Do I Need A Plan B with my Career Path?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.280 | All right.

00:00:05.780 | I think we have time for one more deep work question.

00:00:09.680 | And this one comes from Michael1729.

00:00:14.840 | I always like when people use their birth year

00:00:17.040 | as part of their name.

00:00:18.360 | So it's good to see you here, Michael.

00:00:20.520 | He asked about the importance of plan B

00:00:25.320 | rather than focusing all efforts on one career path.

00:00:30.320 | There's a detailed elaboration here

00:00:32.000 | that I think is kind of important.

00:00:33.400 | Let's get some context.

00:00:35.440 | Michael is from South Africa.

00:00:37.560 | He's an undergrad.

00:00:39.040 | So he's studying mathematics at a quote unquote

00:00:42.880 | "little known university" with no option

00:00:45.440 | to do undergrad research or take advanced courses.

00:00:48.000 | He loves pure maths.

00:00:49.960 | I love how UK and other places, other English speaking places,

00:00:53.560 | it's maths, by the way, not math.

00:00:56.360 | And I fantasize about doing research one day.

00:00:58.960 | So he's identified a career path of being a maths professor

00:01:03.480 | at a research university to be their ideal pursuit.

00:01:06.500 | By the way, if you apply to an American university,

00:01:08.580 | don't call it maths professor.

00:01:09.880 | We don't use that terminology.

00:01:11.800 | He has a lot of pressures on himself to get top grades.

00:01:14.200 | But anyways, he's worried.

00:01:15.440 | Here's the crux of his elaboration.

00:01:19.240 | He's worried that this particular plan he's hatching

00:01:23.880 | for somehow escaping from this little known university

00:01:26.320 | in South Africa and making it to a top university

00:01:28.920 | and being a maths professor is not going to work out.

00:01:31.760 | And he's saying, should I have a plan B?

00:01:35.920 | He feels that having a plan B might lead him to slack off

00:01:40.040 | his ambitious vision of being a maths professor.

00:01:44.640 | But also he's very worried that that might not happen.

00:01:48.000 | And then is he going to just be stuck?

00:01:50.720 | All right, and then he says at the end,

00:01:52.360 | your books have changed my life.

00:01:53.680 | And you're the reason I got into my degree

00:01:55.560 | from failing in high school.

00:01:56.720 | Thank you for everything you've done

00:01:57.760 | for students around the world.

00:01:59.440 | So I just threw that in to make myself feel better.

00:02:02.520 | All right, Michael, this is a good question.

00:02:04.680 | And I think one way to approach it

00:02:06.980 | is to go back to my book, So Good They Can't Ignore You,

00:02:10.960 | and extract out of there the main framework I give

00:02:13.920 | for thinking about careers.

00:02:15.060 | Because the whole point about the framework I give

00:02:17.140 | in that book is to move you conceptually away

00:02:21.200 | from thinking in terms of specific jobs

00:02:25.760 | as the primary unit that you're dealing with in your planning.

00:02:30.480 | This is how most people think about careers.

00:02:32.280 | This is how you're thinking about career.

00:02:33.400 | You're saying, OK, I'm looking at this option, which

00:02:36.000 | is being a maths professor at this type of school.

00:02:38.480 | Is that the wrong option?

00:02:39.520 | Should I have a second option that I'm working on?

00:02:41.520 | The framework in my book says that's not the right way

00:02:43.780 | to think about career satisfaction.

00:02:46.280 | The things that make up career satisfaction,

00:02:48.680 | that meaning, passion for your work,

00:02:51.920 | that's going to come from elements of your job,

00:02:55.320 | attributes, things like autonomy and impact and mastery,

00:02:58.720 | connection to other people, impact on the world.

00:03:00.680 | The exact mix of attributes that would

00:03:03.320 | make a particular career really meaningful for you

00:03:06.920 | could be quite specific to you.

00:03:09.280 | But it's not specific to a particular job.

00:03:11.960 | These are non-job-specific career attributes.

00:03:16.520 | How do you get these attributes?

00:03:18.040 | Well, you have to think about them in a financial market

00:03:20.880 | metaphorical sense, that they are valuable attributes.

00:03:23.360 | Lots of people want them in their job.

00:03:25.520 | So you have to have something valuable to offer in return.

00:03:28.600 | And so the idea I give in that book

00:03:30.220 | is that you want to acquire what I call career capital, which

00:03:34.880 | is my term for rare and valuable skills.

00:03:37.040 | So as you develop skills that are valuable to the marketplace,

00:03:41.280 | you can then, in essence, exchange that career capital

00:03:44.240 | for attributes in your working life

00:03:46.480 | that make that working life something that resonates more,

00:03:48.900 | that makes it something that's more enjoyable and satisfying.

00:03:52.160 | So the whole game in this framework

00:03:53.720 | is acquiring as much career capital as possible

00:03:58.280 | in strategic ways so it's as valuable as possible,

00:04:01.040 | and then having the courage and foresight

00:04:04.040 | to invest that capital to keep taking control of your career,

00:04:06.640 | moving it towards what resonates and away from what doesn't.

00:04:10.320 | That's what you're focusing on.

00:04:12.920 | Now, in that particular approach,

00:04:16.800 | the actual job you end up doing or how that unfolds

00:04:20.360 | could change.

00:04:21.860 | Maybe this doesn't work out, that works out better,

00:04:23.980 | you see a better opportunity over here,

00:04:25.240 | and in some sense, that's not the point

00:04:26.860 | because your focus is on these are the attributes I

00:04:29.440 | want in my career.

00:04:31.360 | And what is my current levels of career capital

00:04:33.280 | I can apply towards that?

00:04:34.320 | How do I get more?

00:04:35.340 | So when you think about it that way,

00:04:36.840 | what you're doing now at your university

00:04:38.600 | where you're trying to get top grades,

00:04:39.960 | you're trying to specialize and be

00:04:41.380 | a star student in your program, don't think about it

00:04:44.440 | as this is my swing to get this one particular job.

00:04:48.200 | Think about it instead as I am trying

00:04:50.400 | to acquire as much career capital

00:04:52.080 | as I can at this early stage in my career.

00:04:55.440 | Now, one of the things I might be able to invest this in

00:04:57.720 | is in getting a graduate student position at a really

00:05:01.080 | good university, and that's going to be, again,

00:05:03.100 | that's going to be interesting job.

00:05:04.080 | It's going to be intellectually demanding of autonomy,

00:05:06.320 | and if I can really stand out there,

00:05:07.880 | then maybe I'll have enough capital to get a professor job.

00:05:10.520 | But you know what?

00:05:11.360 | Maybe that doesn't happen, but then you

00:05:13.020 | can apply the capital you have towards something else that

00:05:16.000 | resonates and move away from things that don't.

00:05:18.520 | You're going to have unpredictability

00:05:20.920 | on how this path unfolds, but if you keep coming at it

00:05:24.240 | from the perspective of I know what resonates with me

00:05:26.880 | and what I don't like, and I'm constantly

00:05:28.480 | trying to get more of the good stuff in my career

00:05:30.480 | and less of the stuff I don't like in my career.

00:05:32.520 | If I hate the idea of having a boss telling me

00:05:35.480 | what to do and deadlines, then all of my focus

00:05:38.480 | is going to be on how do I build up skills that I can keep

00:05:40.920 | leveraging to get away from that environment.

00:05:42.520 | Or maybe if what you want is high excitement

00:05:44.480 | and to be involved in big deals and to have high stakes

00:05:47.480 | money on the line, and you don't care about deadlines,

00:05:49.760 | you like that, then you're building up skills

00:05:51.760 | and applying them somewhere differently.

00:05:54.080 | What type of job can I get with my current skills

00:05:56.080 | that gets me closer to that?

00:05:57.040 | How do I build up more skills there

00:05:58.200 | to move to something even better?

00:05:59.800 | But the key thing that unifies all these approaches

00:06:01.920 | is you're looking at the attributes you want,

00:06:03.600 | you're building up skills, you're leveraging the skills.

00:06:06.440 | It's fine to have particular ideas in mind,

00:06:08.720 | like, well, why don't I aim in a professorship type direction?

00:06:11.800 | But then if that doesn't work, it's not a failure,

00:06:15.320 | you're building up capital.

00:06:17.200 | Oh, that particular investment opportunity

00:06:19.400 | to invest it in a professorship career is no longer available,

00:06:22.600 | but I still have the capital, so why don't I

00:06:24.760 | take it to go over here and do a startup where we're

00:06:26.880 | doing whatever, I don't know, hedge fund analysis

00:06:31.360 | or something like that, and go live somewhere interesting

00:06:34.000 | and make a lot of money by the time I'm 27,

00:06:35.800 | and then open a surf shop.

00:06:37.320 | You have all these different options.

00:06:39.560 | And they will present themselves as you get better at things

00:06:43.560 | are valuable, and as you continue

00:06:45.400 | to reflect and be clear about what

00:06:47.320 | it is that resonates with you, what you actually

00:06:49.160 | want in your life, what attributes you really

00:06:50.720 | want in a job.

00:06:51.400 | So don't be so specific about this is the job,

00:06:55.480 | and what if that job doesn't happen?

00:06:57.040 | Instead, be, these are the things I want in my life,

00:06:59.680 | what skills am I building now that might

00:07:01.360 | help me get closer to them?

00:07:02.440 | What next steps are open to me right now?

00:07:05.080 | Great, let me take the best one that's open to me right now.

00:07:07.600 | Build more skills and repeat.

00:07:09.200 | Build more skills, then repeat.

00:07:10.680 | I can't tell you where you're going to be in 10 years

00:07:13.200 | specifically, but if you follow this path,

00:07:15.520 | I can be pretty confident that wherever it is,

00:07:17.400 | it'll be a place that's pretty cool.

00:07:18.880 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:07:22.240 | (upbeat music)

00:07:24.820 | (upbeat music)

Do I Need A Plan B with my Career Path?

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