Learnings from The Unspoken Rules by Gorick Ng

After reading the first 25 pages of Gorick Ng’s book The Unspoken Rules — Secrets to Starting Your Career off Right, here are a few points that are quite valuable and really resonated with me:

1. Understand how your role will contribute to the greater vision and goals of the organization you are working with. It is easy to get trapped in tunnel vision where the only thing you see is the work in front of you, but being able to connect what you are doing to overarching objectives allows the opportunity to reach higher levels of success and produce better results that have more impact.
2. Show you have done your homework. Putting in the hard work of doing the work is only half of the job. Share what you have learned / what you have done. No one knows what you have done unless you show it to them.
3. Be an asset to others. Do not hesitate to each out and ask to help others once you have completed your own tasks. Save others time and stress. Being helpful is a super power that will allow you to make connections with others and build your reputation as someone who is kind, generous and someone people can depend on.
4. Don’t make others tell you the same thing twice. Don’t repeat the same mistakes twice. Learn from the things that have happened and adapt with those learnings. If you want to build trust with others, they need to know that once they tell you something, you will apply it (because if not, what was the point of them telling you in the first place?). Be worth the investment of others.
5. It is not enough to be hard working. As someone who grew up hearing this from my parents and teachers, this point offered me new insight into how I approach opportunites. Hard work is only just the beginning. It is important to understand that there is more beyond that, like forming connections with others, reaching out for help / advice, being proactive, etc. There are always extra steps to take.

From reading only 25 pages, I was able to gain a new understanding of the world of career building. If you would like to check it out for yourself, you can get the book here.

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