Daniel Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind”, wrote this fabulous little book, “
The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need”. It’s a quick read, practically like reading a comic book! It’s written in the Japanese comic format known as manga. Packed with practical, cut-to-the-chase advice with six essential lessons for thriving in the world of work, I highly recommend it.
Here’s the skinny, in case you want it straight up, like I usually do:
1. There is no plan. Most people think it’s so important to plan out your career for years out, like a life map. The world of work changes. Your job might not even exist 5 years from now. New jobs will appear. Instead, make decisions for fundamental reasons: take a job or join a company because it will let you do interesting work in a cool place, even if you don’t know exactly where it will lead.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. I definitely promote this approach. Buckingham and Seligman’s research about discovering your strengths show that the key to success if to steer around your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. Successful people don’t try too hard to improve what they’re bad at. They capitalize on what they’re good at. That’s good news – if you follow this advice, you’ll be involved in work that gives you energy instead of draining it.
3. It’s not about you. Your work is about your customer, about your clients. Using your strengths is not to self-actualize. Your work is to serve. Help customers solve their problem. Give your client something she doesn’t know she’s missing. Have an outward view, not inward. The most valuable people in any job bring out the best in others. Make your boss look good. Help your team members succeed.
4. Persistence trumps talent. Like athletes and musicians, successful people show up, they practice and practice and practice some more, and do well in whatever career they choose. Like compound interest, a bit of persistence builds on itself. Over time, a little bit of persistence improve performance, which encourages greater persistence, which improves performance even more, and so on. Talent isn’t so important; the world is littered with talented people who didn’t persist, who didn’t put in the hours, who gave up too early. Meanwhile less talented people who
persist pass them by. That’s why intrinsic motivation is so important – doing something because you simply like doing it, rather than needing to get an external reward like money or a promotion. The more intrinsic motivation you have, the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more you are likely to succeed.
5. Make excellent mistakes. Too many people spend time avoiding mistakes. They’re so concerned about being wrong, about messing up, that they never try anything – which means they never do anything. Their focus is avoiding failure. The most successful people make spectacular mistakes – huge honking screwups! They’re trying to do something big, and each time they make a mistake, they get a little better and move a little closer towards excellence. Excellent mistakes are those that come from having high aspirations, from trying to do something nobody else has done, rather than stupid, thoughtless blunders.
6. Leave an imprint. When you get towards the end of your life, you’ll ask yourself questions like: Did I make a difference? Did I contribute something? Did my being here matter? Did I do something that left an imprint? Before it’s too late, ask yourself those questions now. Think about your purpose, recognize that your life isn’t infinite, and use your limited time here to do something that matters. Truly successful people deploy the other 5 lessons in the service of something larger than themselves. They leave their companies, their communities, their families a little better than before. This is what it means to be alive.
What are your
strengths? How are you expressing your strengths at work?
How
persistent are you? How can you build your persistence ‘muscle’?
What are you working to
contribute? What really matters?
