ADVICE YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN'T GET AT SCHOOL

Ingredients for a successful career

- WARREN INGRAM

AFTER MORE than a decade of advising retired people on their investments, I have always been surprised at how dissimilar the successful people are, and how difficult it would have been to predict their success at the start of their careers.

People who never finished school have retired comfortably at 55 after a great career, while there are many retirees who would be expected to succeed (e.g. doctors or lawyers) but have retired relatively poor and dissatisfied. Given my constant exposure to retirees, I have been privileged to gain some insight into how people have achieved success over extended careers.

The secret to a successful career is simply complicated

Here are some of the ingredients that contribute to a successful career.

In this instance ‘career’ really refers to your entire working life, and includes business owners as well as employees. There is no particular order of importance to these ingredients, nor will all these ingredients suit every person—you should therefore look at this as a menu, not as a six-point plan.

Specialisation

A notable characteristic of successful people is their ability to develop a craft of their own. Most people who have had a long and successful career have developed a certain set of skills and expertise that they honed over a lifetime.

Very few generalists retire successfully. A good example is a middle manager in a large corporation. What is the manager's craft? What skill set does this manager have that makes them valuable and unique?