Career Lessons for me and you
Intellectual and financial pursuit
I am writing this post and sharing it as a reminder to myself and anyone interested on how to develop and think about their career.
In a recent conversation with Mohit Satyanand who I came to meet through a cold DM. We got talking about career and how to think about it. He told me something that he did himself. I am paraphrasing, follow your curiosity and treat career as a discovery. You could sign up to his newsletter where he drops wisdom quite eloquently. His latest on freedom was really about how you view your time and what you value to explore.
Unless you are a sadhu, an ascetic, freedom is always constrained.
Some guardrails for young and ambitious
The prime motivation is to help us think about career as a set of steps that don’t need to make sense while in the midst.
Often times when I interview people for a specific role. They try to make sense of their careers as if they could forsee it will pan out for this role. Justifications will come about each and every point on the CV. But, that’s not how careers are developed. It’s a concoction of personal tradeoffs, risks and opportunities that were taken in the past.
I have done the same as well. But good careers are messy during progression. I am currently at that stage of my career where title bump or salary hike don’t excite me as much as the actual work. I am well aware that it is a privilege not many can afford during early stages of their career.
Nirant, who penned a concise set of steps for career gaurdrails in Act Like your 35. You should read it in full. Closing 30’s it is relevant for everyone younger than me. I will be taking a few snippets and adding a bit of remixing from Nirant’s post.
Don’t just network with people your own age
Beware the whiz kid syndrome. Smart, young people have a habit of forming communities of other smart young people and feeding off each other’s energy. Argghhhh. Are you not just making mistakes made by older people again? Make original mistakes
Youth enclaves can actually be restrictive. In fact their networking should be about meeting useful mentors and career champions who can open doors and fast track careers.
Some of the best functional leaders in India are now in their 40s. They built India’s telecom and Internet 2.0 (Flipkart, Amazon) and are looking for ways to give back. You at 20-something is ideal fire for them to light.
In essence, please try to focus on making newer mistakes. Talk to 8-10 year old seniors in the industry.
For example: In agri-business industry if one is looking to work for next 10 years. Talk to people who are in the industry from sone time. They can share more stories about what were people talking back then and what ended up happening eventually.
My hope to reach out to Mohit was also similar, he is old but not too old for a lot of things. He is a person with many interests and stories for bewildered young ones like me.
Next is to focus on the business aspect when focusing on a new opportunity. Before joining, we should understand what is the business model of the company. If you are applying or working for a company, always understand how the company makes money.
Take the time to understand what your business does
I love the story of President J F Kennedy’s visit to NASA during which he asked a cleaner what his job was. The cleaner replied that he sent rockets to the moon.
All of us should feel part of what we do at work. We might not have an exact wording or understanding yet. That is even better, we get to co-invent this on the journey!
Reputation is an outcome of integrity. Integrity is superior to your sustenance. Being non-sacrificial to your employer is important thing to remember as you build your career.
Never sacrifice personal ethics for a work reason
If you work on something that compromises your personal ethics and values, get out of there as quickly as you can.
The subservient nature of employee to employer doesn’t justify every sort of behaviour. The employer pays for your service. You don’t need to bend over and do as they say, especially when you know its wrong. Don’t cede your agency and moral compass. You will regret it eventually.
Get good by getting more reps. Coming to what you should do to better to your skills is to repeat them more often.
For example: If you can talk to farmers to sell their produce. You should target 10,000 of them to become an expert of understanding farmers. Selling is a skill that get betters with more reps.
Endurance is a fancy word for stamina. The person having stamina will outrun anyone else who may be quicker at the start.
Most success comes from repetition, not new things The lesson here is to get good at few (greater than one) things before you try to move to the next thing. Genuine expertise belongs to an elite few. They seldom have superpowers. They usually have endurance, patience and take a long-term view. They also love what they do. If you find that, don’t let it go.
Practice gets you to an eventual state where you feel safe mentally that your skills are valued enough to be employable.
Career Moats
The eventual goal is to pursue a career moat. Your signal to the world about your skillsets. Cedric Cin is a series of posts covers the travails of finding a career moat. But, how it looks is articulated over here.
It looks like this: you aren't that worried about finding work. You know that if you are ever laid off, you may easily find another job, because you possess ‘career capital’ — that is, skills that are relatively rare, and are in sufficient demand to guarantee a base level of compensation to support you and yours.
This knowledge gives you peace of mind. It allows you to think more strategically about your career, and it allows you to plan your moves ahead of time.
To put this another way, job security is tied to your ability to get your next job, not keep your current one.
The ‘moat’ in ‘career moat’ comes from the safety this knowledge buys you.
Striving for a career moat will help you have a fulfilling career while you focus on building personal wealth, brand and reputation in your career.
Tying it together
These are 3 men whose writing I referenced. I have been aware that its a totally different for women. They have different set of challenges than any male can fathom. I am ill equipped to offer some guidance for the women.
One common theme that I could glean is that a career is a function of intellectual and financial exploration that is fulfilling. But it is still a part of your life and identity.
I would like to leave you with this thought that career is just one part of your life, not your entire life. I have been guilty of making it my only identity. Founders who have build startups get surmounted by the tag. I am still in the process of viewing career as part of life and that’s why these 3 posts are featuring over here. They are for me as much as for anyone reading this post.
Signing off till next time,
Vivek, re-imagining my life with a tag of operator.