Career Advice

12 pieces of career advice that changed my life…
(they don’t teach you in school):

I get a lot of messages asking for career advice.

This is my attempt to synthesize a few years of responses into short, actionable lessons.

Behind each is a longer (probably painful) story. But I’ll spare you those details (for now!).

1. Be valuable
Create value, receive value. If you want to make a lot of money, create value for everyone you come into contact with. Money earned is a direct byproduct of value created.

2. Be the person who can figure it out.
Early on, you’ll be given a lot of tasks you have no idea how to complete. There’s nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out. Do some work, ask key questions, get it done.

3. The best opportunities look like tiny cracks, not open doors.
Opportunities rarely feel obvious in the moment. Capitalizing on them requires one part awareness (to spot the tiny crack) and ten parts courage (to dive through it).

4. If you want extraordinary outputs, you need to be willing to contribute extraordinary inputs.
Life is filled with challenging, painful tradeoffs and sacrifices. There’s no cheat code or hack to get around it.

5. The ability to take feedback is a long-term competitive advantage.
Everyone says they want feedback, but most just mean they want positive feedback. If you can seek out constructive feedback and embrace it, you will always outmatch the person who runs from it.

6. Seek out rooms where you don’t feel like you belong.
That feeling of uncertainty, fear, and discomfort is usually a sign of growth.

7. Potential is nothing without execution.
When you’re young, everyone cares about your potential. You get accustomed to focusing on it. But as you get older, no one cares about your potential—just your delivery against it.

8. Learn to sell.
Sell yourself, your story, your product, your vision, your ideas. Don’t be afraid of being told no.

9. Build a reputation for reliability.
My grandfather once told me: “You’ll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary.” I will never forget that.

10. Don’t follow your passion, follow your energy.
Passion can lie, but energy never does. When you have energy for something, you’re prone to giving your deep attention to learn more about it.

11. Do the “old fashioned” things well.
Look people in the eye, do what you say you’ll do, be early, practice good posture, have a confident handshake, listen more than you speak.

12. Everything matters.
You don’t get to pick and choose when to show up, because the world will ignore your best and judge you for your worst.