Coasting (kōhst-ing) v.

1:  To continue to move or advance after effort has ceased.

Life is good. I’m nearing the end of six years of higher education. I have a bachelor’s degree and will soon have a masters. I have an arsenal of experiences from my world travels, from meeting celebrities, to meeting corporate pioneers and goliaths. The world is my oyster and opportunity is at my fingertips. Life is good… Or is it?

Ok, life really is pretty good right now. Yet it is incredible to think how easily we slip into a level of comfort that can often border on arrogance. I am by no means pointing fingers; it’s when I am consistently achieving success that my confidence is greatest and I rest in the assurance that I’m doing a “job well done.” A job so well done that nothing can touch me; my competitors flee at my presence; my superiors fawn at my abilities; and my followers gawk at my dexterity... err, I mean…never mind. (Get the picture?)

The wise Don Soderquist once said, “The better things are going the more concerned you need to be.”  I suppose it is when we are at our highest that our ability to fall is at its greatest; and that fall usually seems to be a little harder and farther than the others. So, how do we avoid these pitfalls? I heard it once said that, “level of skill is rarely what knocks us off our rockers; it’s our inability to relate to others.” It’s interesting to think how much skill actually plays into our success.

According to an article on www.expressitpeople.com, a study conducted on CEOs in the US by the Stanford Research Institute and Carnegie Mellon, found that long-term job success depends 75 percent on people skills and only 25 percent on technical knowledge. It’s not news that the buzz phrase “soft skills” has become nomenclature in many industries; however, without indulging its prosaic nature, it rings of statistical truth. One’s ability to relate to others is undeniably a “make it or break it” factor of success.

So, back to that rocker… The goal of this blog is to get you to think about how you relate and interact with those around you, as well as caution you to stay on your toes and avoid mediocrity disguised as comfort. Think of the last time you got knocked down and what caused it. Was it really a technical mistake? Or was it technical in the aspect that it didn’t meet the expectations of someone higher up than you? More and more, technical and people skills are blending in ways that force us to recognize their novel coalescence. This recognition should change the way you go about your “technical” work and your “people” work. With the right balance of relational and restricted skills, along with the constant awareness of your “coasting speed”, this figurative rocking chair should sway you right through a successful career.

By Nolan Thomas