Proven Roadmap to a Successful Career: A Proven Unconventional Empirical Approach To Building And Protecting Your Career

By Terrell Taylor

Proven Road Map to a Successful Career will • teach you the mind-set needed to cope with the competitive, aggressive, and sometimes cut-throat of the human nature of coworkers; • direct you to find how to find a niche that will make you of immeasurable value across all departments, making you an indispensable asset to your company; • give you an upper hand in retaining your job during a job reduction; • inform you of the top skills needed to be a success in your career; • show you how to find and utilize mentors that will be instrumental in building your career; • give you the secrets about how to be an effective leader—secrets contrary to the norm; • help you develop the skill of managing your boss; • enlighten you to the principles that will guarantee you a long-lasting, happy, prosperous, and accomplished life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646288441

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Beginning Of The Journey

On June 10, 1975, I plodded into the control room of a small chemical plant on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It was the night shift. The cloudy night seemed to have cast an eerie feeling of uncertainty.

My olfactory sense recalled from my first visit a smell like shoe polish, pungent and overpowering. As I trudged into the control room, I noticed a hangman noose swinging proudly in the entrance. I glanced at the emblem, smiled, but didn’t show any emotion toward this gesture.

I reluctantly shook hands with my coworkers as I made introductions. I learned to never let them see you sweat when you are uncomfortable. I intently looked into their eyes as I shook their hands, which was not the response the guys were expecting. After introductions, I walked to the small process laboratory to begin training. It was a fast orientation about the chromatography, lab procedures, and sample schedules.

As training continued, I began to feel more relaxed and confident that I was comprehending the information. I began to ask more questions about the nomenclature or deeper fundamental chemistry behind the chromatography and chemical processes. My trainer seem aggravated from the questioning. I must know the reasons why something functions. I am not satisfied with just doing because I am instructed to do so.

One day my trainer was teaching me a complicated procedure. I was perplexed by his methods because they were contrary to the instructions I received in college. I interrupted my trainer with an authoritative statement. That’s not the way I was taught in school to perform that task. He stared at me and stated, You are not in school anymore. I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut when I am being taught—a valuable lesson which helped me to perform the training quickly. I was gaining confidence as the days and weeks passed.

My hometown is Memphis, Tennessee—the home of the blues greats, Beale Street and Elvis Presley, and the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated. I came to the Mississippi Gulf Coast when I was nineteen years of age. I didn’t care to be in Mississippi even though I lived about a quarter of a mile from North Mississippi. I had a loathing view of Mississippi from the constant regurgitation and perpetuation of racism, death, poverty, and ignorance.

As I traveled I-55 south toward Mississippi, I was comfortable with the interstate, as it seemed to have protected me from the dangers of the past. I imagined what could have happened if I were driving down two-lane roads for hours, traveling through unknown towns that are living a shameful history. It took me about three hours to reach Jackson, Mississippi. In Jackson, I recognized businesses and restaurant franchises that crowded the areas along the interstate, projecting the idea of a thriving economy.

When I made the unnervingly transition to Highway 49, the scenery was rustic; the buildings and the few businesses were the antiquity of the past center of commerce. I was thinking about what would happen if the engine blew or had a flat or, even worse, someone toyed with me by accelerating quickly to my bumper or unnecessarily changing lanes and slowing down in front of me. But even then I remembered that whatever you think about the most will come to existence.

I sighed in relief when I arrived in Hattiesburg, the home of The University of Southern Mississippi, a college town. The town was energetic, upbeat, and surprisingly comfortable. Suddenly my grumbling stomach demanded I stop at a restaurant to engage in a Southern-style meal. The food was good, but emotionally, I didn’t enjoy it. Uncertainty about the job and my new life dulled the pleasure.

After dining, I trudged to my vehicle still not sure whether I wanted to drastically change my life. It seemed that I was there at the intersection I called the crossroads for hours, trying to decide whether to turn left to go back to Memphis or turn right to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

I arrived at the scenic Mississippi Gulf Coast. I had never seen such beauty. The sky was blue and clear. The smell of seawater was unknown to my senses. The calming breeze swept over the water and even for a moment, aired away my anxiety and uncertainty. At that moment, I felt comfortable and secure. The beach was littered with bodies of all hues. Some people swam, some built well-designed sandcastles, and some couples aimlessly walked in the white sand with a noticeable pink hue. As I was slowly driving on Highway 49, many well-known businesses, hotels, motels, family entertainment were in abundance. I quickly surmised this was an area with a strong economy.

While observing the mesmerizing charm of the coast, my subconscious was made aware of blacks and white driving, playing, jogging, and eating together, and I even saw an interracial couple kissing while relaxing on the seawall. Am I being brainwashed, or is my subconscious mind betraying me, trying to deprogram me from historical evidence?

Chapter 2

Developing Versatile Mind-set

My ninety-day training period was finished. I met all the requirements, including being at work on time, getting along with my coworkers, and passing comprehensive exams. I knew confidently that I did a great job. Thankfully, I had a trainer that put his heart and great effort in preparing me for my career.

My trainer was my mentor. It seemed it was his personal undertaking to prepare me for my journey of forty years of employment in this company. We had many eye-opening, revealing, and explicit conversations. One question he asked after witnessing my many tirades and denigrating remarks toward myself when I couldn’t or didn’t perform a task perfectly was Why do you do that? Did someone in your life tell you that you were not good enough, smart enough to accomplish anything worthwhile? He said with prudence, If you believe it, it is true. Whatever you believe you become. I didn’t grasp the meaning of what he said, but later I could see it plainly that I had to develop the mind-set to become successful.

Developing a versatile mind-set is necessary to defend your career from espionage and sabotage that will be waged against you from resentment, jealousy, hatred, doubt, backstabbing, and all the enemies that can impede your success.

You have one mind that consists of two components. You have a conscious mind and subconscious mind. Your mind will play the most important role in helping you to deal with self-doubt, resentment, jealousy, hatred, backstabbing, and other unproductive pessimism. If you don’t learn how to develop the durable mind-sets needed to defeat these enemies, you will be relegated to a life of mediocrity.

You have only one magnificent mind, but it is divided into two components, conscious and subconscious minds, also known as the objective and subjective minds. Being able to control these complicated components will give you the desires of your heart no matter if the desires are happiness, good health, wealth, success, and endearing relationships or depression, illness, poverty, unfulfillment, and unpleasant relationships.

The conscious mind is programmed by data input from your eyes, mouth, ears, nose, and hands. The conscious mind is the director of the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is the objective mind through its ability to program the subconscious mind, deciding what you are capable of performing in your life.

The conscious mind has made its mission to determine what books you read, movies you view, the words that flow from your mouth, food and drink preferences, and even the thread count of your sheets because this is who you are; this is what the subconscious mind will accept and perpetuate.

Have you ever been constantly told, No, you can’t do this or that? You can’t read that book because you are not old enough; you can’t learn that language because you can’t speak your language well enough; you are not smart enough; you are not big enough. Do you see where I am going with this? Do you see the evidence of your programming?

When you reached the ages six to ten, your subconscious mind had already been programmed to only accept the ideas or thinking that would continue to support who you are.

The subconscious mind is the subjective mind. Not only is it programmed by the conscious mind, but also it is cognizant of things the conscious mind missed that can be impressive to it. Even though the subconscious mind is subjective to the conscious mind, the subconscious mind has a connection to Infinite Intelligence that I believe is God.

The subconscious mind believes what it is programmed to believe. It will accept whatever you tell it whether it is true or false. It is farmland that will produce any crop you plant, whether it is Bitter Nightshade, a negative thought, or Baby’s Tears, a positive thought. The subconscious mind can attract what we truly desire by faith.

The subconscious mind does all it can to protect you from external and internal threats that may harm you or comprise its image of you. It operates your body even when you are asleep, and it is your powerful ally to get you whatever is manifested by your continuous thoughts.

What Is a Mind-set?

The term mind-set directly refers to your inclusive nature or how you think about yourself and your world. Do you believe most things in your life are beyond your control and therefore not your duty? Or do you believe your life is what you desire it to be; therefore, your mental and physical efforts are important to your success?

Your mind-set is your beliefs and thoughts, and it directs all practices in your life. It apprises how you think about yourself, how you treat and react to others, and how you respond to all the changes that come in your life. Your mind-set determines how you make sense of your world, how you think about yourself, and your ability to cope with all the positive