We spend a stupid amount of time at work.
May as well make your time there enjoyable doing things you
love to do. It’s not some fantasy. It’s possible and my career is proof.
This week a friend said something that stayed with me.
“I’ve only got two years until retirement. There’s no point
in changing careers, even though I hate my job. It’s too late. Better the
devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
His comment made me sad. If you’re at the end of your
career, why not take some big risks and finish on a high? You don’t get
to relive your career as there’s no provable evidence of an
afterlife.
The worst career advice is to do nothing if you’re bored
or frustrated.
Here are some tiny bits of career advice to make the next
twelve months of your career the best ever.
Learn a new skill
Careers are built on skills. If you’re stuck on
a plateau or feel like your career is going nowhere, look for a new
skill.
When my career hit rock bottom, while working a
dead-end job in a call center, I went to Toastmasters to learn public
speaking. It changed everything. I met new people who gave me job offers.
I learned how to shake the nerves and get in front of an
audience of strangers and communicate one idea. The skill bled into my writing.
Most of all, as a rambler, I learned to get to the freaking point.
Throw yourself headfirst into a new skill. Teachable
dot com is your friend.
Divorce bad bosses
I’ve worked for some blood-sucking jackals who
show no mercy.
It’s easy to fall for the lie that you have to
stay. Fear of the unknown is scary. The truth is there are good
bosses out there. I worked for a modern-day
Buddha. They were the best years of my career.
It was a risk though.
When he showed up we all looked him up in the company
directory. He had this killer instinct in his eyes. We got scared. So scared we
started thinking about what other jobs we could get.
The vampire eyes became meerkat eyes when we had our first
coffee with him. He was kind, and understanding, and didn’t talk about himself
much. He just wanted to know all about us. Our answers made him smile. He
couldn’t get enough of our stories. He made us feel like the star of the show.
Now he’s gone on to big things. He’s on his way to becoming
like the Google co-founder Larry Page in the new world of Web 3.0. When I tell
him this he laughs. Those of us who know him well, know it’s a guarantee.
Good bosses are out there. They’ll skyrocket your career.
Go out there and find them. Ask around. Interview
bosses when you apply for jobs. Put together a series of crowdsourced
questions that help you find your Buddha boss.
Work on a side hustle after hours
Many people get scared of the phrase side
hustle.
They mistake working
after hours for burnout. But when you love the work you choose to
do when you get home from a job, it doesn’t feel like work at all. That’s
how I felt working in finance every day and coming home at night to
write. Writing helped me recover from the day, not wear me out.
A side hustle is an experiment where you back yourself and
start it for the love of work, not money. Choosing work based on how much
it pays gives a bias toward your developed skills.
But new skills take years to monetize. That’s why changing
the work you do to a new set of skills and trying to pay your bills at the same
time is a bad idea. The chance you’ll pull it off is unlikely.
Working after hours on a side hustle for $0 focuses effort
on your skill stack. Skill stacks build empires later down the line.
Help your colleagues level up
Too many careers are built on selfishness.
Capitalism accidentally teaches us that our career is a
competition and that our colleagues in the office are our rivals.
Wrong.
The people who experience long-term career success are
unselfish. As Tony Robbins says,
they find a way to do more for others than anyone else does.
It’s true in my career for sure. When I got stuck and
hit a plateau, I started running training sessions for the new employees who would
join. Good leaders noticed and eventually offered me higher positions
because of it.
When your colleagues succeed, you succeed. It’s
counter-intuitive.
Update your LinkedIn profile
Recruiters, business owners, and hiring managers don’t hire
resumes. They hire people. LinkedIn has the potential to show much more of your
human side than a lifeless A4 copy of a printed resume ever will.
Time is limited so the chance to meet someone face-to-face
who can elevate your career is unlikely.
Think about it. What’s the first thing you do in a business
context when you hear a person’s name you don’t know? You search for them on
LinkedIn.
Here’s what tells your story:
- The
photo you use. Choose a humble facial expression.
Update it yearly so it reflects what you really look like. Out-of-date photos make you a liar.
- The
headline that says what you do. Make it creative — not some
esoteric nonsense like, I change lives with timber.
- The
summary of your career. This is where you inspire the person
looking at your profile with non-generic, non-bullsh*t, weapons of mass
destruction. I like to add personality and unexpected insights. That
simply means I make it personal. Because so many people forget that
business IS personal, not professional.
- The
descriptions below each job on your profile are where you get to
further talk about how you help humanity. Many people leave these blank.
Don’t. The more humanity you can show on your profile, the more likely
hidden opportunities will reveal themselves in your LinkedIn message
inbox.
You may have filled out your LinkedIn
profile before.
The trouble is it gets old. Update your profile ASAP. In the
process, you’ll rewrite the narrative of your career. That will help you think about the work you do.
Share your thoughts on social media
Social media is scary. Many HR experts will tell you not to.
I disagree.
Social media is fine for your career if you stay away from
controversial topics, like vaccines and politics. Sharing your stories on
platforms such as LinkedIn acts as a magnet. People you help or inspire will
find their way into your inbox. This is what you want.
People give you opportunities, not job ads that waste your
time.
Share things you find helpful on LinkedIn. Turn on the
opportunity magnet. Attract your tribe.
Change jobs if you’re too comfortable
Stagnation ruins many careers.
You know the feeling. The one where you wake up for work
each day and something feels like it’s missing. Except you can’t work out what.
That’s likely a sign you’re too comfortable.
A career is an adventure. It’s over in the blink of an eye.
Few people tell you that you can change jobs as many times
as you change underwear.
Job hopping helps keep you in a state of growth. Plus, our
lives are made up of multiple careers. We don’t have one anymore. This
paradigm shift still hasn’t got planted inside many people’s minds. It needs
to.
If something feels off at work, I double dare you to go on
LinkedIn and start looking for new jobs and reaching out to decision-makers.
Invest your salary in assets to buy your time back
Going to work for money to pay bills is the worst reason.
Take part of your salary and invest it in proper
financial assets. It won’t change your career overnight. But slowly, it will
generate money that helps you buy back your time.
More time helps you be more thoughtful about the work you
do.
Summing up
Get out there and get amongst it!
One life. Multiple careers to live.
A mountain of opportunities is all centralized for you on LinkedIn. To complain about the huge opportunities available is lame. Apply one idea I’ve just mentioned. You’ll transform your career in a year when you do.