5 Tips to BUILD A Kickass Career

Your career is a vehicle--are you the driver or a passenger?

You’re about to start your full-time working life. For many Americans, it’s a forty-year journey from your first day on the job until you “retire.” Are you ready?

We, your parents, are not worried. At all. We know you’ll do fine 

To be sure, we’ve prepared a cheat sheet in case you forgot the amazing career tips we shared with you during dinner over the last 15 years. 

A career can be many things. It can be a custom car that takes you to magical places. Or, it can be a broken-down POS that strands you in depressed places and with horrible people. Your mother and I hope you discover, as many happy people do, that a career you build thoughtfully and drive yourself will take you to wherever you want to go.

BUILD your career using these 5 tips

Here’s a simple acronym to help you remember key tips to BUILD a career to the destinations or goals, you choose:

• Bridges: Build bridges between destinations

• Unknown: Assume no one knows your destination

• Industrious: Be industrious as you work towards your destination

• Learner: Be a lifelong learner and learn how to get to many destinations

• Destinations: Have a 2 and 5-year destination

Number 5, Destinations, should be the first tip, but then the mnemonic doesn’t work…

Recommended Reading

If you study one “business” book, make it Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My tips are based on my experience but are influenced heavily by Covey’s more coherent set of habits.

Build bridges (don’t burn them) between destinations

Google discovered it wasn’t GPA or standardized test scores that predicted a person’s success at work, it was their ability to collaborate with other people. 

While our culture loves to worship mythical individuals who can do everything on their own, in reality, they don’t exist. Most worthwhile things in life are built by teams: applications, movies, medicine, a healthy, well-adjusted child. 

Tips for building bridges:

• Continually improve these core skills:

  • Communication: Listening and communicating

  • Problem-solving: Finding solutions

  • Interpersonal Skills: Being empathetic, earning trust, and building alignment

  • Project management: Achieve goals within constraints

• Build relationships and networks:

  • Give credit: Recognize everyone’s contribution (in person, or using systems like LinkedIn Recommendations)

  • Keep in touch: Check-in after you part ways

  • Find role models: Find mentors, champions, and supporters 

  • Pay it forward: Make time to mentor, champion, and support others

You’ll learn that bridge builders are good networkers and find it much easier to handle the bumpy roads of modern work life that can change drastically without warning.

BTW: In today’s tightly networked world, it’s much easier to find new roles (getting to a new destination) by getting an intro from a current or past co-worker. Most of my career opportunities came directly from folks I worked with previously or their connections. 

Unknown: Assume no one knows your destination

Trust me. You’re not surrounded by evil dummies at work. They aren’t (usually) trying to stop you. They don’t know you’re trying to get to Chicago. If you ask people about their destination and share yours, you may be surprised:

You: I’m going to the Windy City.

Co-worker: I’m going to Second City. Get out of my way.

You: Second City is for losers. Why you going there?

Co-worker: I wanna see a Cubs game.

You: Wait, are you going to Chicago?

Co-worker: Duh. Chicago. Second City.

You: I’m going to Wrigleyville. We’re going to the same place!

Co-worker: Jump in. We can go together!

You may work with folks who speak the same language. You may even enjoy similar movies. And everyone likes pizza. You have so much in common that it’s easy to assume you completely understand each other’s goals.

You do not. You may be surprised that some people like corn, octopus or even pineapple on their pizza (they live among us!).

Remember to ask others about their destinations and find out why they’re going. Are they really going to Chicago in February??? When people understand your destination and why you’re going, they naturally try to be helpful. You’ll do the same. This is win/win.

Tips to be known:

• Avoid assumptions: Remember, just because someone knows your title, they do NOT know what you’re trying to achieve right now. Invest in educating team members and socializing your goals. 

• Make time to understand others: Make time in your day to understand what others are working on and what they are trying to achieve. Find shared destinations and motivations. 

Industrious

Work hard and be productive. You will be respected and appreciated. Nothing alienates co-workers more than someone who doesn’t do their fair share. If you are working on important things and making progress, you will be valued. Don’t forget: busy does not equal productive.

If you struggle to be industrious, then figure out if it's personnel (like a single bad manager) or culture/institution. You can find ways around a single bad boss, but changing a culture? It’s possible but risky and can be hard. Pick your career battles wisely.

Tips for being industrious:

• Exceed expectations: Set and manage expectations. Don’t follow the clock; work as much as you need to deliver on commitments. You can be the slowest worker or the first to go home. You can’t be both. 

• Work on valuable things: Try to be involved in high-value projects or initiatives. Are you on the Betamax team or the hot new VHS team?

• Be reliable: Deliver on time. If you can’t, message the delay in advance with a path forward.  

Learn: Learn how to get to many destinations

Be a lifelong learner. It pays ridiculous dividends continually. Learning improves your brain and spirit. Dopamine is released in your brain, so learning feels good. The more you learn, the better you get at learning. You feel good about yourself when you become competent in a new skill or acquire new knowledge. Since the world and technology are constantly changing, people who want and can learn new things can have more opportunities.

Tips for being a lifelong learner: 

• Be a master of at least one discipline: Build mastery in at least one area and be better than anyone else. Generalists can be valuable but as a company grows, specialization is prized. Know your strengths and build mastery accordingly. 

• Observe successful people: When you notice someone being particularly effective at work, study and learn how they get shit done. (Watch how folks lead meetings; effective leaders use meetings to make progress; bad leaders waste time and destroy motivation.)

• Learn how others do their role. This will help you help them, and you’ll acquire new knowledge and skills. 

• Learn after 5: Learn new skills on your own outside of work. Take classes, read, and learn, learn, learn.

Destination: Have a 2 and 5-year destination

Having a career destination or a goal in mind increases your chances of achieving or reaching that destination, especially if you share your intention. Also, it helps you avoid wasting time at destinations that don’t get you closer to your larger life goals. If you have a two- and five-year professional destination, you’re more likely to make progress towards both on a daily basis. You can always change a destination if you discover you took a wrong turn and don’t like the scenery. 

Once you have a destination, like Chicago, you immediately ask yourself questions like “Should I drive or fly?”. Such questions help you reach your destination. These are common questions you learn to ask to reach a destination:

• How do I get there?

• What resources do I need?

• Do I need help?

• Do I know anyone who’s made the trip?

• What could go wrong?

• What is “there” specifically?

This approach works if your destination is a location or a profession, like becoming a lawyer or making a film. 

Note

The most challenging part of being an adult is choosing your own destination. For many young Americans, the first time they start truly selecting their own destination is after they graduate college or leave home. Having a 2-year destination allows you to course correct more easily if you discover you don’t like the path. 

It may be hard to imagine, but this is true: you will discover that you need increasingly difficult professional challenges to stay engaged.

Tips for choosing destinations:

• Pick destinations that excite you and get you closer to another, bigger destination

• Determine if your destinations have prerequisites:

• To become a lawyer, you have to get a 4-year degree, complete law school, pass a licensing exam, and so on. Order matters.

• Break your destination into smaller milestones

• Once a year for an hour, imagine you’re on your deathbed:

• Who is with you?

• What memories will you have shared with them?

• What will you leave behind?

• What destinations are prerequisites to get to that place?

The last tip may seem morbid but the point is important. Covey says: Start with the end in mind. 

Conclusion

You use models and metaphors to work with an abstract thing, like a career. If you take control of your career, it can be a vehicle to a dream destination. If you don’t, it could be a weapon in an unintentional crime—the manslaughter of your own potential. The road will be bumpy. There will be detours, and some, you will discover, are better routes to new destinations. If, on the journey, you are usually where you want to be and are surrounded by happy people, you are on the right road. But if you continually find yourself in with unhappy people in roles that aren’t fulfilling, pull over. You’re driving a POS. Take the first safe exit, and make a new plan.