12 Rules for Business Success

Over the course of my career journey, I’ve distilled a few “rules” I consider to be my personal principles for success in the business world. There are 12 total, divided into 3 categories: basic, intermediate and advanced.

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What’s the most basic thing you can do to be successful in business?

Rule 1: SHOW UP!

If you manage to roll out of bed, put on clothes, drive to the office, and sit down to work, you’re halfway there. Yes, it is that easy!However, being present is not as simple as it seems. I’ve seen people who are technically present, but caught up in “iPhone prayers” (when you’re in a meeting and constantly checking your phone – that’s iPhone prayers. Hopefully you’re not doing that right now ☺️).Joking aside, it’s so important to show up and truly be present. It creates positive energy that enables you to gain deeper insights from your environment (so you literally become smarter as you continuously learn from your surroundings), build stronger personal connections with others, and seize new opportunities as they arise – all of which are keys to success.

So, no matter how you feel in the moment, make the basic decision to at least be present each day, physically and mentally.

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Once you’ve shown up, what’s the next thing to do?

Rule 2: START EARLY!

In college, many of us likely consumed copious amounts of Mountain Dew at midnight to get homework done. But in the professional world, tea at 5:30 AM is a better solution. It sounds mundane – just like showing up – but these basic habits have deep significance, and showing up early at work is more impactful than it seems.

Here’s a true story: when I was in college, I intensely debated with fellow students, and even some professors, that I was “genetically engineered” not to be a morning person. In fact, I was determined to only take classes that started at 10 AM or later! My argument used to be, “I’m still working the same 12 hours, so if I start at Noon and go until midnight, isn’t it the same as working from 6 AM to 6 PM?” But once I entered the business world, I realized there’s a difference in starting early vs. later – a big difference.

At university, the later start might work because you’re mostly completing assignments and papers on your own schedule. But at work, you’re collaborating with many other people. You NEED their feedback to help ensure your work is high quality and those interactions also help build relationships. I found that far more difficult with a later start to the day. Also, I found that later in the day, people are tired and ready to get home to their families – unlike the worry-free college days. Starting work early not only enables your life to be more balanced, but your work relationships will be better, and you will have feedback and buy-in from your colleagues on your output.

So, in lieu of rewriting my genetic code, I forced myself to wake up and start work early. I’d spend the first 20-30 minutes planning my day, then reach out to colleagues with questions or requests. By mid-day, I’d accomplished most of my day’s tasks and benefited from the input of others, with plenty of time for follow-ups. And as I continued to start early (because maintaining this routine is essential), I began to realize the compounding positive effects of collaboration on my own work.

All these years later, my DNA may not have changed, but I’ll be up at 5:30 AM tomorrow, tea in hand, ready to carpe diem!

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Rule 3: COLLABORATE! (or what they called it in college: Cheating)

Think back to when you received an assignment in school, like a paper or exam. If you approached an upperclassman and asked, “How do you do this?,” it would have been frowned upon because “collaboration” in school is considered cheating. But in the professional world, this approach represents leadership at its best.

Collaboration is crucial to business success because it leverages collective knowledge and usually leads to outcomes far superior to those achievable by individuals working alone. It also builds trust and ensures buy-in as more people know they’ve contributed to the final output.

My best advice is: when you’re given a task at work, before diving headfirst into the solution, consult with your colleagues. Engage with senior and junior members of your team, clients, managers – everyone. Ask for their perspectives, their past experiences, what worked for them, and what didn’t. Three things will likely result:

1. Your solutions will be more comprehensive and informed, drawing from the experiences of many.

2. As you present your ideas, you’ll find natural agreement with those you’ve consulted, and their support will make the process smoother since they had a hand in shaping your solution. If the people you convince were already asked about their ideas up front, they will be there with you.

3. People will begin to see you as a leader, someone who brings others together, seeks collective wisdom, and exemplifies collaboration.

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Rule 4: BE CURIOUS!

In school, completing a reading assignment from pages 1 to 20 put you on par with the rest of the class. But in business it’s a whole different ball game, and no one is handing you a lesson plan for the upcoming semester.

In our highly competitive world, it’s crucial that you’re consistently learning, constantly growing. Not only does learning have proven physical benefits (it helps maintain neuroplasticity and improves memory and problem-solving skills), but it also enhances mental and emotional health by providing a sense of accomplishment at having learned something new. And it will help you become a subject matter expert in your industry.

I recommend dedicating time to read every day, even if it’s only for 20 minutes or 20 pages at a time. It may not seem like much, but you can learn a lot over the course of a week, not to mention months or years. 20 pages a day is roughly 25 books a year! And dedicate time for networking, both inside and outside of your company. Learn from others, their challenges and successes.

That said, don’t only strive to be an expert, because the day you do is the day you put a ceiling on your growth. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner, too. The world also needs subject matter beginners who are curious and see challenges with fresh perspectives. It’s totally possible to build deep knowledge in one area while exploring outside of your comfort zone in another.

To sum up my four BASIC rules:

1. Show up and be present, mentally and physically.

2. Start your day early and use that time wisely.

3. Collaborate from day one.

4. Always be on a quest for knowledge.

These basics may sound elementary, but in my experience, they’re foundational to success in the corporate world.

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Once you’ve integrated the four basic habits into your work, then you can begin to build on them with what I call four INTERMEDIATE rules.

Rule 5: BUILD RELATIONSHIPS, NOT TRANSACTIONS.

Ask any senior leader today about a quality that defines success, and they’ll likely highlight emotional intelligence or emotional quotient (EQ). If you’re keen on exploring this topic further, consider reading the foundational book by Daniel Goleman titled Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, or for a more recent perspective, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Dr. Travis Bradberry and Dr. Jean Greaves. Both are excellent resources on understanding and harnessing EQ.

In the business world, you can operate in one of two ways: either you execute individual transactions on a case-by-case basis, or you focus on building long-term relationships. I assure you the latter approach, prioritizing relationships, will invariably prove more successful in the long run.

Even if a singular transaction appears more lucrative, think of the bigger picture. This might even involve stepping back and allowing others to take credit, not in a way that lets them overshadow you, but in a way that builds trust and establishes you as a reliable ally…because that’s where you’ll find success.

This approach also forces you to be sincere and genuine with other people, which is not only important in business, it’s key to living a truly rewarding life. No one in their final moments on earth cherishes the deals they sealed or projects they completed. Relationships can last longer than any job, so I recommend always approaching tasks with the mindset of fostering strong, long-term personal connections.

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Rule 6: LOVE YOUR WORK.

We spend a significant portion of our lives working, anywhere from a third to half of our day. If you don’t find passion in what you do, you will find yourself getting tired and burned out. Even if you’re getting promoted regularly and making a lot of money, work will eventually become frustrating and unfulfilling.

But loving your work isn’t only about finding personal satisfaction, it also helps you recognize potential opportunities for growth. Somebody once asked me: “How do you find opportunity?,” and I told them, “If you commit to passion, you’ll find opportunity.”

I’m reminded of a time very early in my career when I was passionate about a project, but the company I worked for wasn’t planning to fund it. I was so convinced that I decided to write a letter to the CEO and pledged three years of my bonuses to the company if they would let me work on it – and I meant it!

While my contribution would not even scratch the surface of the required funding, my passion was enough to get me an in-person meeting with the CEO. To make a long story short, I was able to convince the CEO to take on the investment. They didn’t take my bonus, AND I had the most amazing time contributing to the company and my own development working on that project, and gained reputation as a passionate leader.

When you truly love your work, and have the conviction to advocate for what you believe in, opportunities will find you. And sometimes, you might even create them!

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Rule 7: EXECUTE.

In the business world, being smart is not enough. The primary metric that executives are judged by is their ability to get things done.

Even if you’re a genius like Einstein, who unraveled the mysteries of the universe with his theories at Princeton, there’s no way around hard work. In business, you must produce results on a daily basis.

And not all tasks will be glamorous, intellectually challenging or stimulating. The key is to focus on adding value, and the “boring” tasks are often the most critical to moving the business forward. There’s a great book called Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, and he talks about how “boring” should be considered exciting for executives. Whatever your task is, you need to get it done – even if it’s boring – and it takes real operational discipline to accomplish this.

Two other books I recommend on execution are The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Sean Covey, and Primary Greatness: The 12 Levers of Success by his late father, Stephen Covey. While Stephen is best remembered for more popular titles, he shares a unique message on primary and secondary greatness that really resonated with me.

People typically think of fame, money and power as the primary signs of success, but those are actually trappings of “secondary greatness.” Primary greatness is only achieved through living a life that values passion, integrity and making positive impacts on other people. In short, take action on (execute) the things that truly matter. And, the bonus is that a life of primary greatness can lead to achieving secondary greatness, too.

Regardless of whether a task is exciting or not, aligning your values with action will lead to effective execution – a key component for success.

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Rule 8: FOCUS. (Measure what Matters: Output vs. Input.)

In Rule 7, I shared that consistent and effective execution is a key component for success. The next step is about focusing your execution on what matters most.

In the corporate world there’s a lot of busywork (input), and if you don’t prioritize tasks that matter, you’ll find yourself working long hours without achieving meaningful results (output).

At the beginning of each week, I review my to-dos and identify what MUST get done, because as the adage goes: Manage your calendar or it will manage you. Focus on completing tasks where you can truly add value first, then take care of the remaining items because falling behind on those will likely have less of an impact.

Companies have shifted from an effort-based culture to performance-based culture. When it’s time for your quarterly or mid-year evaluation and your manager asks, “How did you do?,” please don’t start the conversation by saying, “I’ve been working 18-hour days. I even worked on weekends.” While your family certainly cares about your long hours and will sympathize with how hard you’ve been working, the hard truth is, it doesn’t really matter. In some cases, it even looks bad (perhaps you’re working 18-hour days because you don’t know what you’re doing…?). Instead, focus on what you ACCOMPLISHED – your performance, your output, not on your input.

There’s a fantastic book titled Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr, the CEO of Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley’s premier venture capital firms. He discusses how Andy Grove, the CEO and founder of Intel, established the practice of setting key performance indicators (KPIs) and led the company by focusing solely on those metrics. Amidst thousands of variables, it’s crucial to concentrate on the essentials, whether it’s your customers’ Net Promoter Score or sales closed per day.

You probably have KPIs to meet that were assigned by your organization or manager, and I encourage you to translate those into more personal metrics that define what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there, and keep your attention on accomplishing them.

Speaking of focus, one of the significant challenges in today’s society is diminishing attention span. With the rise of social media platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, etc., our focus competes with that of a goldfish – and I sometimes fear the goldfish is winning. While the goldfish may be the “happiest animal on Earth” according to Ted Lasso, in business, it’s imperative to hone your focus and maintain it.

This wraps up my four INTERMEDIATE rules outlining necessary attributes for corporate success: EQ, Passion, Execution and Focus.

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We’ve reached the final four key principles, or “rules” for success, that I’ve identified over the course of my career journey. I believe they apply whether you’re an entrepreneur starting a new business or working in an established corporation.

I consider these final four to be advanced concepts (perhaps even transcendental? 😊) and they build on the previous eight rules.

Rule 9: EXCELLENCE. (Be proud of your work.)

It’s crucial not just to do the work your company asks for, but to exceed expectations…in other words, achieve excellence.

Your internal measure should always be, “Am I proud of this?” Such an attitude will set a natural internal compass for the quality of your work.

And while this may sound similar to Rule 6, it’s actually taking the concept of loving your work to the next level. If you’re not passionate about the work you do, you’re probably not able to be proud of it, either.

A way to measure if you’re truly proud of your work is to ask yourself a question: Who do I enjoy showing my work to? If it’s only your direct manager, your colleagues, or even your customers, then something may be missing.

I “know” I’m proud of my work when I enjoy sharing it with my loved ones, especially my children. I truly believe it’s the most sincere way to talk about the work I do.

When I share something I’m working on with my kids, I’m essentially setting an example to them for how work should be done — and that means it must represent my personal best.

Being proud of your work is a strong indication that you’re achieving excellence. So, continue working until you’re proud of what you’re achieving!

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Rule 10: BALANCE YOUR LIFE.

It's essential to balance the time you spend focused on personal priorities – your family, hobbies, personal reflection and improvements – with work. It’s especially important early in your career, when your drive to advance makes it tempting to work excessively.

If you don’t find and maintain balance, you will eventually burn yourself out. Your creativity and happiness will suffer, which will ultimately affect the quality of your work. Plus, working too much sometimes just “looks bad.”

Here’s a personal story from one of my previous roles that's also very timely as we approach the holidays:

A CEO I greatly admire was in a meeting with a small group of senior leaders. After thanking everyone for a successful year, he asked, "How many of you worked through the holidays?" Three executives raised their hands. The CEO responded, "Shame on you. Please don't do that again. I suspect even if you had taken time off, things would have been fine. But now, your families will remember that you missed holidays because of work."

That really struck a chord with me. Extraordinary efforts at work are sometimes necessary. But if you spend too much time working, frankly, the responsibility falls on you as much as the company you work for.

As I’ve shared, these principles build on each other, so once you’re proud of what you’re achieving at work, give yourself permission to step away. Enjoy evenings and weekends with loved ones. Take time off to travel or do something else you enjoy.

When you return to work, you will be refreshed – with more focus, creativity and overall better results.

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Rule 11: SIMPLIFY.

You may have heard this phrase attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

When something is simple, it likely took A LOT of thought, skill, and trial and error behind the scenes to create. That’s the irony of simplicity – it’s neither simple, nor easy.

The most elegant products and processes are often the simplest. Amazon made shopping a one-click experience. The Google homepage has only a logo, a single search box, and two buttons, but there is massive technical infrastructure behind it. And while these are grand examples, simplification can apply to almost anything.

For example, when you’re writing an email, try following the “five-sentence principle” by limiting your message to five sentences or fewer (the subject line and signature typically don’t count). This forces you to communicate more clearly by focusing on your message’s purpose, key context and call to action. Such an approach obviously won’t work for sensitive or complex topics, but it likely will for the majority of business correspondence.

In fact, many aspects of work can be improved by answering one fundamental question: how can we simplify this? Whether you find yourself working with product designs or marketing strategies, have a mindset of “delete, don’t add.” In other words, what steps can be removed without harming the outcome?

The goal is for your audience, whether that’s actual customers or stakeholders in your business, to burn fewer “mental calories.” The harder you make people think, the more likely you are to lose them to the distractions of notifications, meetings and messages. Every extra bit of thinking you force them to do causes friction, and friction causes people to make decisions slower, lose trust and very possibly abandon your process or product altogether.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to apply simplicity in business, there’s a book I love called “Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters.” Author Lisa Bodell argues that many organizations are stuck in needless complexity that drains time, energy and innovation, and she advocates for building a culture that prizes simplicity and saying no to nonessentials, freeing people to focus on high-impact, meaningful work.

So here's my challenge to you: identify one thing you can simplify this week. Creating and maintaining simplicity is often more challenging than you'd think, but it’s also incredibly effective – and can be a powerful differentiator in business success.

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I've shared 11 of my personal rules / principles that I truly believe will lead to a successful business career. But there's a final rule, and it becomes more important – not less – as you climb the ladder.

And the irony is, the moment you think you've mastered it is usually the moment you've lost it.

Rule 12: BE HUMBLE.

Let’s say you’re on your way to completing the first 11 rules:

– the basics (which everyone should do): you’re showing up, starting early in the morning, collaborating with colleagues, consistently learning,

– the intermediate (ideally all of them): you’re building relationships, finding passion in your work, producing results, and focusing on what matters,

– and (hopefully some of) the advanced: you’re delivering with excellence while maintaining work / life balance, you’re simplifying things…

By this point, you might be thinking, "I'm doing pretty well." It's hard to be humble with all these achievements, right?

No! It's absolutely crucial to remain humble. In my experience, humility is one of the most powerful traits you can possess. It isn’t just a good personal attribute, it's also good for business. And it doesn’t mean being passive or downplaying your achievements.

Here’s what it looks like in practice: you never assume you’re the smartest person in the room, you listen more than you talk, and you give credit generously to others because you recognize that no success is achieved alone. People WANT to work with someone who realizes they’re not more important or valuable than anyone else on the team. 

That said, being humble can sometimes be difficult. When something doesn’t go as planned, you have to look in the mirror before pointing fingers, be open to feedback, and sometimes admit when you're wrong. That part can be really uncomfortable, especially as you advance in your career and feel pressure to "have all the answers." But acknowledging mistakes actually builds trust. When you say, "I got that wrong, and here's what I learned," people respect you more, not less.

For me, that’s the key to humility: recognizing there's ALWAYS more to learn. Whether you're a CEO or just starting your career, approach life with a beginner's mindset. Set personal goals – even daily or weekly – to try something new, and then ask yourself, "What did I learn?" By doing so, you'll constantly improve your knowledge and skills.

I guarantee that being driven to achieve, while also being humble, is a combination that will serve you well throughout your career.

So, that wraps up my 12 rules. I’ve found these concepts to be very useful in my own life and I continue to challenge myself to follow them. I sincerely hope you find them to be valuable too.