By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click) Wherever you turn for career advice, you’re bound to hear about the importance of networking. Over and over, you hear the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.  Sometimes the hype around networking gets so intense you might think that if you’re not a pro at it, you’ll never succeed at anything. There’s no question that a strong network can help you go far in life, but the common consensus seems to be that networking is incredibly boring. It’s true, if you network the way people typically think networking is […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click) No matter what kind of business you are starting, your success will depend largely on how well you market and sell yourself and your ideas. If you are looking for an accessible way to hone your marketing and customer relations skills in preparation for your entrepreneurial leap, consider Twitter. Twitter started out a few years ago with people answering the question, “What are you doing now?” Many of you will recognize this as the status update you see on Facebook, too.  Nowadays, though, the Twitter community has matured to the point where people […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hürriyet Daily News, Savor Success, Speed Through Failure I love the copious amounts of research and writing that come out of Harvard University. Whatever kind of information you are looking for, you can bet someone at Harvard has already studied the subject.  All universities should expect such a prolific amount of publication activity from themselves.  Being more research-oriented would certainly benefit universities in Turkey, more so than adding another me-too MBA program. One report from Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Management Unit looks into the interesting question: Are successful entrepreneurs more likely to succeed in their next ventures than first-time […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here) You Gotta Have Instinct Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers, once said, “Most of entrepreneurship, for me, is about instinct and intuition. Many times I have been asked by someone considering a new venture if he should go for it. But an entrepreneur knows instinctively when to go for it.” Basically Dell was saying you don’t need to ask yourself whether you are cut out to be an entrepreneur. When the time is right, you will do it, and if you let the opportunity slip by, perhaps you were never meant to […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hürriyet Daily News, Think Well Perform Well When I was a child, I loved ballet so much I could dance 24 hours a day.  It came naturally to me, like my body and spirit already knew exactly what to do.  When I danced ballet the world around me disappeared, and I got lost in the moment.  I didn’t think about anything else, I just went with the flow.  It was like second nature. I practiced hour after hour, month after month, year after year.  But my motivation didn’t come just from a desire for success.  My motivation […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News Richard Branson, the chairman of the Virgin Group, is known not only for the companies he has started, but also for the active and exciting life he leads. Martha Stewart is not just the founder of the Living Omnimedia Group, she also bakes in the kitchen and decorates her beautiful home.  Both of these hugely successful entrepreneurs have followed their passions and become rich because of it.  As leaders of large, global corporations, their responsibilities are huge, but they get to live the colorful and interesting life they set out to create for themselves. […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hürriyet Daily News When was the last time you used AltaVista? Most people these days have never even heard of it, but AltaVista was the number one Internet search engine before Google burst onto the scene. Back in the day, when you needed to find something on the Web, you went to AltaVista. It was the dominant player. You had to be crazy to go up against it. The founders of Google, however, decided to do just that. They thought they could provide a more capable search technology, so they took something AltaVista had done well, and […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News These days the world is filled with so-called experts preaching the value of self-knowledge, or prodding us down the path of “personal development”. Whichever paper you read, whichever magazine you flip through, it seems someone is talking about the importance of “knowing yourself” to succeed in life.  Improving ourselves and understanding ourselves better will apparently unlock the secrets to a fuller life where our dreams can come true. I think these people are putting the cart before the horse, though. They are telling us to know ourselves, and then take action.  People are told […]

By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hürriyet Daily News Even the most successful people reach plateaus in their professional lives.  These lulls often come about 20 years into a career.  It is a time when many people notice their interest in their chosen field waning, and they wonder what else life has to offer.  Whether they’ve been with the same company for years, or they jumped around from company to company, boredom sinks in and their current profession doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of learning and growth opportunities. This professional malaise can come even to top performers who know their […]