Chief Executive Officer is a title that has a nice ring to it. It's also a title that earns some people in major corporations millions of dollars. After all, millions are chicken feed to a company like Goldman Sachs or Proctor and Gamble if their CEO helps their company to earn an extra billion dollars. So how does one prepare for these positions? It's not easy however there are methods. In business management just as in personal management of your own, you must take charge. You have to be able to manage yourself efficiently before you can manage the destiny of 100,000 employees and answer to just as many stockholders.
You have to be trustworthy, confident, and willing to learn every day. You have to step out of your comfort zone and do things that others think are just too hard to do. The basic training all begins with simple self-disciplines. Things like being on time for appointments, paying your bills on time, and meeting your deadlines and commitments like a well oiled machine. You have to take full responsibility for your errors and do whatever is necessary to correct them as quick as possible.
As the CEO of your own life, YOU are in total charge of what happens to you. Let's take a look at how YOU must be the CEO of your own life. First are decisions. People look to the CEO to make the BIG decisions. Well, you are the only one who can make decisions for yourself. Sure, you can get advice and there surely is no shortage of advice from others. But in the end, it is YOU who must ultimately decide what's best. Even if you took some other persons advice, YOU had to make the decision.
What BIG decisions are you making right now? How about your occupation? That's a big one, and it takes up a lot of your time. You decided to work where you work; even if your brother got you the job, or a friend got it for you, or you just got the job for some extra cash and ended up staying there. No matter what the story, you decided that you're going to work where you work. And if you stay at your current job, or find something better, it won't happen until YOU decide.
How else are you the CEO of your own life? How about assets, liabilities, profits, and losses? CEO's are always keeping their eyes on these things. Well, you too have assets, and if you carry debts, you have liabilities. Are you taking in more than you spend, or do you spend more than you take in? These are all under YOUR watch. You decide what your personal balance sheet looks like.
As CEO of your life, you have more power than you may realize. It's quite common for people to put others on a pedestal and to think down on themselves; to call others "elite" and to refer to themselves as "working class." This is unfortunate and is based on a lack of understanding.
The lack of understanding lies in the fact that in a "market economy," there can be no such thing as "classes." Prior to the founding of America, the world lived under Kings and their families. Back then, if you were born a Duke, or Prince, then you died a Duke or Prince. If you were born a peasant, than no matter what you did, your life was laid out for you, and you died a peasant. It didn't make any difference what your skill level was, your intellect, or your abilities. You were a peasant that was that. You would have been correct to say that "classes" existed at that time.
But America would be different. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." This was revolutionary thinking. For this meant that, if Steve Jobs or Bill Gates was born a peasant, he was free to become a billionaire. He didn't die a peasant by default.
So eliminate the words "working class" from your vocabulary. BECOME THE CEO OF YOUR OWN LIFE! And if you live in America, you have advantages that much of the world's population can only dream of. Many still live in societies with genuine "classes."
Reflect on your life during this holiday season. Get prepared to make positive changes in your life during the upcoming year. Make 2008 your BEST year ever! Stand up straight and become the best you can be. It's no accident that individuals become the CEO's of major public companies. They work hard on THEMSELVES every day to become valuable in the marketplace. You can do the same. Start right now. Happy Holidays!