1. Work by design, not by
default.
Many
people choose a career with minimal knowledge of what skills are needed, what
the day-to-day work involves, and whether it’ll make them happy. Some start
down one path, pulled toward one of the careers that recruit the hardest, where
corporate profits are highest but employees are least satisfied. Then inertia
and circumstance dictate which direction their career goes. In effect, they let
their career choose them, rather than the reverse. Instead, be proactive.
Decide what direction you want to go, and then start moving in that direction,
today.
2. Take responsibility for your career.
The
days of working at one company for a lifetime and relying on a pension and
social security are long gone. Have an internal locus of control: you are in charge
of your career and your life. Design your own career, because if you don’t,
others will.
3. Have frames of mind that
serve you.
Success
is much easier with the right frames of mind, mental attitudes that color how
you think about things. Here are a few that will serve you well: 1. Be
optimistic: Expect great things to happen, and be enthusiastic about the path
you’re on. 2. Have an abundance mentality: The more you give, the more you’ll
get back. 3. Act with confidence: Believe that you can achieve what you want.
4. Free yourself from limiting beliefs: Don’t accept negative frames of mind
that constrain you. 5. Feel gratitude: Learn to see your experience of work as
a privilege, a chance to utilize your unique talents in service of something
bigger than yourself. 6. Make work fun: You’ll enjoy it more and you’ll be the
type of employee that others want to work with.
4. Know yourself.
People
are bad at predicting what will make them happy. Too many people devote years
or even decades to climbing the career ladder and reach the top only to
discover that it was leaning against the wrong wall. Decide what you want out
of life, then do your research. Which careers tend to bring people the most
money, happiness, fulfillment, or whatever you’re looking for? Then examine
yourself. Do you have what it takes, based on your test scores, strengths and
weaknesses, personality, and willingness to put in whatever effort is required?
Also talk to some people who have achieved what you want to achieve, to see if
it brought them the rewards you’re expecting.
5
Have a career aligned with
who you are or want to become.
What
are your values? What do you care about? The answers to these questions say a
lot about who you are, and this should guide you in a career choice. If you
value justice, honesty, fairness, or integrity, factor that in to your career
choice. If you want to make a positive impact on the world, do something that
helps others. Whatever course you choose, be guided by authenticity, by who you
are at your core.
6
Decide what a career is
for.
There’s
much talk about a work/life balance, as if work isn’t part of life, as if work
is the stuff you have to do and life is the stuff you want to do. This is a
false dichotomy. Making a living is part of making a life. Your career should
be aligned with you who are at a fundamental level no less than any other
aspect of your life is. My personal goal is to maximize happiness, pleasure and
meaning, in both myself and others, and I try to do this when I’m at work no
less than when I’m at play. Figure out what you want out of life and then
figure out what role your career can play in making it happen.
7
Have a healthy attitude
toward money.
Many
people let money dictate the direction their career goes. Either they take the
highest paying job they can get now, or the one that will give them the skills
they need to get the highest paying job they can get in the future. Money
should certainly be a consideration, but not the only one. In our culture of
consumption, it’s easy to forget that money is a means, not an end, and that
promotions and raises don’t always lead to lasting happiness. The truly scarce
resource is time, but too many people value money over time when they should be
doing the reverse. Having said all that, if you are currently in debt or living
paycheck to paycheck, do whatever you can to become financially independent as
soon as possible. This opens up more choices in your career and your life,
allowing you to focus on things other than money, think longer-term, and take
more intelligent risks.
8
Be guided by your passions.
What
are you passionate about? What do you look forward to when you get up in the
morning? Expressing yourself? Creating something? Helping others? Whatever it
is, find a career that lets you cultivate and share those passions with the
world. Passion is a powerful source of inspiration and motivation, and the most
successful people tend to be the ones who are passionate about what they work
on.
9
Think
big.
It’s
amazing what a few people can do by thinking big and working hard. UPS was
founded by two teenagers with one bicycle and $100 borrowed from a friend.
Others have achieved greatness by thinking big, and you can too. The higher you
aim, the more you’ll achieve, even if you don’t hit your mark. Don’t be too
quick to settle for less than what you want. The system will occasionally
present you with the opportunity to sell out, and take money now in exchange
for selling a piece of your dream. Resist the temptation, because if you do it
once it becomes harder not to do it next time. The best way to think big is to
be guided by passion, authenticity and optimism, not money.
10
Be less afraid.
Thinking
big is the first step, but to actually make it big, you’ll need to fight fear.
Fear takes on many forms in careers as in life, and many of them are
counterproductive. Fear of making mistakes leads to a perfectionism that
reduces productivity and stifles creativity. Fear of getting rejected causes
people to ask for less and therefore get less. Fear of criticism keeps people
from speaking up and sharing their ideas. Fear of failure holds people back
from even trying. Comfort is comfortable. But it’s not the route to success.
Get out of your comfort zone. Move toward challenges, not away from them. And
ask for more, even if it means getting turned down more. Remember that it’s not
the batting average that counts, it’s the number of hits.
11
Set smart goals.
Dreams
don’t make themselves happen. You’ll need structure and discipline to have the
career you want. Intelligent goal setting is an essential step. The best goals
are aggressive but achievable. Work with a sense of urgency and monitor your
progress, to make sure you’re moving in the direction of your goals. Don’t be
satisfied with things staying the same and just not getting worse; try to make
everything in your life a little better every month. The mantra at Apple is
“plus it”: even when something seems finished, keep asking yourself, is there
some way I could make it even better? Also be sure to write down your goals,
with deadlines. And wherever possible, make them quantifiable; only that which
gets measured gets improved.
12
Get motivated.
Don’t
look for motivation from your employer, your boss, or anyone else. Be
internally motivated. The most successful people in business (and life) are the
ones who push themselves rather than waiting for someone to push them. Don’t
let inertia win. Motivation is easier when you’re passionate about what you’re
doing, and when you have clear goals and a clear idea of why you want to
achieve those goals. This will give you the energy you need to keep moving
forward in good times and bad.
13
Learn.
Obviously
you need to learn in order to succeed in your career. But how you learn and
what you learn are both essential factors. As for how you learn, having the
right frame of mind can help you learn much faster. Have a natural curiosity
about the world, let everything be your teacher, and don’t limit yourself to
learning only those things that are of immediate value to you. As for what to
learn, this depends on your chosen career, so talk with some successful people
in your desired field and ask what skills helped them succeed and how they
developed those skills. Some skills are useful in nearly every field, including
communication (listening, speaking, writing), teamwork, selling (your ideas,
your opinions, yourself), negotiating, analytical and quantitative skills,
leadership, and creativity. When learning, don’t focus on diplomas,
certifications and titles. Instead, focus on skill development, and
transformation of mind and character.
14
Become an expert.
To
have a truly brilliant career, and to have an impact on the world, you need to
be exceptional. You need to bring something to your company or the world that
it lacked. By becoming an expert and exercising your expertise, you’re likely
to be paid well and also to feel a high degree of job satisfaction. As a good
first step, try to become noticeably more valuable to your employer with each
passing month; within a few years you’ll be essential, and your compensation
will probably reflect it. Then remember to think big: once you’re the office
expert, try becoming the world’s expert. What should you become an expert in?
That’s up to you. My suggestion is to find something that you’re passionate
about and that has a positive impact on the world.
15
Create real value.
The
most successful people focus on the intersection of passion, skill, and value:
something they’re passionate about, and they’re skilled at, and the world
needs. Skill can usually be developed with enough passion, so the focus should
be on passion and value. When measuring value, think not just about the
value to your users, but also to the world overall. If you aren’t sure what
would create value for the world, ask what would create value for you. Many
successful businesses have been started by a founder who was frustrated by
something and developed a solution for themselves, only to find that many
others were frustrated by the same thing. If you’re not interested in
entrepreneurship, there are still many ways to create value within a company;
for example, by mentoring other employees to make them more valuable. Of
course, your work doesn’t have to be your life’s primary value contribution to
the world, but given how much time most people spend on their careers, to not
create any value while at work is to miss a big opportunity to “make a dent in the
universe.”
16
Focus.
The
world is big and life is short. You can’t know or do everything. In your career
as in life, you need to focus, and to focus on the right things. Focus on the
activities that will propel your career in the direction you want to take it.
Don’t let the urgent crowd out the important. Learn to say no to make time for
yes. Simplify, prioritize, delegate, do whatever it takes to focus on what
really matters.
17
Surround yourself with
amazing people.
Rather
than taking the job that pays the most, consider taking the job that will let
you work with the smartest people you can find, people who will challenge you,
give you objective feedback, and help you learn faster. In his early twenties
Warren Buffett went to work for his idol Ben Graham without even knowing what
his salary was until he received his first paycheck. That decision worked out
pretty well for him. Also try to work with people you respect and whose company
you enjoy. (For me, one of the most rewarding things about having started my
own company has been the ability to build a team of awesome people I genuinely
enjoy working with.) But don’t limit your network to your office mates; some
things can’t be learned sitting at a desk. Get out of the building, be social,
engage with the world, meet new people, and continue to expand your network of
contacts.
18
Be open.
Flexibility
is essential to career success and it comes in many forms. Be open to different
viewpoints and to being shown to be wrong; it’s the fastest way to learn. Be
open to working independently and as a member of a team; most careers require
both. Be open to change; the world keeps changing faster, and those who can’t
adapt get left behind. Be open to trying a lot of different things at work; by
default people know less about what they’ll enjoy and excel at than they think.
As an extreme example, Robert Greene had eighty different jobs before he found
his calling as an author. Despite the late start, his books have collectively
sold over two million copies.
19
Develop and exercise power.
To
change the world, you need power. Power assumes many forms. You can start your
own company. You can manage a team. You can become an expert in something and
develop a personal brand around it. You can influence people with your ideas.
You can rally supporters around your cause with passion and charisma. I’m not
advocating a Machiavellian power grab (although I do recommend studying those
tactics so you can be alert to when others try to use them against you). But I
am saying that to have a more impactful career, to change the world in positive
ways, you will need to gradually build up your power and then utilize it.
20
Think like a company.
Companies
have developed many techniques for achieving their goals. You can use a lot of
the same techniques to achieve your goals. Companies think about the value
proposition of their products; what is your value proposition, to your employer
or to the world? Companies do competitive intelligence to see how their
products differ from their competitors; what differentiates you from the other
candidates a potential employer might consider hiring? Companies quantify
nearly every aspect of their businesses in order to track and improve them;
what metrics in your own career are you tracking and improving? Companies have
mission statements that guide their growth; what is your mission statement for
your career or your life? You can use these and many other business techniques
to turbocharge your own career.
21
Don’t give up.
There
will be tough times, when you’re tempted to give up, when you question whether
it’s worth the pain. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t; that’s up to you. But
determination is what sets winners apart. They persevere when others turn back.
They are resilient, and don’t allow challenges to be an excuse for settling.
They follow the motto “I will find a way, or I will make one.” You’ll find it’s
easier to handle adversity like a champion if you love what you’re doing, and
if the work is aligned with who you are at a fundamental level. So find
something you’re passionate about, something you’re confident will give you the
happiness and meaning you desire, something the world needs, and then set
aggressive goals, start pushing on them, and don’t give up when times get
tough, and I’m confident that you’ll accomplish amazing things.
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