Once you have decided on a certain path to follow for your professional life, you might also want to consider reading and learning a bit about any subject that can be connected, even in a small degree, to your field. This can be extremely useful and interesting.

As a general rule, your interest will always come before anybody else's, including your employer's. 

You would actually be amazed by how powerful self-interest can be, once you become fully aware of it.

In order to make sure that you will defeat your competition, you should take into account elements like the increased speed of learning, improved communication and social skills, taking risks and being patient. All these considered, you are most likely going to ensure your advantage over the competition.

We have, as humans, the tendency to explain others' behavior through the filter of our own experiences. Therefore, we often end up misjudging or misinterpreting the situation or the people we deal with. It might prove useful for our interactions to just assume that the ones around us couldn't possibly know exactly what we do. This way, we could end up understanding them better and ensuring stronger connections.