I am not one of them, or am I?

I just got back from the 2015 Ascend National Convention and I was so inspired by all of the presenters and panelists that I promised myself to start up my blog again and share my experiences.  This blog will focus on my journey of embracing my own culture and becoming aware of how it affects my professional career.

In 1982, my family moved to U.S. from Hong Kong. I was ten years old and found myself being a minority for the very first time.  We moved to the suburbs where there were not many other Chinese.  All of a sudden, I was different.  I was singled out in the classroom, at the playground, and on the school bus.  I did not really speak English.  Sure, I learned English in Hong Kong but it was different when you did not use it or hear it every day.  Everyone spoke too quickly for me. I was completely lost anytime an American colloquialism was used to explain things.  Like text responses on the iWatch, I had several predetermined responses ready to go at any given time, "Yes, no, and what." 

Even then, I realized that many of the people I interacted with had blind spots about the Asians.  Back then, people wouldn't know or care about the fact that I was Chinese.  I recall painfully how some of the kids (and adults) were hateful of Asians because of the rise in popularity of Vietnam War movies in the early 80s where Asians were the antagonists.  We were often racially profiled.  There were times when I did not feel safe walking down the street because of the things that people were shouting at me.  There was an incident when some kids threw an ice ball across the street at me shouting, "Go back to where you came from chink!"  I went home with blood on my forehead and my pride left somewhere back in the snow banks.  I was becoming conditioned to dislike being different.  I was being conditioned to dislike being me.

My most shameful act of giving up my Chinese identity happened when I called my cousins chinks on the school bus because I wanted to pronounce to the others that I was not one.  Needless to say, once I got home, there were a lot of "Aiyah's" and shouting.  My aunts and uncles and parents were ashamed of me.  I was a scared 10 year old boy who was just grasping at straws to fit in.

There were other stereotypes that I wish were actually true.  Most people automatically assumed that I was good at martial arts.  Many would assume I knew Karate even though Kung Fu would have been more appropriate for a Chinese immigrant.  They would mock me with Bruce Lee fight cries or Mr. Miagi quotes.  Had I actually been a master, I am sure I would not have been made fun of as much.  Then there were the stereotypical math and science genius genes that never found their way into my brain. With all the focus on STEM today, I wish I was a math and science genius.

As I grew up, I shed more and more of what would have been Asian stereotypes.  I had become fluent in English. As a teenager who dabbled in theater, I would often try out different accents.  A Chinese accent was the one accent I could not do.  Although, it once defined me as different, a Chinese accent had been permanently erased from me.  Strangers assumed I was born in the U.S. and friends would comment that they forget that I was Chinese until they hear me speak Cantonese with my parents.  I was outgoing, popular, and far removed from the reserved and soft spoken stereotypes.  I dated white girls, and only really had white friends. Those were good things, right?  The scared ten year old boy finally gained the approval of the natives and accepted as one of them. I finally fit in.

There were a few more incidents that made me feel like that scared young boy who was treated differently.  I struggled through the disapproval of an interracial relationship by a girlfriend's parents that led to our breakup.  I remember the reaction of another girlfriend when she saw the chicken and the fish plates during dinner at my house and how she made fun of it with my friends when we were back on campus.  I remember one incident when I did not respond quickly to a question from a stranger on the street and they immediately took the approach of repeating their question slower and louder as a way of compensating for an assumed language barrier.  These incidents made my skin crawl.  They reminded me that no matter how I try not to be different, I was very much still the subject of discrimination, jokes, and humiliation. They made me feel like that ten year old boy again.

"Acceptance" and "tolerance" were terms often used in the early 90s for diversity.  Affirmative Action which required companies to hire a certain number of minorities had created tension between the white majority and minorities.   As a Resident Assistant at Bentley College, I was invited to participate in a course to help promote diversity on campus.  It turned out to be one of those experiences that pivots a person to the core.  They taught us that acceptance and tolerance were not good enough.  For diversity to work, we needed to appreciate and celebrate differences.  Isn't that what I had been doing?  I have embraced, appreciated and celebrated different cultures and fully assimilated into the American culture.  So what more was there to learn?  It turned out, my life changing take away was that the one culture I did not embrace anymore was my own.  As a result of my experiences, I had all but avoided being Chinese.  I did not have any Chinese friends and the one student group I never went near was the Bentley Asian Student Association (BASA).  Ironically, I would have spent much more time with my now wife had I been an active member of BASA.

With the realization that I had been avoiding my own culture, I began rediscovering what it meant to be Chinese.  I spent countless hours binge watching Chinese TV Dramas on six-hour VHS tapes.  I decided Chinese food was my favorite comfort food, MSG and all.  I spent time learning about Chinese history and my ancestors' lives in China.  I also realized then I ultimately wanted to marry a Chinese woman some day because we would share the same culture and values, and I would be able to go to dim sum and enjoy real chicken fingers and not worry that my wife was going to freak out.  I was finally comfortable being Chinese.

So now I was a fully assimilated American who is also happy to be Chinese. I figured it all out, right? I was ready to help others with their struggles as Asian immigrants. I was fortunate to have been asked to support diversity efforts at work which led me to my first Ascend Convention.  Ascend is the largest non-profit Pan-Asian professional group whose leaders have dedicated their time to cultivate Pan Asian leaders.  I was moved by their passion to give back and pay forward.  Shortly thereafter, I began my own journey of giving back and paying forward.  I felt like I was the poster child of what they were selling. After all, I had broken down all the stereotypes and became successful in corporate America by not being afraid to speak up or stand out.  Or had I?

Shortly after an Asian Awareness Program where I facilitated an introspective exercise for a group of Asian professionals, I encountered my own challenges at work.  Through that experience, I realized that I still carried the weight of suffering in silence as described by many of the participants in my session.  I realized in my own introspection that when it came to things related to my own job satisfaction, I was more willing to let things go unsaid than to become the squeaky wheel that got the oil.  Humility is a tricky thing. It is also the one Asian stereotype I traded in long ago to become popular.  I was humbled when I realize I wasn't as much of a poster child as I thought. 

So despite 30 plus years of living in this country, efforts of fitting in and not becoming a stereotypical Asian man living and working in America, I still had Asian values and beliefs at the core of my being.  Some of those traits had been very important to my success - value meritocracy and work hard. Other traits may have prevented me from opportunities, work life balance and job satisfaction - keep quiet and not cause waves.

So what's next?  This epiphany was not about going back to losing my Chinese identity. It was about finding a new balance that helps me pull together the best of what I've learned from growing up in this country and what I brought with me from Hong Kong.  It is about being agile and flexing between the two. It is about innovating something new like Ming Tsai's East meets West fusion dishes.  It is about being bold and willing to do what my scared ten year old self was not ready to do. It is time to stand up and be me, an Asian American.

Stay Cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat

Get uncomfortable when comfortable isn't getting you where you want to go

Hello there, it's the Rambunctious Rat here rambling away again.  Today's blog is called, "Get uncomfortable, when comfortable isn't getting you where you want to go."  In this blog I will share ten lessons that I have learned from my experiences navigating Corporate America.  I share these lessons for readers who feel they've reached the proverbial bamboo or glass ceiling in hopes that they will be inspired to do something different and uncomfortable to help them breakthrough.  I have heard and read similar success tips from other professionals as well.

People often tell me they are not getting ahead and the many reasons they think are holding them back.  The one similarity in their stories I have observed is there exists a sense of complacency or comfort in what they have already accomplished.  The truth of the matter is that if what got you to the dance is not getting you noticed, then it is time to change your dance moves.

1. Performance is King - As an Asian American, I was raised in a world where metrics were drilled into my psyche.  On report card day, my Dragon Dad and Tiger Mom would be all over me to tell them my grades.  After discussing how they compared to previous quarters, my parents would immediately ask me how my best friend did.  So, at a very young age, I learned that metrics had two purposes: show my trend and my relative performance.  Oh yes, my results were never good enough and they could have always have been better.

I know it sometimes feels like the squeakiest wheel gets the oil in Corporate America.  I know there is a stereotype in America that you can BS your way to the top.  "Fake it until you make it."  I will tell you that almost every conversation I have had about people started with performance and then potential.  If you do not have the numbers, then you have nothing to stand on.  I have been a part of many formal and informal coaching conversations when someone attempted to cover up their lack luster performance with claims of unfair treatment or favoritism.  A very close African American friend used to say, "Performance is king." You have to earn the right to be at the table.  We did not take short cuts to get to where we were, and we would expect no less from others who aspire to get to our spots.  Now if there are factors beyond your control that is hindering your ability to perform, then absolutely, they should be addressed.  However, once those obstacles are removed, and you still do not perform, then you are still not in a good place.

Many people have told me that they felt cheated because they out performed someone else who received a promotion ahead of them.  I remember feeling this way early in my career as well.  I felt that I was smarter and better than my bosses.  So why did I not have their jobs?  The answer was that their performance metrics were completely different than mine.  I was good at my job, but I would not be good at their job.  What I have learned is that companies promote people based on whether or not they will be set up for success.  This is in the best interest for the company and for the individual.   Everybody loses if someone was promoted before they were ready and end up being let go shortly thereafter.  Therefore, in seeking promotion, one needs to understand the performance metrics of that next level and demonstrate the ability to perform at that level.  Doers need supervisor skills to become supervisors.  Supervisors need managerial skills to become managers.  Managers need executive skills to become executives, and so on.  Most companies have competency models that allow you to look head at the next level.  In order to get promoted, it is more important to perform at the next level than be the best performer at your current level.

2. Find your "Sprint Goals" - In my fifth grade year book, I said I wanted to grow up to be a rock star.  When I graduated middle school, I wanted to be a movie and TV actor.  Obviously, I never came close.  When I hear fantastic stories of achievement, there was always one thing in common: unprecedented life-time commitment.  Olympians practice hundreds of thousands of hours to compete for less than a minute.  Arbitrage brokers work daily on one-hour sleep.  Award winning entertainers lived out of their cars for years while trying to break into the business.  It is easy for me to disassociate myself from these stories because I lack that type of drive and commitment.  It would be easy for someone like me to say that I am not that person, and therefore will never be that successful.  It is the perfect excuse for a procrastinator to remain ordinary.

Then again, even procrastinator like me have dreams.  They may not be as lofty as my childhood dreams, but I do want what most people want: financial independence, a nice home for my family to live in, good education for my children, etc.   To quote one of my favorite songs to sing as a lullaby for my daughter, "First when there was nothing, but a slow growing dream, that your fears try to hide deep inside your mind."  In some scale, we all have goals that we aspire to achieve in life and at work. Over time, I have learned to break down my long-term goals into a series of short-term goals.  In Agile Project Management terms, I would be setting goals for a "sprint" rather than the entire project.  I have found shorter and more attainable goals keep me moving forward rather than standing still.  I also found that it was helpful to anchor myself with my immediate realities but allow myself to iterate and change as the realities shift.  My advice for anyone coming into the beginning of their professional career is to make sure they do their current job well before setting their sights onto the next job.  My first job was with a call center.  I had never imagined I would become "Judy the Time Life phone operator."  However, the thousands of hours I spent providing customer service and investment advice gave me the foundation for the soft skills that I use every day as a strategy consultant.  So, before you poo-poo that first offer because it is not a lucrative Transaction Services job from the Big Four, think about how that job might give you the skills for your dream job.

I do like the idea of putting your near term goals as a vocal point to your daily routines.  Some people like to visually keep their goals as wallpaper on their device or a picture on their bathroom mirror.  I heard one brilliant suggestion on how to keep short-term goals top of mind.  A woman made her goal the password at work, which needed to be changed every 60 days per company guidelines.  This way, she was reminded of the goal every time she logged onto her computer, and she will keep evolving her goal when the password expires.

3. Plan the work - Some great genius came up with the proverb of Ps.  There are many variations and origins, but the one I gravitate towards is, "Poor planning produces piss poor performance."  This phrase definitely helped me remember the importance of planning.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my executive coach was to slow down and plan my work.  I grew up as part of the first generation of multi-takers.  We try to do everything at once.  Although this might be successful in some cases, my wife can tell you that based on all the half started projects around the house, the results are mixed.  So my executive coach worked with me to do a few things that really helped me plan my work.  Step 1. Breath, Step 2. Prioritize, and Step 3. Align.

Taking a breath before jumping in is very important for someone like me who is all over the place.  We decided to schedule planning time daily to plan my day and a day ahead of any significant meetings or conversations.  This way, I will have dedicated time to think through my desired outcomes for the day and for meetings.  A positive side effect was that I filled my schedule up so that I no longer had room on my calendar for back to back meetings where I am shooting from the hip at each one.

Stephen Covey had this great analogy about filling up your life with the big rocks first, then fill up with smaller rocks, then sand, then water.  This helps to ensure you complete the most important tasks first.  When you add my procrastination tendencies to shooting from the hip, what typically got done were things that were easy or fun, but not necessarily things needed to be done.  So setting aside time to prioritize my day forced me to act on things based on urgency.

One of my biggest learning from a 360 degree feedback was that my boss and my direct reports were not always clear on why I was working on the things that I was working on.  In today's business world where the volume of work is back breaking and priorities can change as quickly as the New England weather, it does become unclear as to what is driving our actions during the day.  So the final lesson I learned about planning was making sure that I align my work with agendas so that it is clear to me and to others how my actions contribute to a higher purpose.

Lastly, it is also important to spend time and meditate on how you are doing against your personal plan.  Ask yourself, how often you are working on items on someone else's plan rather than your own plan.  It reminds me of the advice someone gave me when I was moving out.  If I own, then I am building my own equity.  If I rent, then I am building up someone else's equity.  Plan some time to spend on things that are important to you.

4. Work the plan - I have witnessed countless plans collecting dust in SharePoint folders and hard drives.  Somewhere along the line, the emphasis on planning surpassed the weight of the execution of the plan.  In life, I was often given the opportunity to take a retreat and re-calibrate my personal professional plans.  Whether I was sitting in a classroom, or purposefully setting time aside on my own calendar, I would stop and think about where I was going, and build a plan of action items to get there.  Along the way, there were volumes of excuses that come up for me to not revisit or work that plan.  The most likely scenario is that I registered the exercise in my head, felt good about going through it, and then kept the highlights in the back of my mind.  But I did not get the full benefit out of the exercise.

Well managed projects require constant monitoring and active management.  Otherwise, the good work that went into planning becomes at least partially wasted.  So, what are some best practices to working the plan?  I like that most of our workplace now are equipped with online calendars integrated with reminders tools.  I block off time on a reoccurring basis to revisit my personal plans and add reminders to make sure I am executing on action items.  I am also aware of people leveraging smart devices and wearable technology to remind themselves to monitor and work their plans.  Some people meditate while others think about it while they go on long runs.  You have to find the way that fits your lifestyle.  You should also celebrate milestones.  It is like having cheat day for being good about exercising and eating right all week.  Celebrating wins will keep you motivated to work the plan.

5. Always be Learning (ABL) - Learning is a life time achievement.  In today's world, there are many ways to continuously develop yourself.  The traditional classroom environment is an obvious way to go.  When I was growing up, a Master in Business Administration (MBA) was beginning to become table steaks for getting hired.  With the advancement of online universities and MOOCs, higher education has become more accessible than ever.

Most companies offer a robust formal training curriculum to help develop their people's capabilities.  At minimum, you should take advantage what is available to you from your company.  Identify your performance gaps through performance reviews then you should sign up for training that is available so you can learn to make immediate improvements.  Like all other non-work related tasks at work, training tends to get dropped off due to competing priorities.   Therefore, it behooves you to plan, prioritize and defend your training time so that you can participate uninterrupted.  Most importantly, you need to apply what you learn and demonstrate that you have become more proficient in those skills.

There are many informal ways to develop professional skills.  You can learn by shadowing someone.  You can join a community of interest.  There are many "in the moment" learning that you can access externally and internally, such as podcasts, videos, blogs, learning boards, articles and white papers. You can leverage collaboration tools to crowd source information and experiences from experts to accelerate your learning curve.  In today's world where everything has become the Internet-of-things, informal learning is easier than ever.  It has become second nature for me to find instant gratification for my curiosity.  

6. Work Smarter, not harder - Raise your hand if you have had this experience.  I spent hours thinking through a set of data and manually manipulated a spreadsheet.  Along came an intern who takes a look at what I did and tells me that I could have done everything in a fraction of the time that I spent by using tools in Excel.  Often people that work for me will brag or complain that they pull an "all-nighter" to complete a project.  I try to understand if they needed to do so in the first place.  Did they churn for hours without asking for help?  Did they research for accelerators rather than start from scratch?  Did they iterate and not waste time going too far down the wrong path?  Did they delegate or look for help rather than setting off on some heroic quest?

In my younger days, I had many sleepless heroics that made me the stuff of legends among my less enthusiastic colleagues.  Once my co-workers found me taking a nap on bubble wrap under my desk when they came into work in the morning because I had just spent all night in the office working.  So yes, I knew how to work hard, but it was not until later in my career that I started to compare working hard with working smart.

Now, I want to be clear that I do not mean to say picking the path of least resistance or short changing the outcome by avoiding hard work.  I only offer that there may be practical ways to accelerate productivity.  There are the classic ones, such as remove distractions and avoid multi-tasking.  People who work for me have a ten-minute rule.  If they have churned for ten minutes, then they need to ask for help.  Schedule check points so you can iterate and make sure you are going down the right path.  Crowd source and collaborate to gain from others' experiences.  Working harder rather than working smarter is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

7. So what - When I was growing up, we had G.I. Joe cartoons that ended with a public service message to teach viewers life lessons.  They would end with a proud proclamation that "Knowing is half the battle."  As I grew up in Corporate America, I found a subculture of observers who always seem to know what is wrong with everything.  At first, I was impressed. After a while, I realized that although it was helpful to recognize problems, knowing was only half the battle.  There is another half battle to be fought and that is answering question, "so what?"  There are three parts to "so what": a.) impact, b.) solution c) value.

Once I was talking to a close friend who wanted to be promoted.  I asked him what problems he saw at work and what he would propose to fix them.  He told me that he feels like people always enjoyed a social, so he would make sure there were more pizza parties.  I told him that response would crush him in an interview.  I told him that he needed to show he understands the business results that his team is trying to achieve and what may be getting in the way of its success.  He needed to think of examples that hit the hot buttons for the people who are responsible for that team's results.  So he came back and talked about inefficiencies of hand-offs between the day and night shifts and how it was frustrating their customers and has been escalated numerous times.  He proposed ways to improve that process by formalizing best practices that he employed with his counterpart.  I thought that response nailed it.  A boss once told me, "Do not make your problems everyone's problems."  What he meant was that I needed to prioritize my requests.  It is true that what might be important to me may not be as high priority for someone else.  Therefore, it is important to also consider the impact of the "so what" when picking your battles.  Said differently, you may want to "make your boss' problems your problems to solve!"

After I moved into management, I discovered that I was investing a lot of time listening to people describing what was wrong, but hardly any of them had ideas of how to fix what they were describing.   For you to be successful in Corporate America, you need to go beyond just identifying the problem.  You need to offer up ideas on how to solve the problem.  You may not be experienced enough to have the right answer.  In that case, you can offer up ideas and ask for validation and coaching on your solution.  Either way, at least you show that you are willing to take the initiative.

Finally, you need to demonstrate that you understand the higher purpose of what you are trying to do.  You need to be able to articulate the value of your solution.  There should be quantifiable benefits, especially if the impact is great.  You should also include some qualitative benefits that will elicit an emotional response and commitment from whoever you are selling your ideas.  One final tip here is to make sure you can show the benefits in alignment with something greater, such as a Corporate Agendas and Campaigns. If nothing else, you will be seen as a big picture thinker which is critical for career advancement.  There is nothing that will help boost your career as quickly as being an architect for solving a relevant business problem that helped your organization towards its goals.

8. Master your soft skills - I have been a part of many conversations where the Asian American audience expressed language barrier as one of their top challenges in Corporate America.  In business, the gift of gab is essential to success.  There is no way around it.  You have to learn to speak the native language fluently in order to excel.  I once asked a foreign MBA student audience, "What would your career advice be to an American working in your country?"  They all responded with, "Learn the language."  It was an ah-ha moment that filled the room with knowing silence.  I was speaking with a Korean American who said that he was older when he immigrated to the U.S. and his tongue was already too well formed so he could never lose his Asian accent.  I challenged him by asking him if he ever heard an accent when a foreigner sings in English.  It made him think for a bit.  I am not a speech therapist, but I think that it is possible with practice to adopt the proper accent for any language.  Andrew Lincoln, the British Actor, who plays Rick Grimes, an American cop from Georgia on "The Walking Dead" might be proof.

In 2008, I spent three months working in Munich, and I found comfort in finding and hanging out with other Americans.  I understand why many immigrants spend time with people from their own countries or speak their own languages.  From personal experience as a Chinese immigrant, I also know that those who do not get uncomfortable and branch out, will not be challenged to improve their language skills. When I was in Europe, I spent time with German co-workers and watched German television just to pick up some of the language.  I can tell you that did wonders in helping me build relationships with my clients there.

Beyond understanding and speaking English, you need to be able to convey a point verbally.  This part takes out most people.  The thought of speaking aloud in a group setting is scary enough to make some people have panic attacks.  There are ways to overcome this. You need to practice a lot.  Most companies have Toast Masters which are classes where employees practice making presentations.  When I was growing up, I did theater, ran for student government, and delivered speeches at school events.  I continue to take every opportunity to practice public speaking at church, at work, and through volunteering.   So I would encourage you to face your fears and look for as many opportunities to do public speaking as possible.  Start with smaller audiences and move to larger ones as you get more comfortable.

Another must have soft skill is relationship building.  Your success is predicated in your ability to build relationships all around you.  You need people above you to coach, mentor and advocate for you.  You need your peers to collaborate with you.  You need direct reports to follow you.  You need clients and customers to trust and buy from you.  All of these relationships are critical for you to move forward.  They are always changing and they require your time and attention.  You cannot get complacent with any of these relationships.  Like everything else, you need to plan your relationships and work your relationship plans.  Once upon a time, I built a relationship with someone who was new to the company.  We became great friends.  I credit the majority of my career to him as he brought me into two of the three companies that I have worked for since.  Students ask me all the time how to build relationships with professionals in order to receive mentoring.  I remind them that there are professionals at their schools, such as professors, administrators, career counselors, who are paid to be their mentors.  I would exclaim, "They can't say no!  You pay them to be your mentors!"  If you practice building and maintaining relationships with those around you, then it will become easier and easier to do so with people you do not know.

9. "Skate where the puck is going" - Wayne Gretzky, a hockey legend accredited this quote to his dad as wisdom of how to play hockey.  It has been quoted many times over in business settings.  I would rather sit down and talk to people who are going to shape the future beyond digital than spend time with someone who cannot stop reminiscing the day when the dot-com bubble burst.  You have to monitor your goals and plans against where things are going not where they are today.  If you resist change, then you will be left behind.  You have to evolve and transform your current skills to skills of tomorrow.  Businesses are changing so quickly that if you are not reinventing yourself every few years, then you will become irrelevant.

In the 1999, I transformed myself from a stand up trainer to becoming an eLearning expert by reading books on the topic and attending conferences to learn from industry leading thinkers.  I remember sitting down for a week in 2004 with five books on designing online higher education programs.  It was target growth area for the start-up company where I worked.  By the end of the week, I had reinvented myself to be our resident expert on online MBA programs.  I authored white papers and accompanied our sales team on oral presentations.  Today, I am continuing to evolve and transform to keep up with the digital disruptions to businesses.  The evolution and transformation of business never stops.  Therefore, it is imperative that you evolve and transform.

10. Take others with you.  "Everyone is replaceable.  If you are irreplaceable, then you are unpromotable."  "You have to train your replacement." Two pieces of advice that stood out to me in years when I moved up the manager ranks.  In essence if you are only out for yourself, then you aren't helping the greater good of the organization.  Each business survives by those who succeed their predecessors.  If you are only out for yourself, then others may see that their legacy will end with you.  There are some difficult lessons to be learned here for high performers.  We have spent many waking moments thinking about how well we did relative to others, but little to no time thinking about how to develop others.  It is a terrible thing to be branded as someone who 'they' cannot live without.  At best, that type of brand might buy you job security.  It will not paint a picture that you are ready to move to the next role.  A better way of demonstrating your readiness is by passing on what you have mastered onto an heir apparent or a team.  In today's work place, people are recognized for sharing their secret sauce for the greater good.  Employees are encouraged to share their lessons learned by "working out loud" through social platforms.

One thing that you do get to appreciate in this process is the feeling of closure that comes with passing the torch.  Another benefit in taking others with you is that you will for certain always learn from those who you are trying to teach.  If nothing, you will learn to be a better manager, coach and leader.  You may also gain new perspectives and insights to the next generation of thinking and doing.  So the next time you have a performance conversation about your achievements, make sure that you do not limit yourself to just describing personal achievements.  You should include activities that led to the team's success and development of others within the team.  It may be uneasy to think that you are training someone to replace you and you have nowhere to go afterwards.  That would only be true if you had not already planned your next move and evolved yourself to get there.

That's it from me for now.  I have shared a number of lessons that I picked up along the way.  I hope they have been helpful for you.  Feel free to share your own lessons learned in the comments.  Two final Rat wisdom to take away.  1.) In a capitalist world, there is no entitlement.  You have to be the driver of your own success. You have to be willing to get off your couch of complacency.  Get out of your comfort zone because it is not getting you where you need to go.  2.) Successful people are conditioned, not born.  You not only have to take the first step, but you have to take every step afterwards until you get to where you want to go.  You will have to practice all the time until you go from becoming successful to being successful.

Stay cheesy,

The Rambunctious Rat