Recently I was on a podcast and the host asked me “Deepak, what do you think are the top three things that contributed to your success.” My first answer was “I’m not successful yet and there is a long way to go.” However, it also forced me to think about what are the three most important things that contribute to career success.
The three of the most important things are Learning, Reflection and Execution.
1. Learning
It might look very obvious but continuous life-long learning is very important for career success. Most of us stop learning after we graduate from college and then we do not touch books. We live in a very competitive world and everything is changing very fast. We will not be able to compete unless we make learning new things a habit. Without learning new things, we will be outdated and thrown out by the system very soon.
I’m not just saying this because I’m in the education business. More than a teacher or online course creator, I’m a learner. I spend a lot of time reading books, watching courses, learning from my mentors and I listen to a lot of audiobooks as well.
You need to find out what is the best method of learning for you. Some prefer learning from videos, some prefer audio, some prefer classroom training and interaction and some just want to read. Your learning method can be a combination of all the above as well.
Learning new things not only makes us competitive but it also puts us in a good state of mind. When we are in a positive state of mind we are more capable of creating the reality that we want.
No one can create their future when they are sad and depressed. There are a few things that give us a positive emotional state. Things like love, gratitude, belonging, etc. put us in a positive state of mind. Knowledge and learning are as powerful as love itself. Once you learn something new, you will feel a sense of power. This builds positive momentum into your day, your week, your month, your year, your decade and your life.
Learn something every day. Ask yourself: what did I learn today? Spend at least one hour per day learning something new.
2. Reflection
Learning new things is like getting new pieces of a puzzle. When you learn new things you cannot take the learning and apply it to your life directly because your situation, resources, experience, and goals are different than the source you are learning from.
Almost all forms of learning are just pointers in the right direction than being turn-by-turn navigation of what you need to do. Some people just keep learning new things all the time and they do not make any time for thinking.
Reflecting on what you’ve learned and thoughts about your past life experience are very important to make use of the things you’ve learned. You need to let the learning sink in. Without giving time for self-reflection you are just collecting more pieces of the puzzle but you are not putting them together. You will not be able to see the bigger picture.
Imagine that you are giving directions to a delivery boy on the phone. If he has no GPS and trying to find your home, he will not want you to tell everything on a single call. He would ideally like to reach a certain checkpoint and ask directions from you again so that he can make progress in steps.
If you keep learning without giving time for reflection, you will end up getting overloaded with information. It will be overwhelming and this is the point where most people lost interest in learning. Because learning without reflection and execution becomes useless. More information will lead to more confusion.
Reflection also fuels you with motivation and inspiration. Inspiration will come from spending time in solitude and reflecting on the things you’ve learned in your life, through experience, and through books.
There are plenty of ways to reflect on things. The best way is to meditate. But meditation is difficult for a lot of people and they do not do it regularly. Have a daily habit of meditating for 20-30 minutes. It will put you in a positive state of mind. But meditation is not enough. You can also do things that keep you in the present moment.
Cooking, walking, playing with your pets, painting, motorcycling, maintaining an aquarium, etc. are activities that keep you in the flow state. A flow state is where you lose track of time. You are totally into something and suddenly you realize that a lot of time has passed.
For me, one of the best flow states is writing. I am in a state of flow as I am writing this article. All these activities calm down your conscious mind and it creates space. This space is important for letting the subconscious mind push important life-changing decisions to your conscious awareness. This is called intuition.
If most of the activities in your life are driven by intuition, you are going to have a wonderful life unfold in front of you. It takes years of practice and open-mindedness to be able to listen clearly to your intuitions and have the ability to trust your intuitions blindly and act on it.
Make sure you have enough time for reflection. If you are jumping from one thing to another, always distracting yourself either with work or with learning, you are going to lack the clarity for major decisions in your life.
Clarity is required to make tough decisions. Easy decisions lead to a tough life. Tough decisions lead to an easy life. Make the tough decisions early on in your life to create the life that you want.
3. Execution
All the learning and reflection in your life will not be of any use if you do not apply what you have learned and act on what you’ve realized. That’s why the 3rd pillar of a successful career is execution. On the other hand, if you keep working and do not learn and reflect, the amount of value you are creating with your work will diminish over time.
One of the best analogies is to think about is a woodcutter cutting a tree. If he spends all his time cutting the tree then over time his ax will become blunt and the amount of time and energy he spends in cutting the tree will increase.
He can take some time off from the cutting work and sharpen his ax. If he sharpens his ax he can be more efficient in cutting the tree and that would mean less time and energy spent in cutting the tree. However, if he spends all his time in sharpening the ax, he would have a sharp ax but no wood.
You need to strike a balance. I like to keep the balance as 30% learning, 30% reflecting and 40% working.
Assuming that you would spend on average 10 hours per day away from life and chores, you should allocate 3 hours for learning, 3 hours for reflection and only 4 hours for working. I have been following this routine for a long time and it has worked well for me. Four hours might seem like a small amount of work, but if done with full focus you will get an entire day’s work done in 4 hours.
I don’t think a 4-hour workweek is practical, but a 4-hour workday is possible and realistic. Most of our “workday” is spend on distractions anyway. If you can channelize all your energies into a focused deep work session for 4 hours, you can spend the rest of your day sharpening your ax and looking at the sky.
Most of the corporate workers who work for 10 hours a day, 60-70 hours a week for decades together have to work so hard because they have to try harder to keep the same output going. They also lock themselves in with a certain standard of lifestyle. The cost of living shoots up and then they cannot fathom the idea of quitting the job and starting a venture because everything will collapse around them. Worse, a lot of people go into debt for buying a car, house and sometimes even vacations. You don’t want to be that. Such a life sucks.
Many people who keep working all the time without sharpening their ax get a rude awakening when they get fired because they become obsolete or the company as a whole fails to adapt to changing times. Sometimes, the whole team is caught up cutting the tree all the time and they never notice how blunt their ax has become. They realize very late in their lives that they have not been doing what they enjoyed doing and they didn’t become the best in the world at a specific skill either.
Final Words
30/30/40 is the mantra for an extraordinary career. Learn, reflect, work, repeat. You need to weave this into a daily habit, else you will not be able to be consistent with it.
Consistent efforts, learning, and reflection over time will bring compounded results. Most of the magical things in life come with compounded effects. If you improve 1% every day for 365 days, you will be 37x better by the end of the year.
Imagine what three hours of learning per day can do to you if you do it for 10 years in a row. You will become the top 1% of the experts in your industry. And if you stack your skills, you will be able to even become the No.1 in your chosen field. Combine this with a lot of thinking and a lot of execution over time, you will create wonders and others will see it as a miracle.
I hope this blog post gave you some insights into how you can design your life for career success in the long term.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below 🙂
Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju
Thanks deepak sir, this was a very useful information.will follow this strategy from today and will do the same again and again….
All the best Srikanth.
Hi,
Just when I thought there was no point reading for something which might not happen soon because of Corona virus, I realised I wasn’t thinking of next ten years. Reading on Learn reflect execute has definitely helped me decide today that I am going to continue reading whether things happen or not this year
Good blog 30:30:40 rule..
Nilesh Bindod
Really Sir, This is what we need to adopt and execute in life.
Good one sir , absolutely right
These three pillars of a successful career are very useful ans important for all of us surly .
Thank you for reading. All the best.
Wonderful article with a wonderful concept. Loved the woodcutter example and though I do spend some of my working time to learn something new, ot wasn’t a calculated one, it was random. But now I will follow your methodology and will try to better myself by 1% daily. Thanks a lot Deepak for this bonus article.
Also, understand the pain points, its intensity, of the clients; which will never
be revealed, but one has to grasp, &
Hit on the spot.
You did it, you succeed, you win the
Heart of the Client. He will never leave you. A strong bond develop unconsciously.
Work is done.
Nice One, this article helpful for everyone.
Very useful information to young entrepreneurs. Thanking you digital deepak sir
Nice article. Thank you sir !
Yes I do accept, certain value is given for learning.There is always a career break in life, sometimes break in life to meet up the family goals. Men or women or others need a gap for self evaluation and to brush up skills like brushing up teeth everyday, even at 70 years we brush our teeth daily. That’s what a tutor or guru does. Thanks
Very useful article sir
This article is good reminder for me. Flow state for me are gardening and cooking. I simply get inner peace in that state without knowing how many hours have passed.
Thanks
Thank you sir,
for this life changing rule for success, “learning , reflection and execution”.
Inshaallah I will follow your advice as you describe .
A very valuable piece of words by you sir! Will surely try to inculcate this into my life.
A very valuable piece of words! Will surely try to inculcate it in my life.
YES DEEPAK SIR I DO AGREE WITH YOUR THOUGHTS…
YOUR MAILS KEEP THE INSPIRATION IN ME GOING …
THANKS SIR
Sir, useful content for entrepreneurial journey.
Very useful tip 30/30/40 Sir you always suggests the best
You are welcome. All the best 🙂
these three pillars of a successfull career are very important and usefull for everybody.very nice article.
I was never known about the refection. How reflection is as necessary as learning. Absolutely big YES about these 3 pillars. I am sure this information gonna help us.
Thank you!
100% agree with your thoughts and words. I will weave this into a daily habit. Thank you so much.
Yes u r right in life learning is everything…… whatever u learn excuted in right way…..
I want to know something from you how can I start my own FB page and how can I get more dofollw user’s…….
Please give some advice…
My page is related with mobile phones…
Thank You.
Deep work is the need of the hour and you can achieve more in less time if you are concentrated and focused while working.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article.
The article is simply amazing sir. This strategy was something that I was looking forward but was not able to define or derive it. Thank you for giving clear picture of how to take it. This indeed made me understand with your simple clearly defined words and examples.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing your insights with the wonderful write up.
It’s my beginning in the professional life , hence feel like having boost up with positive energy.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s like a gem to achieve success.
I am very impressed by your views and inspiration. I shall do follow your technique.
Learning always gives energy ……
Well written,
Thanks a lot for such a great piece of information, which is very helpful for any person in life. Especially in the field of job searching.
I do not follow your principle, Digital Deepak, however, I do follow the principle of focusing on my work while I am working. But, I do not get time to reflect and learn. The little bit of learning I do per day is by reading your blog. I read the emails you sent me from your blog.
Simply Superb narration
Thank you!
I am interested in this subject.
A very much needed information needed… Thank you sir
3/3/4 the mantra for successful life.Agree with you Sir.I fully agree with you and most of us spending time cutting the tree rather sharpen the ax for sometime.But we have to balance the cutting work with sharpening the ax.If we devout 3 hours in learning 3 hours in reflecting and 4 hours in implementing our thought in practical work then it would be great.Nice article and nice thoughts.
Thank You for such great pieces of information. Thanks Again
Thank you, Sir,
Wonderfull article.
Thank you so much sir for sharing this.
It’s a best lesson for the College students. To create and casting their life in good carrier.
Amazing post. This is indeed very much helpful for persons who are looking to find and build strategies for building a successful career. I found this as very much helpful, as it helped me a lot in developing and boosting myself in building a successful career.
I am very much thankful to you sir for providing such amazing and reliable content.
I have been always following you and it had benefitted in improving me to a great extent
Really, great wonderful inspiring blog.
Thank you Deepak
Thank you sir..well said
Wonderful Article,Thanks Deepak sir, this was a very useful information and will follow this strategy from today itself with utmost dedication
Awesome article on the importance of life long learning.
Learning, reflection and execution when combined together can create wonders.
Thank you Deepak sir for this valuable and inspirational blog. I will keep 30,30,40 rule in mind and also apply this in my own life.
something new thanks
These 3 steps were used by ancient Indians to study the Upanishads since thousands of years. They called it Shravan (Hear/Learn it), Manan (Reflect on it), Nididhyasana (Soak in it/implement it). Looks like still relevant for materialistic life in 21 century as well.
I can’t believe what I came up with my life experience is already there in history. Thanks for sharing this.
Very Good article,
Hey, it’s very informative and interesting. I’m going to use it and I’m going share this blog to my colleagues. Thanks for taking the much efforts for this blog. 🙂
This was an amazing article. All 3 pillars defines the success of our life.
Thanks you deepak dir,
This information was very useful for me and others thanks for giving me and everyone
love the idea 30/30/40 and really its looks realistic for me…. thanks DD
Thank you so much. This will go a long way in helping me.
i thought, its going to be tough to read such a long article but deepak sir is just amazing writer. after reading one pera you wish to read another. 🙂
30-30-40 rule. basic recruitment of our life in this modern generational
thanks deepak for sharing information with us it great help to create strategy
I went through your blog and I must say that you have done a great job in explaining all aspects of digital marketing clearly. Would highly appreciate if you could spare some time and take a look at my page.
Very nice blog sir, there are three pillors if we will apply these pillors in life one day we will found a Big success in own life
Thank you very much because in this article I have got the information that I want to take.
Hi Sir, thanks for this blog post.
But I am not able to understand concept of reflection.
May you kindly explain this in better way?
Thank You Sir.
Very Good article, It’s a best lesson for the College students. To create and casting their life in good carrier.
Hi Deepak Sir,
KHAN TANVEER Here,
I was trying to find out about a Successful Career. Thanks for this Guide. Thanks for the great article Deepak Sir.
It happens many times that what we search on Google; we don’t get the exact solution to our problems. But looking at your posts, It seems you are a problem-solving guy. Appreciate it. Thank you for the guide.
Really these three pillars helps in success .. Amazing blog post
I like line very much that is “tough decisions lead to an easy life”
Thank you sir for sharing