Recommended Read: The Right Stuff

This is a great article about what it takes to become a CIO. Many of these points concile with my personal values; it's a great reassurance to know that these values puts me on where I want to go.

Understand the Business – Speak the business, understand how to leverage IT to help the business; together with project management skills. Contribute to the growth of the business.

Communicate Appropriately – I need to techno-talk to IT and business-talk to the customers, a person who can bridge these 2 worlds and understand their respective issues. Use analogies to help business understand IT challenges.

Be A Learning Machine – Keep learning and learn new skills out of my scope of work. Especially in business areas like finance, marketing and budgeting etc… Be well-rounded so that I can give well-rounded consideration to business issues.

Let My Work Speak For Itself – This is in-line with my belief that action speaks louder than words. People will see your contribution over time. If you have to tell someone how good you are, you probably aren’t.

Being Humble – I have to acknowledge that there are things that I don’t know, and that I will need to leverage on others’ expertise to get things done. I need to realize that I cannot always be the one to set the pace, and that following others can make things happen as well.

Being Patient – I really need to learn that I cannot always have thing my way. In order for people to buy-in to an initiative, time is required, and I must allow myself to be influenced to see their point-of-view. I need to let things – projects, promotions, opportunities, relationship – develop.

Be Prepared – “Luck is just opportunity and preparation coming together”. Someday , the opportunity will come, it is only a matter of time, and of being patient. But first, get prepared. All glorious moments comes from ample preparations. It didn't just happen like that.

Network – Knowing people, coupled with real value and preparation, it increases opportunities and opens more doors.

Being Myself - To that end there is one last piece of wisdom to consider when you finally make it. The best advice I ever got, says Delmont, was "don’t jeopardize your principles, because that is what makes you." (This advice has a corollary: If you start kissing butt you will always kiss butt. Delmont decided never to kiss butt.)

Shakespeare said it best: "To thine own self be true." There is more to life than just professional success. At the end of the day, when we lay on our death-bed, can we say that the journey was worth it? Can we say that we had been true to ourselves? Please... don't forget who you are. don't forget...