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7
Online Course
How
To Choose A Career Path
Introduction
- Founder & Director of a number of successful recruitment firms across multiple industries
- MBA from University of Oxford
- Scored 700 on GMAT
- Worked across 3 continents (US, Europe & Australia)
- Experience with global multinationals such as PwC
About the Author
What we will cover in this course
What we will cover
- Introduction
- The 4 Fundamental Truths
- Common Mistakes
- Identifying Potential Careers
- Getting Real World Experience
- After You Have Made The Decision
Our Methodology
The Know Work Institute derives our the content of our courses using a process called The Scientific Method
This involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions.
This course contains the hypotheses that we have found to be true when tested against these experiments.
Our Methodology
Lessons
The 4 Fundamental Truths About A Great Choosing Career
1
Only you can decide what success means
Wise Words
1
To choose a great career, you firstly need to define what success means to you.
- Only you must create this definition
- Do not use definitions of success created by your parents, teachers, friends or even wider society. Their motivations are not your motivations.
- Only you have the answer to what is truly meaningful and interesting to you
- We have only one life - don’t spend it chasing someone else’s dream
"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”
Maya Angelou
Richard P. Feynman
“Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.”
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people's expectations, then you can go mad. You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.
Barack Obama
Albert Einstein
“If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience you will find your definition of success.”
Stephen Covey
Harvard educated businessman, educator and author
Exercise
Exercise
Write a detailed list of the things that you would like people to say about you at your funeral.
This is what success looks like to you.
To Have a Great Career, You Must Love The Work
The Virtuous Circle - Enjoying Your Work
“The people who are successful loved what they did so they could persevere when things got really tough.
The ones that didn't love it quit--cause they're sane.”
Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple
2
Willpower is a finite resource
A scientific study of willpower produced in the 1990s by psychologist Roy Baumeister proved that willpower is a finite resource that we can run out of.
If our work does not re-energize us we will eventually run out of steam
The Vicious Circle - Not Enjoying Your Work
There is not just one great career out there for you
3
We were not destined for any career
- The Universe is around 13.8 billion years old
- The Earth is 4.543 billion years old
- We (Homo sapiens) have been around roughly for the last 300,000 years
- The span of recorded history is roughly less than 5,000 years
- The industrial revolution was 200 years ago
The majority of jobs around today were not even in existence 20 years ago.
We are evolved creatures, like any other animals.
The idea that we were born and destined to do just one of today’s modern jobs is simply absurd.
We could be perfectly fulfilled and successful performing multiple careers
Take comfort in this fact
Change is The Only Constant
4
- Over time our circumstances, personalities and ambitions all change
- We can not predict the future, all we can do is make the best decision we can with the information at hand
- Always seek to be comfortable with change
- This is why it’s the journey, not the destination that counts
Success is a moving target
Common Mistakes
2
Not Thinking Independently - Herd mentality
1
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people's expectations, then you can go mad. You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”
- Richard P. Feynman
Choosing a Career That You Don’t Enjoy Because of the Rewards it Promises in the Future
People think they are doing it for their long-term benefit but they are actually doing the opposite - damaging themselves in the long-run, wasting time because, as we have covered, if they don’t enjoy it they won’t succeed in it
It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb rather than half way up one you don't
2
Wise Words
On Working For Now
“Because if the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.”
“I was up at Harvard a while back, and a very nice young guy, he picked me up at the airport, a Harvard Business School attendee. And he said, "Look. I went to undergrad here, and then I worked for X and Y and Z, and now I've come here." And he said, "I thought it would really round out my résumé perfectly if I went to work now for a big management consulting firm." And I said, "Well, is that what you want to do?" And he said, "No," but he said, "That's the perfect résumé." And I said, "Well when are you going to start doing what you like?" And he said, "Well I'll get to that someday." And I said, "Well you know, your plan sounds to me a lot like saving up sex for your old age. It just doesn't make a lot of sense."”
Some Wise Words
Clayton Christensen,
American academic and business consultant
Warren Buffett
Not Having Enough Courage
“If you can think for yourself while being open-minded in a clearheaded way to find out what is best for you to do, and if you can summon up the courage to do it, you will make the most of your life.”
“Just because you’re not doing what other people are doing, that doesn’t mean you’re failing or falling behind. You’re charting your own course and staying true to yourself, even though it would be easier to join the crowd. You’re creating a life you can fall in love with instead of falling in line. You’re finding the courage to do what’s right for you, even though it’s uncertain and scary and hard. Give yourself some credit, because these are all reasons to be proud.
3
Lori Deschene
Founder of Tiny Buddha
Ray Dalio
Founder Brightwater Hedge Fund
Identifying Potential Careers
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
-Socrates
3
If money wasn't a consideration what would you do?
What are you obsessed with that other people typically aren't?
Ask the 5 people know you best what do they think would be a suitable career for you
When you were a child, what did you want to do when you grew up
Buy a newspaper what are the sections/articles that you gravitate to?
What are the things that you are doing when you get lost in the moment
6 Questions
Get Real World Experience
4
Experience What Each Career Is Like
Experience!
In order to make the best career decision for you, it is essential for you to understand the reality and day-to-day of each potential career.
Even if it is just for a day, get to see what doing each job looks like.
Get work experience in all the careers you have identified, even if it’s just for a short internship (unpaid if necessary)
Warm links are always better so here are some ways you identify people to ask:
- Utilise your friends and family networks to see if you have any contacts working in those careers
- Use LinkedIn to identify and message people who are in those careers
- Make the best of your school/university alumni network by asking the careers officer to introduce you to relevant individuals
After Making the Decision
5
Win Or Learn
Follow this 5 Step Process
Ray Dalio's 5 Step Process for Success