Today I was invited by Jim Strout from Managing Leadership to participate in the “My Business Life Lessons” tag that was started by Dave Prouhet from Business Advice Daily. It’s a great idea to get this blog back on track, since I’ve been absent for the last few weeks…

Here’s my list of lessons that I have learned in my engineer/manager/consultant career.

1) Don’t expect great results with mediocre planning. Get yourself organized and plan your activities and desired results. Shooting randomly is the quickest way to run out of bullets.

2) Don’t overplan! Some people pick on the minimal details, when they should start taking action.

3) Establish trustworthy partnerships. You should have a group of people with whom you share mutual trust. This includes coworkers, business partners and employees. When something goes wrong, they will be the ones that will take a step forward.

4) Being an entrepreneur is very hard, but a lot of fun! If you love what you do and have energy, you can’t go wrong. In the worst case, you’ll get a lot of experience for your next try.

5) “It won’t work because nobody does it that way!” is one of the most stupid remarks you can hear. That should actually be the reason for doing “it”.

6) Ignore people who criticize your initiatives but never had the guts to have their own. The criticism you should listen to is constructive criticism from those who have already walked that path.

7) Work hard. You can rely on relationships or get lucky on a business opportunity, but in any case your chances will be much better if you work REALLY hard.

8) Listen more than you speak. Positive input equals learning.

9) Never stop studying. Formally or not. Read at least 1 book per month, absorb experience from others and get back to the classroom. Your success should come from a mix of theory, practice and feedback.

10) Take calculated risks. If you always choose the safest path, chances are you won’t get very far from where you are. Just make sure that you compared your available options and the risks you take are aligned with your professional (or entrepreneurial) goals.