What would you do if you had another chance?
A letter about career to my 18-year-old self.
Dear Igor,
you will never read this unless our parallel universes merge. At 18 you think you know a lot, but trust me — you know nothing. Be happy you are reading this; it has been almost 20 years, and you are alive. Here is to another 20 and no World War 3!
This reflection is about work; and also a result of coincidences that led me to write this blog. Who knows, maybe it helps someone else too. Let's do it, shall we?
1. What should you do? Basic career decisions.
Whatever you do, you will need luck. You can mitigate the lack of luck with hard work, but if you are constantly unlucky, you will struggle at whatever you are doing.
Sometimes being unlucky is no excuse; hard work and discipline upgrade talent. Talent is easy to waste; imagine where the human race would be without the waste?
First decision you need to make is simple: do you want to work for profit or non-profit? Working for a business means you will likely make more money than on the other side of the fence. Whatever you decide is correct, and if your work helps others and this planet, I congratulate.
When entering a corporation, you need to decide again: do you want to be in the front lines, measured against clear targets, or in the background, in support roles?
Hard work and luck will pay the most in sales but only if you do not need to sell shit. You will be able to draw the line at the end of the year and see where you stand compared to your colleagues. As everyone is selling something, expect a slaughterhouse.
If you decide for support roles, you will see that a measure of being good at your job is more arbitrary, a matter of perspective. It will be harder to draw the line and compare yourself. What matters won’t be your results but what your bosses think about your results.
This brings us to the next important lesson:
2. Learn to play the right game
All organizations are living organisms, a system of particular dynamics. It does not matter what you think as an individual, but how your organization breathes and thinks. Even if you have the most common sense ideas, this does not mean the organization will agree.
So you need to first, observe how the game is played and second, play the right game. If you play basketball while everyone else is playing football, you gonna have a bad time. Water polo will be even worse.
After you establish you are a football player in a football team, and you like it, ask your boss what it takes to make the first team or any other role you like.
If you see you are a basketball player in a team of footballers, you should probably take your basketball somewhere else. In other words, if you feel like the smartest or the stupidest person in the room you either adapt or leave.
Ok, if you don’t completely fit, but like your team a lot, you should learn to play whatever game they are playing and become good at it. You will make it almost in every organization, as long as you are not a stubborn retard.
In any case, remember these rules:
Never question someone with power in front of others.
Never burn a single bridge.
Always support your boss.
Now, if you still feel that basketball is the only reasonable game, it is possible to turn a football team into Harlem Globetrotters, but you will need a lot of power. And you can only get power by first being an extremely good footballer.
This brings us to the last point: what is your skill set?
3. The beauty and curse of a generalist
If you have many interests, you will almost necessarily end up a generalist. Some disagree, but I think being a generalist is great. Generalists have interesting conversations and ask good questions.
It is also a hard game because you must constantly reinvent yourself and find your position. Being an expert is more comfortable because you dig similar holes most of the time and eventually become extremely good at it. And there is nothing more beautiful than an expertly dug hole.
As a generalist you need to be good with people; only by being good, fair and genuinely interested will you be able to persuade the experts to help you dig your holes.
The curse of the generalist is the constant questioning on what to do next and that niggling feeling of maybe, just maybe, I should have become an expert. And with years passing, there is less and less time to turn into an expert. So you better learn to live with it.
Logically, the more fields you know, the better you will be at assisting experts. But you can only understand a couple of them because there is way too much to learn. If you decide to be an expert, on the other hand, make sure you do not get overrun by the ever-changing facts of life and technology.
Igor, we arrived at the end, and you might be interested: what would you do if you had another chance? Hmm, I have no regrets; each decision was correct at the time. If I, however, read this five years ago I would have probably tried sales to see if I could make it. But it is what it is.
Do what feels right. And if a change of direction feels good, go for it!
What would you do differently? Would be great to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Please help me by liking ❤️ or sharing this post. I would also love your feedback. You can follow me on Twitter or check out my library of excellent recipes. 👌
Hear, hear to being a generalist!
Although I do sometimes get niggling feelings that I should have specialized, there is also the part of me who knows I would have been more likely to get trapped that way. Better -- for me -- to have more directions to travel when the mood strikes.
One thing I never have a regret about -- not going into sales. Definitely not a path for me!
Great reflection -- it's always good to stop once in a while to look back. I find that often it helps you to move forward.
~Graham
An expert is afraid that eventually, their job will not be relevant.
A generalist is afraid that their job is to eventually not be relevant.