I get unhappy when I don’t know market place information that affects my job.

For example, one of my CEOs knew of information about one of our key competitors that I didn’t know. He expected me to know. I was in charge of competitive intelligence for our company, but this information didn’t come across my desk. It didn’t come up in my research. You can imagine how unhappy I was when it became obvious I didn’t know this intelligence. After this incident, I added additional inputs into my competitive intelligence program to capture this type of information that I had missed. There’s nothing worse than having your boss look disappointed in you. I learned to find additional resources to stay up-to-date in my industry.

Are you keeping up with your reading to improve or maintain your job performance? Are you up with the latest thinking? Are you reading industry magazines or scanning the internet for competitive information so you won’t be blindsided? Are you reading business magazines to stay inspired or motivated? How about reading blogs to keep up on information or to learn someone else’s perspective? Are you reading the right business books that add value to your career?

Being happy at work is getting and staying motivated to learn new things that we can use in our jobs. It’s feeling curious enough to take time during our non-work hours to read magazines, blogs, business books, or anything else that will augment our skills or give us new ideas so we can be creative in our jobs.

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