swim upstream in the terrible professional currents of our days…And those, the upstream, struggling, out-of-breath, out-of-time and out-of-success professional swimmers, are among the most numerous, the geniuses constituting, as always, the minorities of minorities…Now one other thing that is self-evident, is that those who’ve made it, are making it, or are showing some serious promise of making it, are not the A students, the studious college pals who forfeited nights of binge drinking and devious hanging out to study for their finals in 3 weeks…Nope…Those, at least many of those, are the average Joe’s, the normal “achievers”, you know, your B or C students who weren’t exactly the top of the lot, but who turned out pretty successful in the real world…

So what do these successful workplace heroes know more than the rest of us? And even more importantly, what separates REAL life from REAL school? What special wiring do some of us have that allow them to climb the career ladder, while others just can’t seem to get past the first few rungs? Well, as many of us are finding out, more than a jungle, the real world is a gym, one where agility and flexibility rule, while stiffness gets you, well…a stiff shove back down the line. Truth is, politics reign everywhere, most of all in the workplace; and while doing your job is important, understanding and managing workplace politics is crucial. As everywhere, there are important people, important values, and important “stuff” in general that you’re supposed to know at the very least, and put into practice at best…Now of course, not all of this “stuff” is good “stuff”, and by no means should we turn into hypocrites applying principles and doctrines that are straight up wrong, or that we do not believe in at all…Yet around some of that stuff that is not bad, not dishonest, and not totally out of our leagues, we should learn to become agile acrobats and skilled contortionists, folding and unfolding our cards as the game unfolds…

And what does that exactly mean, in basic, non-political, career lingo for Dummies? Well, for one, we need to open our eyes and look, not just at the furniture and the calendar for happy hours, but at strategic “stuff” like the chain of authority, who the high-ups are, what they  know, how they behave and how you, yes you, are to use all the acrobatic skills you’ve ever learnt since kindergarten to get your work noticed, find the right mentor, learn the right lessons and be at the right place at the right time.

Now that’s not the stuff of textbooks or learning seminars…That’s the stuff of REAL life, where you’ve got to play the right cards at the right time…Or else, you can also opt out of the race altogether, and go get happy somewhere else, become your own boss, or maybe get adopted by the Donald…Otherwise, if you’re still suiting up to hit your corporate gig, well, you may want to start considering some serious gym education…

Just sayin’….

Are you flexible in your career success pursuit?

Love Always,