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WhatsApp was incorporated in February 2009 by Jan Koum; a skilled professional who at the time was out of job and whose savings were fast running out. He later succeeded in selling off WhatsApp for $16 billion, signaling a huge success in his career.
Douglas Prasher, is a foremost skilled professional whose work is immensely crucial to modern breakthroughs in diverse areas of medical and biomedical studies and understanding cellular and disease processes. He was excluded from the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in spite of the fact that the award was based largely on outcomes of his research work. In fact, a recipient at the Nobel acceptance speech stated categorically that he felt Douglas should replace him. Sadly, at the time, Douglas had abandoned science and was a shuttle bus driver.


The two stories summarized above have similar scenarios but different outcomes. As such some questions readily come to mind.
They are:
What factors influenced the two outcomes indicated above? What is most important to succeed in a chosen career path? Is it great skill?
We will be examining these by highlighting instances from the case studies of skilled professionals; Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp (2009) and Douglas Prasher a foremost scientist who missed out on the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (2008), both proficient but with different outcomes.

Case 1: Jan Koum’s incorporation of WhatsApp:
WhatsApp was incorporated in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton who were both former colleagues at Yahoo Inc. until September 2007 at which point they took a break from employment at Yahoo! Later on, to continue to meet their needs, they both tried seeking employment at Facebook but without success. Koum particularly, relied on his $400,000 savings from Yahoo all along and in spite of this, on 24th February, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp which initially kept crashing and had lots of operational issues. At a point, he seriously considered quitting and was set to return to job hunting, but for Acton who encouraged him to keep trying for a few more months. This advice paid off and on 19th February 2014, Facebook Inc. which few years earlier had considered him unemployable, acquired WhatsApp from him for approximately US$16 Billion.

[img][/img] Case 2: Douglas Prasher’s exclusion from the Nobel Prize in Chemistry:
Douglas Prasher obtained his PhD in biochemistry in 1979 and worked in the academia. In 1988, he got a $200,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to clone the Green Florescent Protein (here in referred to as GFP) a biosensor / marker molecule for cellular processes. He successfully sequenced and cloned the gene for GFP (a tedious task indeed) and shared his findings with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien (who were later awarded the Nobel Prize based on that work in 2008). He even proposed the possibility of GFP as a tracer molecule in organisms. All that was left was to perform expression studies. In 1991, he was unable to secure further research funding and eventually left the academia even at a time he was under review for promotion. He eventually abandoned science in his quest for earning a living, opting rather to work as a shuttle bus driver. Martin Chalfie performed the expression studies and in 2008 together with Roger and Shimomura received the Nobel Prize and equal share in the 10Million Swedish Krona for the discovery and development of the GFP while Douglas who was actually responsible for development of the GFP was excluded.

Now we need to answer the following questions: What factors influenced the two outcomes indicated in case 1 and 2 above? What is most important to succeed in a chosen career path? Is it great skill? If so why then do skilled applicants still go through an interview stage? Remember, an interview is a selection process among skilled applicants to seek the skilled candidate with the best attitude for the job. That’s it!
Having and maintaining the right attitude is the key!
In Career paths 1, I pointed out that excellence is not a skill but an attitude and that developed societies who are always pioneering in career and technology have evolved a social attitude that collectively places a demand for continuous progressive attitudes in areas of engagement, regardless of academic background of individuals. Indeed a good number of expatriates we bring into our country for projects are not necessarily graduates but seasoned specialists with insatiable attitude for knowledge integration and positive attitude to their career. As such they are not only very current but well experienced.

From earlier sections of this write up, it is obvious that Passionate attitude is vital for great success. This is proven by true life accounts of the named individuals above who made or missed legendary career success. Also from career paths 1, we established that ‘Progress is more of an Attitude’ (not ability).
Passionate Attitude Defined:
Passion is defined by the MacMillan dictionary as the expression of strong beliefs, interest, or enthusiasm. For the purpose of this write up we will examine passion from the perspective of belief, interest or enthusiasm rather than the popular perspective of sexual relations.
Attitude: The business dictionary online defines attitude as follows: A predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation. Attitude influences an individual's choice of action, and responses to challenges, incentives, and rewards. In psychology, an attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, or thing. It is the way you think and feel about someone or something. Attitude not skill is therefore is the reason one may quit or persevere through career challenges.
In essence, attitude is the drive, the spirit we bring to our engagements and the responses to issues of life experienced in our career.
Therefore Passionate attitude is the expression of our interest and enthusiasm in favor of a person, place, thing, idea or situation. It is the reason Jan Koum heeded Acton’s advice to “keep trying a few more months” and it was key to hitting the $16Billion success.
What do you think about this?
Have you got a story similar to Case 1 or 2? Share with us in the comments.

For more: http://scupmed.com/2016/06/02/career-paths-2-key-to-great-success/