Most people don’t have a career, they have a job. They don’t think about what they do as their life’s work. Instead they see their job as the means by which they pay their bills and finance their real interests. There is nothing wrong with this. Not everyone wants to devote the time and energy required to build a career.

For those that do want to build a career, this chapter contains a wealth of wisdom that will both inspire and guide you throughout your career. The section is structured as follows. Quotations:

• 11 to 15 are all about you and what you bring or need to bring to the table.
• 16 to 18 outline three strategies you must adopt if you are going to be a successful manager.
• 19 and 20 are about deciding how much time you are willing to devote to your career and how best to manage this finite resource.

Two quotations that you won’t find in this section, but that I think are amongst my favourites, were made by two very different giants of culture. Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo suggested that:

Too often, we place arbitrary limits on ourselves, which stops us achieving all that we could. It’s more fulfilling to aim high and fall short by an inch than to aim low and hit your target. Why? Because you will know that you gave it your best shot. You didn’t play it safe and, even though you may have fallen just short, you have achieved far more than if you’d played it safe and settled for mediocrity.

But if you do decide to go for it, you need to remember what that great cultural icon of the mid-twentieth century, Elvis Presley, said:

If you are going to aim high, you have to provide the fire, guts and power that a V8 engine produces if your dreams are going to become a reality.

It’s worth keeping both these quotations in mind as you read this chapter.