Signs You’Re Successful—Even if It Doesn’t Feel Like It

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20 Tools For Hybrid IT - See the 20 Tools You Need to Deliver Services in the New Hybrid IT World.

OPEN LETTER TO RECRUITERS

Dear Recruiters,

I have been on the other side of the table hunting for jobs not too long ago. I facednumerous challenges while interacting with you all. While you might be extremely

competent in dealing with your clients/ customers, I can’t say the same thing

about the approach and attitude towards candidates.

Now that I have been a recruiter for more than 5 years (and have confirmed my

gratuity), in the interest of numerous candidates looking out for jobs, I can safely

help the recruiters with some free advice…..

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This is a noble profession and must be considered like one.

Best regards,

Vikas Kumar

Search Partner - Purechase

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Mahesh Raju

I completely agree with you Vikas and i appreciate the way you have

articulated it. Every recruiter must follow these guidelines to be successful.

But i somewhere feel it's a candidate responsibility too to give the right

information in terms of the job he is looking for. I have seen many

candidates just hopping around despite of we giving them, the best. If both

the parties go hand in hand, then this situation would never arise.

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Signs You’re Successful—Even If It Doesn’t Feel

Like It

If you’re ambitious, you’re bound to feel like a failure from time to time. Lofty

goals lead to inevitable moments when you aren’t yet living up to your

expectations.

We live in a world that reinforces this feeling. Though most people won’t admit it

—other than the guy with the ‘ He who dies with the most toys wins’ bumper

sticker—in the back of our minds, we equate material possessions with success.

It’s a shame we fall prey to materialistic thinking because we certainly know

better. A study by Strayer University found that 90% of Americans believe

happiness is a bigger indicator of success than power, possessions, or prestige.

Digging a little deeper, 67% defined success as “good relationships with friends

and family,” and 60% said it is loving what you do for a living. Only 20% stated

that monetary wealth determines success.

But saying and doing are two very different things.

When it comes to success, our eyes often lead us astray. It’s hard not to feel like

the most successful people are those with the biggest houses, the most expensive

cars, and the most influential friends. Regardless of what you achieve, there’s

always someone with more, and this can make you feel like you’re losing. Theproblem isn’t your lack of toys; it’s believing that toys indicate true success.

Real success is about who you are and how far you’ve come. If you ever worry that

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you’re not as successful as you should be, you may be evaluating yourself against

the wrong criteria. Sometimes you just need a reminder as to what you’ve really

accomplished in life. The success indicators that follow will help you do just that.

You’re no longer the center of the universe. We all know “successful”

people who act like they’re the center of the universe. It’s their world and the rest

of us just live in it…right? That’s not success. True success requires the ability tofeel empathy—to realize that other people’s feelings and dreams are just as

important as ours, and we cannot succeed without them.

You stay positive. Hope and optimism are essential components of a happy

life. If you dwell on the things that go wrong, you become bitter and resentful.

When that happens, you fail—no matter what you may have achieved. Real

success means always seeing the bright side and believing you have the power to

make even the worst situations better.

You know that failure isn’t forever. You’ve learned that the only people who

never fail are those who don’t try. When you fail, you don’t automatically assume

that you’re a failure. Instead, you embrace each failure as an opportunity to learn

something—and then you move on. If you still struggle with this at times, know

that you’ll never experience true success until you learn to embrace failure. Your

mistakes pave the way for your success by revealing when you’re on the wrong

path. The biggest breakthroughs typically come when you’re feeling the most

frustrated and the most stuck. It’s this frustration that forces you to think differently, to look outside the box and see the solution you’ve been missing.

You keep things in perspective. Sometimes bad things happen. It’s part of

life. For most of us, however, our very worst day would seem like a vacation to

somebody who has real problems—like not having enough to eat, or trying to

survive a civil war. Locking your keys in the car—or even getting passed over for a

promotion—aren’t that bad once you learn to develop perspective. If you’ve

mastered the ability to keep your problems in perspective, mark it down as a huge

success.

You ask for help when you need it. Refusing to ask for help, no matter how

much you’re struggling, is a sign of emotional immaturity. Asking for help means

that you no longer feel like you have something to prove by being perfect. It

shows you aren’t afraid of people discovering your weaknesses and you

understand no one succeeds alone.

You realize that life isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s not a see-saw, either. Just

because somebody else achieves a big success, that doesn’t mean you suffer a loss

in equal proportion. You just didn’t win that particular time. One sure sign of

success is the ability to celebrate others’ achievements with sincere enthusiasm.

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You can tell the difference between drama and excitement.

Remember the days when stable relationships were boring, and you quickly got

tired of anyone who treated you as they should? If that kind of “drama” is a thing

of the past, congratulations. If you prefer stability and depth to drama, you’re

succeeding.

You no longer care what other people think. You only worry about whatother people think when you still feel like you have something to prove.

Conversely, you know you’ve “made it” when you don’t worry about that anymore

—when you’re true to yourself and your principles, and satisfied with your life.

You know you’ve made it when you understand that other people’s opinions are

ust that—opinions. They have no effect on reality. They don’t change who or what

you are.

You accept what you can’t change and change what you can.

There’s a difference between pessimism and practicality. If there’s a hurricane

headed your way, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But once you accept that

the hurricane is coming, you can start working to mitigate its effects. If your

company downsizes and you get laid off, every moment you spend in denial just

delays whatever is waiting over the horizon. You’re able to move on only when

you start exploring your options and making plans to change what you can.

Taking responsibility for changing the things you don’t like about your life is one

of the biggest indicators of success.

There’s no sense in feeling like a failure just because you think you should have a

better job, a bigger house, or a nicer car. Real success comes from the inside, and

it’s completely independent of circumstance.

What are some other indicators of true success? Please share your thoughts in

the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling

book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's

leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than

75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into

25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has

written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, TIME, BusinessWeek, Fortune,

Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The

Washington Post , and The Harvard Business Review.

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If you'd like to learn how to increase your emotional intelligence (EQ), consider

taking the online Emotional Intelligence Appraisal® test that's included with the

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book. Your test results will pinpoint which of the

book's 66 emotional intelligence strategies will increase your EQ the most.

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Carl Boorer

Brilliant piece which I can totally empathise with.

Yesterday my Wife suddenly collapsed in front of me and I thought she was

dead.

I love my children deeply but my World and my best friend disappeared

before me in an instant.She came round and after 5 scary hours in A&E she

was stable.

There was nothing in that moment as she fell and I caught her that I

wouldn't have done or given to make her better.

Today she is feeling much better and my cup is full again.

Possessions are cold,hold those you love and respect close to you andenjoy every moment because life without them is a heartbreaking place.

I have had some massive ups and downs in my career and I feel I've

achieved a lot but for 10 mins yesterday I looked into the abyss where

everything was "as nothing" and thankfully I have come back.

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500 Startups Founder: Venture Capitalists Are Lazy

and Don't Innovate

As LinkedIn’s New Economy Editor, I talk to a lot of people who love venture

capital. A lot.

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Shona Molyneux, Mark Graves, Catherine Black, +2

Patrice Burnside

Best wishes to you and your wife, Carl. It is amazing and

profound how such experiences can shape us. And in ways

that we often discover months and years after they occur. Mayyou and each of us continue to be transformed, seeking

harmony, gratitude and blessings from what we have

experienced.

Like 34 minutes ago

Kellie Moore

An incredible piece dedicated to your wife- this is ho w love

should be

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Alexandre Aragão, Andy Haw kins, Herta Adrah, +2

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The investing class known for backing hyper-successful startups like Uber,

Airbnb, Dropbox and more, VC is almost deified in Silicon Valley. People working

in startupland follow the moves of their favorite venture capitalists like fans

follow their favorite celebrity. What these guys (and a few gals) tweet is revered.

What they write is seemingly immortalized.

Dave McClure is not one of those people.

The founder of 500 Startups, McClure runs a seed fund and startup accelerator

with $250 million in assets. Unlike traditional VCs who only make a handful of

big bets a year, McClure makes lots of small ones. He aims for 500 investments a

year and in total has backed more than 1,500 startups with funding.

McClure thinks this model of investing will not only yield better results over time,

but he also thinks it’s the model that everyone will follow in the future. In his

mind, if the private investing markets are going to survive, they have to diversify

their investing portfolio just like McClure has.

Rather than deify the strategy of the big-name VC firms on Sand Hill Road,

McClure has a different opinion entirely – and he isn’t afraid to voice it.

“Most venture capitalists are lazy and not innovative,” McClure said last week on

a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference. “They take

meetings, play golf, and make two investments a year. We are surrounded by entrepreneurs who are innovating, and we are this shitty little asset class that is

not changing.”

After the panel, I caught up with Dave to get the story behind this explosive

comment and the many others he made on stage.

Edited excerpts:

Caroline Fairchild: You said on stage that venture capitalists can’t

really innovate. Do you really think that?

Dave McClure: There are not too many innovators in venture capital. What is

maybe the myth is that VC is doing fine, but it is actually pretty shitty in its level

of maturity and expansion, and there is going to be a lot of disruption in venture

as people scale other models faster and better. As much as I think Sequoia,

Benchmark, and Accel will have 20 more years before their models are

questioned, there are a bunch of other firms on Sand Hill Road, which will have

shitty performances because they are doing the same old, same old. As much

opportunity is going on in the industry, we are still pretty poor at our craft. The

reason the asset class hasn’t gotten bigger is because three out of four VCs do not

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beat the market. It is a structural problem around how people think about

building portfolios and structuring VC. There are better ways to structure the

asset class that will perform better. We are getting there, but it will take some

time to scale.

CF: What’s the biggest problem with how venture capitalists structure

their portfolios?

DM: Mostly portfolio construction is too concentrated. The industry thinks that

30 companies is proper portfolio construction, but they are absolutely wrong.

Just because some outliers are successful does not mean that the rest of the

industry is full of shit. If you increase portfolio size by five to 10 times, your

portfolio will perform better. In five to 10 years we will realize that we are right. It

will be the minority of funds that have concentrated portfolios, not the majority.

People are saying we are doing “spray and pray” and say that is kind of funny and

crazy. It is mathematically quantitative. You are the losers who are doing the non-

mathematical model, but they haven't realized it yet.

DM: What opportunities does your investment strategy open up for

you?

CF: It gives us a lot more flexibility. We pioneered a different model. When I

started investing as an angel and at Founder’s Fund, I made a lot of little bets.

Most of them didn’t work, but some of them worked really well. We wanted toscale that strategy. That generally is working very well. Between 2 to 3% of our

portfolio will become really big, another 5 to 7% will become modestly big. It is

basic math. If I only find the unicorns 2% of the time, the portfolio should be a

minimum of 50 to 100 companies. For more statistically significant results, the

portfolio should have 200 to 500 companies.

CF: So why is everyone so obsessed with venture capital?

DM: People have seen some pretty big wins. Those wins are capturing more and

more of the value chain by not going public. Companies would go public at $200

million dollars, now companies at $2 billion or $5 billion are not going public.

Private markets are capturing all the value creation. People talk about companies

not going public as the problem. That is not the problem. Pricing is the problem.

Those companies are kept private because private capital is greedy to invest in

those companies and capture that value creation. They will definitely figure out

how to price it because they will make money.

CF: What’s going on with the funding market right now?

DM: People are trying to compare right now to 2000 and 2001, which is

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firms] will still be successful, but I am not waiting around for them to hire a black

female founder. It is not going to happen anytime soon. We have to solve these

problems out of greed, not guilt. Yes, I want to do the right thing too, but that is

not my strategy for building the fund. It is stupidly basic. It is an opportunity for

us. If the rest of the market takes their time figuring it out, great, I am going to

take more of that market before they realize it.

Update: This post has been updated to reflect the growth in 500 Startups' assets

under management.

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