Career Advice from the Best in the World - Curated Daily

Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. And when companies aren’t growing quickly or their missions don’t matter as much, that’s when stagnation and politics come in. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.
- Source

 When choosing a company to work for, consider its trajectory.

 Even if the responsibilities don't completely align to what you want to do, there will always be new opportunities at a fast growing company.

 You can expect your role to change. And that's a great thing - that means more learning, more opportunity and more growth.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.
- Source

 Instead of trying to be the best in the world at one thing, combine two skills where you’re in the top 25%.

 Communication, either written or verbal, is a key skill you should consider focusing on.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect.

Measurement alone is not enough. An example of a job with measurement but not leverage is doing piecework in a sweatshop. Your performance is measured and you get paid accordingly, but you have no scope for decisions. The only decision you get to make is how fast you work, and that can probably only increase your earnings by a factor of two or three.

An example of a job with both measurement and leverage would be lead actor in a movie. Your performance can be measured in the gross of the movie. And you have leverage in the sense that your performance can make or break it.

- Source

 This is one of my favorite articles - I'd recommend reading the whole thing! These notes don't do it justice.

 Try to make sure you're in a position where you can measure your contributions. Did you drive sales? Did you reduce costs? By how much? Aim for a role where your performance can be accurately measured, and measured independent of your team's contributions.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

“All returns in life, including in relationships, are from compound interest.”

You want to rise, early in your career, to a senior position because that position will accrue more compound interest over the 30+ years of your life than if you take your time getting there.

“Some of the most successful people that I've seen in Silicon Valley had breakouts very early in their careers,” Naval says. “They got promoted up to VP or Director or CXO or CEO, or started a company that did well, fairly early. If you're not getting promoted up through the ranks, it gets a lot harder to catch up later in life. It's good to be in a smaller company early because...there's less of an infrastructure to prevent early promotion.”

Similarly, you want a strong alumni group to begin forming at or before your first job. If you remain close, your relationship can provide compounding value for the rest of your career. As Naval says, “If you're working with the same person 20 years from now, the trust you build up with them is so great, that the things you can do with them are incredible. You can start companies with them, or you can invest in their company on a handshake, and you'll never have to worry about... (things like) whether they work hard enough.”
- Source

 Relationships compound over time.

 Join a company where you will be surrounded by amazing people. Building strong relationships early enables you to do amazing things with them down the road.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

I believe you should look at your career as a portfolio of jobs/roles/opportunities. Each job that you take, each role that you choose to fill, each opportunity you pursue, will have a certain potential return -- the benefits you can get from taking it, whether those benefits come in the form of income, skill development, experience, geographic location, or something else. Each job will also have a certain risk profile -- the things that could go wrong, from getting fired for not being able to handle the job's demands, to having to move somewhere you don't want to, to the company going bankrupt, to the opportunity cost of not pursuing some other attractive opportunity.

Once you start thinking this way, you can think strategically about your career over its likely 50+ year timespan.

For example, when you are just out of school and have a low burn rate and geographic flexibility, you can take jobs with a certain return/risk profile. If you get married and have kids, you will take jobs with a different return/risk profile. Later, when your kids grow up and you are once again free to move about and you don't have to worry about tuition payments and a mortgage on a big house in a great school district, but you now have far more experience than you did when you were first starting out, you can take jobs with a third return/risk profile.

Most people do not think this way. They might occasionally think this way, but they don't do it systematically. So when an opportunity pops up, they evaluate it on a standalone basis -- "boy, it looks risky, I'm not sure I should do it". What you should automatically do instead is put it in context with all of the other risks you are likely to take throughout your entire career and decide whether this new opportunity fits strategically into your portfolio.
- Source

 Marc Andreessen has written an entire guide to how you should think about your career. If this quote is interesting, please check out his entire guide. It's an excellent read.

 Think about your career as a portfolio of opportunities. When you're evaluating an opportunity, think about how it fits into your risk profile.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

Compounding is magic. Look for it everywhere. Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.

You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. It’s important to move towards a career that has a compounding effect—most careers progress fairly linearly.

You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many ways to get this leverage, such as capital, technology, brand, network effects, and managing people.

I am willing to take as much time as needed between projects to find my next thing. But I always want it to be a project that, if successful, will make the rest of my career look like a footnote.

Most people get bogged down in linear opportunities. Be willing to let small opportunities go to focus on potential step changes.
- Source

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

"The mistake that most people make is they too often try to move to the immediate things. Like, 'Hey, what job should I go take?' You have to back up to the things that lead to it. Think of it as a kind of a two-step strategic process: the first is, 'Well, what are the things that I could do or people I could talk to that might lead me to a really interesting job opportunity?' Then the second thing is, 'Well, what are the kinds of things could I do that would get me noticed?'"

"A key thing about networking that most of the people who call themselves 'networkers' miss is that giving is more important than taking for establishing the relationship."
- Source

 The key to being a successful at networking is identifying what you could do that will get you noticed.

 Creative ideas could be organizing a virtual conference, or interviewing people in your industry and summarizing insights on LinkedIn

 When building relationships with new people, focus on what you could bring to the table. Find out how you can help them first before jumping to asking for help.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

Modeling in psychology has many applications, but using it to achieve your peak state – whether in business or in life [or careers] – is one of the most powerful. To be successful, select a person you admire [or has achieved the results you want], study the methodology behind their success and create a similar path for yourself. Copy what they do and you will achieve the same results.

- Source

 This is true for our careers too. Find people who are where you want to be and research how they got there.

 Model their career path and then try to replicate it.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

Break the cycle of needing experience to get a job, and needing a job to gain experience.

In terms of gaining experience, one of the best things you can do is find a startup or nonprofit to work for part-time in your area of desired expertise. This helps you gain a foothold and gives you something to talk about to future employers. For example, a friend of mine did social media for a startup for three months on nights and weekends when she was trying to make a jump into a full-time social media role. She was recruited for her dream position shortly thereafter.
- Source

 Getting a job in a new industry can seem near impossible, especially since most jobs require some experience. This advice from the CEO of career site, The Muse, discusses a way around this.

 Try to get part-time experience via volunteer work or startups in your area.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

Figure out what you're good at and start helping other people with it - give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are very consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don't measure; your patience will run out if you are counting.
- Source

 This is especially useful advice if you want to build your network and create a brand in your industry.

 Sharing your ideas will not only help you attract people who are interested in them, it also helps you practice and get better at formulating better ideas.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

Lori has a great metaphor for careers. She says, “They’re not a ladder; they’re a jungle gym”.

As you start your career, look for opportunities, look for growth, look for impact, look for mission. Move sideways, move down, move on, move off. Build your skills, not your resume. Evaluate what you can do, not the title they’re going to give you. Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job, don’t plan too much, and don’t expect a direct climb. If I had mapped out my career when I was sitting where you are, I would have missed my career.
- Source

 Great careers aren't structured. Don't expect a direct climb.

 Follow opportunity. Prioritize growth and impact.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

There is a supreme moment of destiny calling on your life. Your job is to feel that, to hear that, to know that. And sometimes when you’re not listening, you get taken off track. You get in the wrong marriage, the wrong relationship, you take the wrong job, but it’s all leading to the same path. There are no wrong paths. There are none. There is no such thing as failure really, because failure is just that thing trying to move you in another direction. So you get as much from your losses as you do from your victories, because the losses are there to wake you up.

When you understand that, you don't allow yourself to get thrown by one bad experience or a circumstance. Because your life is bigger than any one experience.

Because even if you're on a detour right now, that's how you know! When you are not at ease with yourself, that is the cue that you need to be moving in another direction.

When you are feeling off-course that's the key.

How do I turn around? The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself what is the next right move.

Not think about, "Uhhh.." I got all of this to do.

Instead, ask "What is the next right move?"

And then from that space make the next right move and the next right move and not to be overwhelmed by it because you know your life this bigger than that one moment.
- Source

 Don't get overwhelmed by everything you need to do. Go one step at a time - always ask, "What's the next right move?"

 Failures always teach you something, even if not immediately obvious.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

The happiest employees make their work deeply meaningful by doing what she calls "job crafting."

That's when employees find ways to add meaningful tasks into their workday on their own.

Instead of waiting for a boss to assign new projects or for a promotion, they ask themselves "What can I do to the job right now to make that work more meaningful?" she says.

It might be something like finding a part of your day when you are helping people, or it might be finding tasks that let you use your best, favorite skills. The point is, you just do these these things and make them a part of your job.
- Source

 This is particularly excellent advice for people wanting to change careers to an industry they have little experience with. You need to 'craft' your job by identifying skills outside of your immediate role, but within your company, that you can start taking ownership of.

 Most teams love when you offer help. This can be a great way to learn new skills and get real hands-on experience doing a new job without having to switch jobs entirely.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

"If I had to pick one habit that has really changed everything for me, I would have to say it is this: being able to reverse-engineer the finish line of my career in real time."

He adds, "When I say reverse-engineer, I'm talking going back, step by step, from that big dream you have to this very moment in time. Figure out what the steps are."

And he says, you can't simply mimic what someone else has done. "You can only do what is right for you."
- Source

 Sometimes, the career path you should take becomes more obvious if you have the end goal in mind.

 Work backwards from your vision or goal, if you have one. As you grow through your career, of course, the steps may change as new opportunities come up or you find out other things you want to do. However, you're still making sure you're moving in the right direction overall.

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!

I’m often asked what advice I would give to my younger self if I had the chance. My answer? I wish I could go back and tell myself: “Arianna, your performance will actually improve if you can commit to not only working hard, but also unplugging, recharging and renewing yourself.” That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary stress, burnout and exhaustion.”
- Source

 Taking breaks to recharge is extremely important for your mental health.

 Recognizing you need a break is often very overlooked. Don't ignore the signs your body tries to tell you!

Know anyone that will benefit from this resource? Please forward it to them!