3.   Be Adaptable

People who are too attached to the way things are have a hard time learning new skills, performing new tasks, doing old tasks in new ways, working with new machines, new managers, new co-workers, new customers, new rules, no rules. Usually, the greatest difficulty for such people is uncertainty—not knowing what will be (or won’t be) just around the corner. Don’t be one of these people. Learn to love change.

Master today’s changes and tomorrow’s uncertainty because things are going to keep changing, faster and faster, with or without you. When you realize your employer must constantly reengineer just to keep up with the pace of change, don’t freak out. Be one of the few people willing to do whatever is needed, whenever it is needed, whether you already know how to do it or not; whether it is supposed to be “your job” or not; whether it is something you love to do or something you will have to tolerate for a few weeks or months.

Be flexible enough to go, on any given day, from one boss to another; from one team to another; from one organization to another; from one set of tasks to another. At any given time, you may be balancing three part-time “jobs,” or moving from one short-term project to another, or working a day job and starting your own business, or doing all of those things and going to school at the same time. To move seamlessly between and among these different spheres every day, you need to be highly adaptable.