CHOOSING A CAREER
“No one can compete with you on being you. Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.”
-Naval Ravikant
Your Dream Job Isn’t Posted Online
My dad always told me that I could create any job that I wanted to. With the internet, he was right. The internet has created so many opportunities to make careers out of things that just used to be hobbies. For example, are you obsessed with plants? You could be known as the plant lady across social media and build a business around your love of plants.
This business plan can be built around anything. If you follow Gary Vaynerchuck, he has a lot of information on creating a business out of your interests. For starters, he suggests being authentic and being consistent. Once you start gaining an audience, you start getting advertisements involved and creating leverage for yourself.
Creator Economy
Everything is going internet-based. Jobs that don’t have some creativity involved will become employed by technology. Naval says, “If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.” You don’t necessarily need to be a YouTuber, podcaster, or coder, but your job must incorporate creativity and specific knowledge (see Specific Knowledge section). If you can teach someone exactly how to do your job, your pay will continue to shrink and become outsourced.
You should figure out how to create a personal brand on the internet. Your brand and presence on the internet will be the new format for resumes. You may have been told or heard that networking is a critical aspect of business. Instead of person-to-person networking, you let the internet do the networking for you through personal websites, blogs, Twitter, podcasts, etc.
One of the unique attributes that you can market yourself off is an attribute you dislike the most about yourself. I know it sounds crazy, but often the thing that you are dissatisfied with about yourself is the characteristic that makes you stand out among the billions of people in the world. As I said before, being yourself will be the #1 advantage you have in this new economy and every other economy after that.
The link below is a brilliant article for the creators out there. It shows the breakdown of how you can succeed in the creator economy doing anything that you enjoy if you can get 1,000 true fans. One thousand may seem like a lot, and it is for many people — myself included. Still, with the internet, you have the power to reach an audience of close to 8 billion people (depending on when everyone can access the internet).
https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/
Bonus: If you decide to become a creator, there will be highs and lows involved. To stay humble and continue enjoying the life of a creator, don’t get caught up in the high praise when received, and don’t associate with the bitter people at the bottom. Stay even-keeled.
Traditional Route
If you decide to go the traditional route for schooling, the only subjects you should go into debt for are STEM subjects. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, math. For all other subjects, the amount of debt you go into makes school a scam. For all degrees outside of the STEM categories, you can learn yourself through books.
Finding Interests
If you aren’t wanting to go to college or go into tremendous debt, a brilliant decision would be to find a field you are interested in and get a job at the bottom of the totem pole. Then, suppose you stay with that company long enough. In that case, you will continue to move up the ladder, depending on your motivation and continued education, putting yourself in a position that would typically only go to people with a degree. I was just talking to a guy from high school, and he never went to college but is doing work that someone with a civil engineering degree normally does. It’s all about consistent effort.
To figure out what field would interest you, I think it’s very responsible to identify your personality type (MBTI) and align your career with whatever your personality type suggests. Something that sparks your interest or gives you excitement is a good sign of a career field you should research.
Within that research, I would HIGHLY advise going, and either job shadow or intern — an internship would be preferable due to the length of time and more exposure to the environment. If you job shadow, make sure it is at least two weeks. One job shadow isn’t enough evidence to know if you will enjoy that career — take it from someone who thought it was.
There are so many problems in the world. Find one that resonates most with you, and go! A job that aligns with your values, morals, and personality while allowing you to create change will be the biggest force in you waking up excited to go to work.
Specific knowledge
In the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, there is a tweetstorm about specific knowledge in a segment called How to Get Rich (without getting lucky). So here are Naval’s magical tweets:
“Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.
Specific knowledge is knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you.
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.
Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.
When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools.
Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated.”
Bonus: As you’ve probably noticed by now, Naval Ravikant is my imaginary mentor and a modern-day philosopher. He has changed my mental constructs of the world. Eric Jorgenson created a book called Almanack of Naval Ravikant, which you can find free online! The book contains everything Naval has tweeted or said on podcasts throughout the years. This is one of the two books that I recommend the most. Finding out about Naval has made me wiser.
Parents
I am familiar with the power that parents’ suggestions have on people, and I advise against accepting their career suggestions. Parent’s judgments can be clouded based on wanting what’s best for their kids. Bless their hearts for trying, but what they want is not always the best for the kid.
Yeah, your parents know you, but do they really know you? Unless you share absolutely everything with your parents, I’m guessing that’s a big negative on that one. Take their opinion and do your research. Your parents aren’t around your whole life, so why would you trade a lifetime of misery for a couple of years of your parents’ happiness? Choose yourself first and always.
BONUS: An excellent question to ask yourself when choosing a career is what subject are you willing to dedicate yourself to day in and day out that even if you don’t get the money, the accolades, or the acknowledgment when you are on your deathbed, and you look back at the path you took, you would think that it was worth it because you enjoyed the journey. You have to find a goal that’s worth the struggle.
THE SHORT GUIDE TO 30