Align Values, Courage, and Relationships for Fulfilling Career
TL;DR
- Prioritize understanding personal values and long-term desires before committing to career steps, as unclear values lead to difficult decisions and potential regret upon achieving goals prematurely.
- Recognize that achieving early career goals can lead to a loss of purpose and motivation, necessitating a re-evaluation of life's direction beyond immediate professional achievements.
- Balance career ambition with investing in relationships and non-work aspects of life, as strong personal connections provide fulfillment and support that career progression alone cannot.
- Embrace courage and learn from failure by trusting your judgment and pushing boundaries, as this proactive approach fosters confidence and unlocks greater potential than succumbing to imposter syndrome.
- Seek environments where your strengths are valued and leveraged, as aligning your career with your core competencies significantly enhances performance, happiness, and overall success.
- Focus on making strategic decisions about what to build rather than just executing code, as this higher-level thinking positions you to influence direction and derive greater value.
- Prefer high-growth environments where career progression is accelerated by company expansion, but ensure this is balanced with building strong professional relationships and reputation.
Deep Dive
Distinguished engineers and CTOs advise aspiring professionals to prioritize self-awareness and strategic value alignment over a singular focus on career progression. The core insight is that achieving early career success without a clear understanding of personal values or the true desire for the achieved goal can lead to a profound loss of purpose and well-being, suggesting that sustainable career fulfillment hinges on aligning external achievements with internal motivations and relationships.
The compiled advice reveals a critical tension between rapid advancement and holistic development. Many experts emphasize that setting clear values makes decision-making easier, preventing the "dog that caught the car" scenario where achieving a long-sought goal leaves one without a subsequent purpose, potentially leading to significant personal distress. This highlights a second-order implication: the pursuit of external validation or predefined career milestones can be a hollow victory if it doesn't align with intrinsic desires, leading to a need for re-evaluation and potentially a mid-career crisis. Furthermore, the advice suggests that the aggressive pursuit of career peaks, especially at younger ages, can come at the cost of crucial personal relationships. One speaker noted that bending personal boundaries to an extreme for career gains can lead to irreparable damage in relationships, underscoring that some "reads" in life are not meant to be bent indefinitely.
A recurring theme is the importance of self-trust and courage, particularly in the face of imposter syndrome. Many professionals wish they had trusted their own judgment and ideas more, pushing boundaries earlier rather than waiting for external validation. This suggests that a lack of self-belief can lead to missed opportunities and increased anxiety, creating a feedback loop that hinders growth. The implication is that actively developing confidence and embracing calculated risks, even those that might "rock the boat," is essential for innovation and personal satisfaction. Additionally, experts advocate for investing in relationships and aspects of life outside of work, recognizing that a fulfilling life is built on a broader foundation than career achievements alone. Neglecting friendships and romantic relationships can lead to a lack of support systems and a diminished sense of overall life progression, even when career metrics are strong.
Finally, the advice stresses finding environments where one's strengths are valued and utilizing common sense over blindly following established corporate norms. This implies that career success is not solely about individual effort but also about strategic positioning within organizations that recognize and leverage unique talents. The consequence of not being in a valued environment can lead to underperformance and dissatisfaction, suggesting that proactively seeking out supportive teams is a critical career management strategy.
The key takeaway is that a truly successful and fulfilling career is built not just on technical prowess or rapid advancement, but on a deep understanding of personal values, courage to pursue authentic goals, and the cultivation of strong relationships, all while strategically aligning oneself with environments that foster growth and recognize individual contributions.
Action Items
- Build relationships outside of work: Allocate fair effort to friendships and romantic relationships for life fulfillment.
- Track career decisions: For 3-5 key decisions, document desired outcomes versus actual results to refine goal setting.
- Measure personal value alignment: For 3-5 career choices, assess if decisions were driven by personal values or external expectations.
- Develop decision-making clarity: Spend time defining personal values to simplify future career and life choices.
- Identify and leverage strengths: Seek environments where your core skills are recognized and valued for better performance and happiness.
Key Quotes
"decisions are easy when your values are clear to you right decisions for me a lot of times were hard because i didn't have clear values if you know exactly where you're going decisions toward getting there become a lot easier so one advice i would give my younger self is spend a little more time thinking about what you actually want right before you commit to doing these things"
The speaker argues that clarity of values simplifies decision-making. This quote highlights the importance of self-reflection on personal desires before committing to career paths or actions. The speaker suggests that understanding one's true wants makes the journey toward those goals more straightforward.
"i often feel like i was the dog that caught the car you know like i was convinced when i joined microsoft that what i wanted to be was a dev manager okay and so for my first eight years or so i would take any job that would get me a step toward that so one decisions were easy then because it was like well does this job get me a step closer yes it does then i'll take it right but once i caught that car you know once i hit that level once i recognized that hey e7 might be my terminal level this might be the highest i ever get in my career the problem with peaking early you know because i hit that level when i was probably i don't know 20 you know 30 years old or or something like this right the problem is you're like a child actor like the question is what are you going to do with the rest of your life"
This quote illustrates the potential pitfalls of achieving a long-held goal prematurely. The speaker uses the metaphor of a dog catching a car to describe reaching a career milestone and then feeling lost. The speaker explains that once the goal is achieved, the lack of a subsequent plan can lead to a crisis of purpose, akin to a child actor whose primary skill is no longer relevant.
"i would say a be sure that's really what you want and part b is like you know be sure you're comfortable with other things breaking you know because like that is what it will take to get there if that's truly what you want so my advice to my younger self about that period of time would have been you know in net getting to level 67 getting to an e7 when you're 30 versus 38 in the big arc doesn't make any difference like beyond 38 i still have 30 years of work to go right so it's like how fast do i want to be at my terminal level like what's the real plan there versus can i keep a healthy relationship with my spouse with my kids right that's important"
The speaker advises a dual approach to ambitious career pursuits: confirming the desire for the goal and accepting potential sacrifices. This quote emphasizes that achieving extreme career success may require compromising other life aspects, such as relationships. The speaker suggests that the timeline for reaching a career peak is less important than maintaining a balanced life.
"i think for me now i think a lot more about am i even going to a direction i want to be at when i get there right one final thought that i'll leave with you with the sleeping bag business is sometimes you bend the read sometimes you break the read right sometimes things break and they aren't fixable"
The speaker now prioritizes directional alignment over mere progress, questioning if the destination is truly desirable. This quote uses the "sleeping bag business" anecdote to illustrate that some efforts or situations can be pushed to their breaking point. The speaker implies that understanding when to bend and when to accept that something is irrevocably broken is a crucial life lesson.
"i think i would just tell him to trust himself a little bit more because i think for a very long time i just had so much imposter syndrome i was so anxious that you know i wasn't going to do so well and over time i like built up that confidence like through projects my projects succeeding and working well with others and getting good feedback but i think i was like really unsure of myself and i wish i just you know trusted myself a little bit more to do it earlier so i'd be less anxious and stressed all the time and be fretting less over imposter syndrome in the beginning of my career"
The speaker reflects on the impact of imposter syndrome and anxiety early in their career. This quote highlights the speaker's belief that trusting one's own judgment more could have led to greater confidence and less stress. The speaker suggests that early success through projects and collaboration eventually built confidence, but starting with more self-trust could have accelerated this process.
"i'm gonna i'm gonna take a more maybe emotional angle on this as opposed to technical or career oriented but like i think the advice to me would be to really invest in relationships and the aspects outside of work like i'm only just now realizing in the last year and a half or so that like i was underinvested in in friendships and romantic relationships and things of this nature and it was largely because i was putting so much effort into work even if it wasn't in hours wise like that's where my optimizations were and you realize that like you spend all this time road mapping goal setting checking in with yourself about your career progression but in terms of like general life progression i didn't apply nearly that same vigor"
The speaker advocates for prioritizing personal relationships and non-work aspects of life. This quote reveals the speaker's realization that an overemphasis on career optimization came at the expense of friendships and romantic relationships. The speaker contrasts the meticulous planning applied to career progression with a lack of similar effort in general life progression, suggesting this imbalance had negative consequences.
"i would come back to the don't be the best be the only um i i think early in my career i had a lot of fear of hey i'm i'm mediocre at a lot of things like i see my friends i would look up to my friends who are really good at design and i'd like oh i wish i could do that right or i'd look to my other friends who are just better engineers like i wish i could do that but the thing that i had was ability to negotiate across all those themes and that's uncomfortable because i wasn't sure if that would pan out and it turns out that it did"
The speaker proposes a strategy of differentiation over universal excellence, advising to "be the only" rather than "be the best." This quote explains that early career insecurity stemmed from feeling mediocre in various skills, contrasting with friends who excelled in specific areas like design or engineering. The speaker found success by leveraging an ability to bridge different domains, even when uncertain about its viability.
"the thing i would change is probably not surprising you i would wake up much sooner to jobs are still with other humans it's great to be an expert it's great to be right but build the skills to have the relationships make the friends um get to know lots of people and you don't have to be an extrovert to do that i was a classic introvert i've certainly learned to be more extroverted but with online tools like linkedin or pick your tool you
Resources
External Resources
Books
- "Decisions are easy when your values are clear to you" by Roy Disney - Mentioned as a principle for making decisions easier by clarifying personal values.
People
- Roy Disney - Quoted for the principle that clear values lead to easy decisions.
- Dwayne - Addressed directly regarding the importance of decision-making over just coding.
Other Resources
- The sleeping bag business - Referenced as an example of a situation where extreme bending of principles led to breakage.
- Imposter syndrome - Discussed as a common feeling of anxiety and self-doubt early in a career.
- People pleasing - Identified as a behavior driven by external expectations rather than personal desire.
- Common sense - Highlighted as a crucial tool for decision-making, especially in large companies and startups.
- The dog that caught the car - Used as an analogy for achieving a goal and then not knowing what to do next, leading to a loss of purpose.
- Escalator career path - Contrasted with a career ladder, representing rapid company growth that lifts individuals along with it.
- "Don't be the best, be the only" - A principle suggesting that specializing in a unique niche is more valuable than being generally good at many things.