“How did you make managing director at UBS investment bank?” is a question I get asked quite often during Q&A session of my live streaming lectures. Another question that I get asked often is “How did you gain 2 million followers on LinkedIn?”.
（中文版在英文版下面）
To help my readers and students, I then traced back to see what I had done right that got me to where I am. Is it because I wake up at 5:30am every day? Or is it because I read many books? Waking up at 5:30am works wonderfully for me but I adopted this habit only after making MD, so this not the cause but the effect. I love buying books but only read about 6 to 8 books a year, so it cannot be the reason for my achievement either.
I tried recalling further back into the past. After graduating from the National University of Singapore with an engineering degree, I wanted to do something non-engineering, a job that can help me strengthen my presentation and selling skills. Although I have little knowledge of the banking industry, I sent an unsolicited letter to DBS Bank, indicating my interests to apply for a job in sales and marketing.
Two weeks later, I got a call for an interview. I did some research about the setup of banks and went for the interview. I got the job offer! And that was how I started my banking career. If I didn’t take the SMALL ACTION of writing that unsolicited letter to try my luck, I wouldn’t be in banking today because all other banks I applied to at that time turned me down. An unsolicited application letter made me stand out among the many applicants in eyes of HR.
Recalling how I reached 2 million followers was much easier as it was quite recent. In the spring of 2015, based in HK, I was not traveling back to my Singapore home for Chinese New Year like previous years. Having nothing to do during this long holiday period when the entire HK was closed for business to celebrate the most important festival of the year, I then thought of starting a blog. But there was one tiny little problem – I had no clue what WordPress was. I turned to LinkedIn instead. It took me three days to write my very first LinkedIn article, two days to rewrite and one day to muster all the courage to click the ‘publish’ button.
The article did okay but knowing that strangers, albeit only a few, liked my article, gave me the encouragement to publish my next article the following month. Gradually, I gained more and more followers. Taking the SMALL ACTION of publishing that first LinkedIn article triggered a chain of other actions that saw me reached 2 million followers. That first article boosted my confidence in writing and helped me build relationships with my followers.
Many people underestimate the significance of small actions. If you look at your achievements and try to trace back to what resulted in you achieving your success, you are likely to find that you took a small action.
I flew quite a bit before the pandemic – on average six flights a month. I know the cut off time for check-in at Beijing Capital Airport is 60 minutes before departure but once, I arrived 5 minutes after the cut-off. The only check-in counter staff was about to leave the counter and refused to help me check in. I missed my flight! Had I left my hotel one second earlier, would I have caught my flight? “Of course not!”, you said. How about two seconds earlier? “Extremely unlikely”, you would think. If I keep repeating the scenario of leaving my hotel earlier and earlier, each time by one more second, I would eventually reach the scenario that I am able to catch my flight. That SMALL ACTION of leaving one second earlier would have changed my fate from missing the flight to catching the flight.
In this monthly newsletter, I will be sharing some small actions that you can take, and subtle mindset changes you can adopt to create big success in your career and in your life. For example,
- how to tweak your LinkedIn profile to build a strong personal brand
- how to write Linkedin articles that add values to readers
- how to adopt a selling mindset when managing your career
- how to become a better presenter and negotiator
- how to expand your network with high quality connections
- how to cope with challenges
- why it pays to take risk
- what new skills to learn
- how to practise extreme time management to increase productivity
- how to have more money, find meaning and increase happiness
- how to demonstrate thought leadership
Please subscribe to get more tips and advice to help you attract more job opportunities and advance your career.
“你是如何成为瑞银投行部的董事总经理（MD）的？” 这是我接受采访时经常被问到的问题。而另一个经常被问到的则是“你是如何在领英上获得200多万粉丝的？”。
我追溯过去，看看自己究竟做了哪些正确的事情，让我走到了今天。是因为我每天早上5:30起床吗？还是因为我读了很多书？早上5:30醒来对我来说非常有效，但我是在做到MD之后才养成这个习惯的，所以这不是原因，而是后果。我喜欢买书，但每年只读6至8本书，所以这也不是我的成功之道。
我试着回忆更久远的过去。从新加坡国立大学获得工程学位后，我想做一些非工程类的工作，一项可以帮助我加强表达能力和销售技能的工作。尽管我对银行业了解不多，我还是主动给星展银行写了一封自荐信，表明了我对销售和市场营销工作的兴趣。两周后，我接到一个邀请我去面试的电话。我在对银行的结构和运营模式做了一些研究后，便硬着头皮去面试了。过了不久，我拿到了offer！就这样我的银行事业旅程开始了。如果我不采取主动去写那封信碰碰运气的话，我也就不会在银行发展事业，因为那时我递交申请的其它银行全部都拒绝了我。一封不请自来的申请信引起了人事部的关注，让我在众多应聘者中脱颖而出。
回想起我是如何达到200万粉丝就容易多了，因为这是相对近期的事情。 2015年春节的时候，我还在香港办公，因此并没有像往年一样回到新加坡在家里过年。我在香港没有亲戚，也不必拜年，无所事事之时，我想不如搞个博客什么的。但是有一个小问题 — 我不懂怎样使用WordPress，也不知道微博是什么，因此我转而使用领英。我用了三天的时间写了我的第一篇领英文章，两天重写，一天的时间鼓起勇气按下“发表”键。读者的反馈一般，但是平台上陌生用户给予我文章的点赞，尽管只有极少数，还是带给了我很大的鼓舞并让我有动力继续写作。渐渐地，关注我的人越来越多。发表第一篇文章，这一小小的举动引发了之后一系列的行动，关注者人数慢慢达到200万。第一篇文章增强了我写作的信心，并帮助我与读者建立了很深的羁绊。
许多人低估了“小事”的重要性。如果你审视自己的成就，并试着追溯导致你取得成功的原因，你很可能会发现你只是采取了一些“小行动”。在疫情之前，我平均每个月要坐6次飞机。有一次，我在航班起飞时间前55分钟才到达北京首都机场，晚到了5分钟。办里登机牌柜台的唯一工作人员已经准备离开，说什么也不肯帮我办登机牌，就这样我错过了航班！
如果我早一秒钟离开酒店，我能赶上飞机吗？ 你会说 “当然不会！”。如果我提前两秒钟会怎么？你也会认为这“绝对不可能”对吧。如果我不断重复这样的场景，每次提前一秒钟，那么我最终肯定能够赶上飞机。 提前一秒钟离开这个小小的举动可能会使我的命运从错过飞机变成赶上飞机。
在这个月刊中，我将分享一些你可以采取的小举动，以及一些微妙的心态改变，从而帮助你在职场上和人生中取得成功。例如，
- 如何规划个人领英档案，建立强大的个人品牌
- 如何利用销售思维去管理自己的职业生涯
- 如何克服演讲恐惧症，更好的在公众面前表达自己，
- 如何拓展高质量的人脉，认识资深人士
- 如何进行极限时间管理
- 如何吸引更多就业机遇
如果想订阅《小举动，大前程》月刊以获得更多的职场建议，请用桌面电脑登入领英 （领英手机APP暂时还没有订阅功能）。
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