Studying at the library is an efficient and effective way to get significantly more accomplished in much less time.  You will survive for an hour without a text message, phone call or email, even if it is hard to believe.

The Bottom Line:  When you need to study, find a quiet spot in the library, put the phone on silent and get it finished.  Don’t waste hours on end thinking you are being productive while you are really not getting anything done.  One hour of focused studying is quicker and more effective than hours of putting forth a minimal effort with constant distractions.

How do you find these individuals?  They could be successful people who are friends of your family, parents of your friends, alumni of your high school or college, people you have heard speak and introduced yourself to, or anyone else whom you believe is successful and you can form a relationship with.  You may even seek these people out of the blue and simply introduce yourself because you admire something they have done either personally or professionally.

If you start building these relationships as a freshman and meet two new people each semester, that would mean that by the end of your senior year you would have at least 16 people in your network who could potentially help you.  Do you think that would be beneficial?  Do you think it would be easier to meet two new people each semester than meeting 16 people while you are searching for a career?  Do you think that a relationship built over a few years would be deeper and more meaningful than one that is built over a few weeks?  Visualize the power of having a large network that you build over a few years and then get started now!

Connecting with alumni of your school has never been easier – you can either obtain a free directory from your school or simply look for them online and then introduce yourself to those who you would like to get to know (set up a profile immediately at www.LinkedIn.com).  You can even attend alumni events in your area while you are home on breaks.

Finally, you should have at least one mentor.  This is someone you deeply respect and who is willing to look over you.  Mentors are there to answer your questions and you can share with them absolutely anything that is on your mind.  You won’t form this relationship over night, but by surrounding yourself with successful people you will certainly form a relationship like this eventually.  Mentors have already experienced everything that you are about to embark on and are able to see things much differently than you.  They will be able to guide you and help you to do what is in your best interest.

The Bottom Line:  Building a network will take you time, but this network will ultimately serve you for a lifetime.  By getting started now, you will have a tremendous advantage over everyone else your age.  Think of what you can accomplish if you have a strong network built of successful people in your corner who want to see you succeed.  Even if you only meet two new people each semester, you will have 16 people who have your best interest at heart – and you’ll have all of the people they know and all of their experiences on your side also.  This takes work up front, but will make your life a million times easier in the future.

Regardless of whether you are paying for your college or someone else is, you have a responsibility to go to class, learn, work hard, get involved and take advantage of the amazing opportunities available to you.  For those of you on scholarship, you most certainly have an obligation to your school to give your absolute best – you were chosen over many others and the school gave you the scholarship on the belief that you would add a great deal of value to the university community, both in and out of the classroom.

The Bottom Line:  You are an adult, so make sure to take responsibility and act like one.  With the great deal of freedom you will be given comes an obligation to be responsible for yourself and your actions.

Which organization has the best culture?

Finding an organization with a great management team is important.  Find a place that offers a lot of opportunity to learn the skills necessary to be successful.  Find people who will build positive habits, want to teach you, will inspire you to improve and challenge you to become better each and every day.  Also find a culture that rewards ambitious people who produce results.  Look for an organization that allows you to utilize your strengths and allows you to do both the things you are good at and the things you genuinely enjoy doing.

Stability is also an important factor in the strength of an organization.  Find an organization that puts you in control; a culture that rewards successful people and allows their performance to dictate their future with the company.

Which organization has the most potential for growth?

Find a place where you can learn; sitting behind a desk and pushing papers is a waste of time, so find an opportunity where you can make money and add value to yourself by learning.  The more you learn and the more responsibility you have, the better you can market yourself for your next opportunity within the company or for a different organization.  Look for an opportunity where you can utilize as many of your skills as possible.  Rather than be selling 100% of the time, possibly you could find something where you do some marketing, advertising, sales, promotions and public relations for your company as opposed to one role all of the time.

Do not even consider taking an opportunity that you think will be easy or unchallenging; you will only hurt yourself if you don’t find an opportunity that will push you and make you better, smarter and more capable of achieving great things.  If you are not challenged, you will become bored and complacent.  It is better to take an opportunity that might be too difficult than one that is too easy.  Being slightly overwhelmed is a lot better than being bored.  You are better off being challenged, learning, reaching your potential and being stretched thin than being bored, half asleep, unchallenged, and learning nothing new.  It’s better to push yourself too hard than not hard enough.

Where will you be the happiest?

Find what you love and do it; you will be a happier and better person because of it.  Doing something you love will make you a million times happier and this happiness will make the other areas of your life better and more enjoyable as well.  You will face difficult decisions in your career, ranging from choosing between the opportunity you love and the one that pays the most.  You must choose the opportunity that makes you the happiest and you are the most passionate about.  There is not enough money in the world to make you happy if you hate your career.  Do not get fixated on your compensation when you first graduate, it really is not a big deal.  The difference between $45,000 and $50,000 may seem substantial when your bank account is in the hundreds, but that $5,000 will not be a big deal in the future.  Find something that makes you happy, challenges you, you are passionate about, will teach you and makes you want to wake up in the morning and not hit the snooze button!

Which opportunity aligns best with your vision of success?

Choose the opportunity that will lead you towards your vision of success.  When evaluating your opportunities, figure out which one will lead you in the right direction.  This doesn’t mean that you will spend the rest of your life with this same organization, only that this place will give you the knowledge, skills and experience to move towards your ultimate vision more quickly than any other opportunity you have.

Which opportunity offers what is most important to you?

Earlier, it was explained how important it is to identify the characteristics you want your perfect city to possess.  There are no right or wrong answers, just know exactly what you are looking for and go find it.  The same holds true in your opportunity search; determine what you are looking for and what traits are most important to you.  Just a few things to consider:

- Salary
- Benefits
- Retirement Plans or Pension
- Bonus or Commission Structure
- Vacation Days
- Growth Potential
- Culture
- Training & Development
- Daily Commute
- Amount of Travel Required
- Company Vehicle and/or Computer Provided?

For me personally, having flexibility and plenty of vacation was extremely important.  I like spending extended time with my family and friends around the holidays since I live across the country from where I was raised.  I also wanted to have this flexibility in the event of an emergency where I might need to go home on short notice.  A year after I graduated from college, a situation came up where someone I was close to had cancer and was only given a few weeks left to live.  Because I had flexibility in my career, I was able to book a flight and spend a day with him just days prior to his passing.  I will always cherish the time I spent with him that day and will never forget the joy that it brought him.  So for me personally, having flexibility around the holidays and in the event of an emergency outweighed other factors when looking for my perfect opportunity.

Ideally you will be able to find an opportunity that offers everything that you want, however this may not happen right away.  When comparing a variety of options, make sure that you focus on those opportunities that align best with your vision.  Throughout the process, make sure to be aware of what you truly want out of your career.

People – Do you want to be as close to your family as possible?  Did you make a pact with your high school friends that you would all move back home after college?  Are you and some college friends all moving to a certain city together?  Is your boyfriend/girlfriend already living somewhere?

Money – Are you at a point financially where you feel as though your only option is to move back home?  Do you want to move to a big city but can’t afford to even split a studio with your income?  Are you being offered twice as much money to start your career in a certain city?

Location – Do you need to be near a beach?  Or can you not live without the lights and sounds of a big city?  Do you need to be on the mountains and ski as much as possible?

Education – Does a school 1,500 miles away have the best program in the country?  Is your field of study only offered in certain parts of the country?

Industry – Is it easier to become an actor in Los Angeles than it is in Omaha?  How difficult is it to be a ski instructor in Miami?  Are you at an advantage to choose one location over another based on your industry?

With those factors in mind, you will need to choose if you want to live at home, live on your own in a familiar city or relocate to a completely different city.  The best advice I can give is to consider your options extensively, and don’t make a quick decision based on one of the five factors.  Weigh them all and remember that you are only young once – being a young professional may very well be your best chance to try something new and relocate to an exciting new place!

The only way a failure is ever really a failure is if you don’t learn from it.  Once you learn from it, you are a smarter, more experienced person who will never make that mistake again.  That is how you make failure a good thing, not a bad thing!  Those who put their heads down and react negatively to failures will end up making the same mistakes again and again in the future until they end up learning from them.

Let failure be a learning lesson that takes you one step closer to reaching your vision of success!

Perseverance means steadily working towards your vision and pushing through the obstacles in your way.  In some ways, it is the most important characteristic for your success, both as a young professional and for the rest of your life.  Every young professional faces obstacles, problems and issues that provide a road block; your success will ultimately be determined with how you handle these.

Take a look at some successful people that you know personally or celebrities that you admire – I guarantee you that each of them faced significant obstacles to become successful and wouldn’t have reached their visions if they weren’t incredible at persevering.  I share many of these stories in my book, The Course They Forgot to Offer, as a way of showing readers the price you must pay to reach your dreams in this world.

Stay focused on your end goal, surround yourself with positive people who will support you and keep pushing forward!

The reason this process needs to be done the right way, not the easy way, is that it has such a large impact on both your career and life.  Finding the perfect opportunity earlier in your professional career will accelerate your journey to success.  The sooner you are able to find the right situation, the sooner you can have the experience and knowledge under your belt to achieve success.  Refuse to be like most other young professionals who are too lazy during the search process and settle for something that will not make them happy or allow them to grow.  We all have to earn an income, so take the time to find the right opportunity that you enjoy, constantly challenges you, teaches you and will take you to where you want to be.

Many similarities exist between your search for the right college and your search for the right career opportunity.  Picking a college or career based purely on statistics or rankings is a mistake.  What makes people successful in college?  The key is to be in an environment where you’re happy, can learn and grow as a person.  Your career is no different – find the city and professional opportunity where you can learn, grow and become a better and smarter person.  Find an organization that feels right and has the type of culture and environment in which you will feel comfortable and excel.

Remember who you are as you shape your vision.  My goal was to work in sales for a small company that would offer a lot of opportunities to learn and grow.  I wanted to travel all the time, learn every aspect of an industry, and be a huge part of a company.  In order for me to be happy, I knew that I needed to be with a small company, have a lot of responsibility, be challenged constantly and have the freedom to do my work without having a boss micromanaging my efforts.  Hands off supervision was crucial.  I knew my strengths, weaknesses and what type of environment suited me best.  Throughout my search process I never lost focus of this vision and ultimately found an opportunity that matched this description perfectly.  Finding this opportunity took months of hard work, but it was worth all of the time and effort.

The lesson to be learned here is that you must be well aware of your skills, strengths and weaknesses when searching for the right opportunity.  Find something that will allow you to perform at your best and capitalize on your strengths.  If you don’t like to be managed constantly or to have someone looking over your shoulder and evaluating you daily, find an opportunity where you have freedom and flexibility.  If the thought of speaking in front of people makes you nervous, you may not want to start out in sales.  If you hate being indoors all day, an office position probably isn’t the best one for you.  Find the opportunity that allows your strengths to shine.  Keep in mind that over time you will learn to turn your weaknesses into strengths.  This comes from experience and a desire to improve yourself.

Knowing yourself means that you need to be your own person and not allow others to tell you who you are or what you should be.  A perfect example is all of the young professionals who are in law school or medical school because they were told by their parents that lawyers and doctors make a lot of money.  If you want to be in either of those fields and enjoy that type of work, then by all means go for it!  However, if your main motivation is that your parents are both attorneys and they told you to follow the same path, then you might need to find a better reason.  Know yourself and what you truly want out of your own professional life.  Do what you feel will make you happy.  If you aren’t sure what that is, then follow your heart and see where it leads you.  You’ll be surprised how often it takes you to exactly where you are meant to be in life.