Excellent Career Advice - A Conversation

A friend and I got into a discussion about an article on Linkedin.

Me: One of the things that i think about often is this... How much can we change ourselves... We often read articles which encourage us to : Network more, not get stuck in a lousy job, learn more stuff, be more honest and so on. Ever wondered why some of us naturally network more, some learn new stuff and increase their breadth, while some go into depth of a new subject....why some turn out to be clever, some are innocent and so on.... How much do we learn to change our behavior ? How effective are articles such as the one sent... I mean the points mentioned in the link may very well be true... But if any of the points is just not us...can we mold ourselves or imbibe it? 

A Friend: I consider these points as multiple objectives which the author thinks need to be considered for moving in a better direction. No one can follow all these to high  degrees (even the author) as everyone is different. Probably the author may be taking aid of others in pursuing some of these. 

So, for me it is just some of the points which I could look into and  see which of these I could adopt and to what degrees . When we see people around us we don't  see them doing well in all these areas but many still have carved a niche with what they are doing .They do what they are good at or they have their priorities clear.                        

Reading and self paced learning is something which I find can lead to progress in other areas/objectives. As learning makes us ready to participate in new discussions leading to development of networks and growth.                        

Learning for me is an acquired skill which for some is easy to acquire whereas for others it may take more time. Sometimes people may stop trying to learn because they find time taken is more than expected. 

Another friend: And unlearning is the most difficult part of learning...