Whether you're just starting or building your career, you've undoubtedly faced new challenges that no textbook or classroom could have prepared you for. Using a simple set of core principles can help you start and build your career.

Career Success Guide

Treat your career lifecycle as a company.<ul><li>You start as a high-growth startup.</li><li>You grow into a bigger business.</li><li>You IPO and are a public company.</li></ul> At each phase, you will encounter a variety of difficult and new decisions. Traditionally, people have turned to mentorship to guide them through the uncharted waters. A better approach is building a personal board of 5 -10 advisors comprising of individuals (not family) from varying backgrounds willing to give you raw feedback.

Build a Personal Board of Advisors

The “frog” is a complex or annoying task your boss doesn’t want to do. However, that frog is your opportunity to get ahead early in your career. <ol><li>Observe your boss.</li><li>Figure out what they hate doing.</li><li>Teach yourself to do it.</li><li>Take it off their plate.</li></ol>

Swallow the Frog for Your Boss

Establish a decentralised friend group to learn from and grow with. Interacting with this group will expose you to new ideas, industries, and opportunities. Features of a decentralised friend group: <ul><li>Unconnected to other groups</li><li>Different backgrounds</li><li>Range of experience sets</li><li>Novel perspectives</li></ul>

Create a Decentralized Growth Tribe

If you can sell, you'll always make it. Selling means learning to tell a compelling, convincing story. The more you progress in any field, the more of your job becomes sales: <ul><li>You sell yourself when you want a company to hire you.</li><li>You sell your idea when you want investors to back you.</li><li>You sell your vision when you want customers to pay you.</li><li>You sell your culture when you want employees to join you.</li></ul>

Learn to Sell

The biggest mistake young people make early in their careers is to prioritise salary. Instead, think long-term.  A foundation-building experience will be more effective than extra money. What are the opportunities, experiences, and relationships that will build the strongest foundation for your future?

Prioritize Experience, Not Salary

<ul><li>The comparison trap is the desire to compare ourselves and our progress to others. But comparing ourselves to others is also dangerous.</li></ul> <ul><li>The zone of excellence trap is the area where you are highly competent but don't have a passion or energy for. You'll be told you are great, but it's not where you want to be. Instead, find your zone of genius. It is where your interests, passions and skills align.</li></ul>

Avoid the Comparison Trap and the Zone of Excellence Trap

When you start, you won't be good at most things. Most jobs are apprenticeship-oriented. You have to learn by following and doing, meaning you will make mistakes. That's ok. What's not ok is not owning your mistakes or making the same mistake twice. So when you make a mistake, own it and build a system to avoid it in the future.

Own Your Mistakes

In every company, there are certain rooms where the big stuff happens: The important negotiations, the critical decisions, or the conflicts and debates. Find these rooms and ensure to get in there. It could be as simple as offering to take notes and send around action items. Then, when you're in the room, listen and observe. You will get a huge learning experience.

Get In "The Room"

T-Shaped knowledge has breadth & depth. <ul><li>Breadth allows you to be thoughtful and constructive across various business areas.</li><li>Depth allows you to be world-class in a specific area of expertise. You get there through hard, task-specific effort over time.</li></ul> Ensure you are building breadth and depth. Breadth makes you an asset to an organisation, while depth makes you critical to your organisation.

Build "T-Shaped" Knowledge

10 principles to help you navigate the challenges of your early career

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Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

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Leadership & Management

The Career Success Guide

When Steve Jobs was young, he dropped out of college, which enabled him to take a calligraphy course that interested him, but had no immediate practical benefit. Looking back, the Mac would not have had multiple typefaces or well-spaced fonts if Jobs had not dropped in on that course in college. You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect it in hindsight. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.

How your experiences join up

Getting fired from Apple was at first devastating for Jobs, but it was also the best thing that could have happened. Being a beginner again freed him to enter the most creative period of his life. In the next five years, Jobs started the company NeXT and Pixar. What kept him going was that he loved what he was doing.  You have to find what you love. Work will fill the largest part of your life, and you will only be satisfied if you do great work. If you haven't found what you love, keep looking. Don't settle.

Love and loss

If today is the last day of your life, would you do what you plan to do that day? If the answer is "no", you need to change something. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Instead, dare to follow your heart.

Live each day as if it was your last

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005. Transcript of Steve Jobs' address: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html Stanford University channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/stanford

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Motivation & Inspiration

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Videos

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

As meeting participants, we worry that our colleagues will judge us — or worse yet, forget about us — if we don’t accept every invitation. Deeply ingrained norms around what it means to be an “ideal worker” lead us to equate presence with productivity and these assumptions are bolstered when bosses use facetime as a proxy for commitment, or when they fail to represent absent employees’ opinions in meetings.While it’s on managers to avoid these harmful behaviors, employees can work to overcome these fears by finding ways to demonstrate their value and engagement outside of meetings.

Meeting FOMO

Leaders will schedule meetings whenever convenient for them, without necessarily considering their teams’ needs or schedules. Sometimes leaders even knowingly schedule meetings when their team has conflicts, forcing everyone to shift their calendars around to accommodate.While this can be extremely frustrating, selfish urgency often isn’t malicious. People are notoriously bad at recognizing opportunity costs, meaning it may not even occur to many leaders that scheduling a meeting means their team will be unable to spend the time doing something more valuable.

Selfish Urgency

Sometimes we use meetings as commitment devices: that is, mechanisms to help make sure people follow through on their promises. An external deadline (like a meeting with your boss) can be an effective motivator — but the meeting itself is often unnecessary, with people simply reporting on how they did or didn’t achieve the agreed-upon target.
To address this issue without losing the motivating effect of meetings as commitment devices, tell your team in advance that the meeting will be canceled if the deadline is met — essentially framing cancellation as the reward for reaching the goal

Meetings as Commitment Devices

When we are stressed, completing seemingly urgent (yet actually unimportant) tasks can provide some relief. This is known as the Mere Urgency Effect. Scheduling and attending meetings can make us feel like we’ve accomplished something, and so we’re often loath to decline or cancel them, even if they are objectively not as important as our other work.This is often compounded by a strong sense of inertia: If we’ve always held a certain meeting at a certain time, it’s a lot easier to just keep doing that than to reevaluate whether it’s actually a good idea.

The Mere Urgency Effect

Too often, we end up in the same bad meeting over and over again, just because no one remembers what was discussed in the last meeting. To avoid meeting amnesia, schedule a short five-minute team debrief after key internal and external calls. These debriefs are especially important in a fully virtual environment since, with fewer opportunities to connect informally, it’s easy for meeting leaders not to notice when employees (especially junior ones) leave a call confused.
In addition, leaders should make it routine to keep track of what was said and to share those summaries with attendees.

Meeting Amnesia

It refers to a phenomenon whereby even though we’re all experiencing the same thing, we assume that other people don’t feel the same way about it as we do. This bias leads us to continue to schedule and attend meetings even when everyone secretly agrees that they’re useless because we assume we’re the only one who thinks so.To overcome pluralistic ignorance, leaders should encourage their teams to openly share their frustrations and feedback, and they should work together to regularly identify and eliminate unproductive meetings.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Six biases that lead us to have too many meetings — and how to overcome them.

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Remote Work

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Corporate Culture

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Human Resources

The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload

Imposter Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where a person doubts his or her own skills and competencies. 
They believe that their coworkers will get to know that they may be just faking their way in the company without knowing much and that they are a fraud.
Self-doubt and feelings of being an imposter mostly arise among brilliant, qualified people who try to measure themselves with other, similarly qualified coworkers.

Imposter Syndrome

Actual imposters do not doubt themselves of being phoney, fake or con artists, because that is what they are. They do not wonder if they are up to the mark, or if they are qualified for their current role, as they are busy projecting confidence and cooking up convincing but fake stories!

Imposters Don’t Have Imposter Syndrome

The quickest way to get out of the imposter syndrome is to admit it to someone you trust completely. This is something a con artist would never do.
The truth shall set you free.

Getting Out Of Imposter Syndrome

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Problem Solving

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Communication

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Business

Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

An ethical dilemma (ethical paradox or moral dilemma) is a problem in the decision-making process between two possible options, neither of which is absolutely acceptable from an ethical perspective.

What is an Ethical Dilemma?

The biggest challenge of an ethical dilemma is that it does not offer an obvious solution that would comply with ethics al norms. The following approaches to solve an ethical dilemma were deduced:<ul><li>Refute the paradox (dilemma): The situation must be carefully analyzed. In some cases, the existence of the dilemma can be logically refuted.</li><li>Value theory approach: Choose the alternative that offers the greater good or the lesser evil.</li><li>Find alternative solutions: In some cases, the problem can be reconsidered, and new alternative solutions may arise.</li></ul>

How to Solve an Ethical Dilemma?

<ul><li>Ethical dilemmas frequently occur in the workplace. Some companies and professional organizations adhere to their own codes of conduct and ethical standards. Violation of the standards may lead to disciplinary sanctions.</li><li>Almost every aspect of business can become a possible ground for ethical dilemmas. It may include relationships with co-workers, management, clients, and business partners.</li><li>In order to solve ethical problems, companies and organizations should develop strict ethical standards for their employees. Every company must demonstrate its concerns regarding the ethical norms within the organization. In addition, companies may provide ethical training for their employees.</li></ul>

Ethical Dilemmas in Business

An ethical dilemma (ethical paradox or moral dilemma) is a problem in the decision-making process between two possible options, neither of

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Technology & The Future

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Artificial Intelligence

Ethical Dilemma - Definition, How to Solve, and Examples

How everything proceeds depend on you. Tackling the issue is important but you don&#39;t have to do what you don&#39;t want to do. However, being placed with the responsibility of handling a team or a handful number of employees is a much better practice to seek first and understand.
When a project misses the mark, try focusing on the possibilities that might have happened; was there a miscommunication? Have you said something different? Is there a way to approach this with fresh eyes?

Seek first to understand

With every output, teams usually hold meetings to discuss every part of the project. It is important to clarify any questions that everyone on the team has so that time won&#39;t be wasted. 
Make it a practice to recap the project, the expectations, and the next possible steps to be taken with everyone. Not only does this reduce the risk of unclear directions but it helps everyone keep on track of the project.

Good team communication

In his weekly advice column, Maynard Webb tackles the opposite of “scope creep” and urges both sides to listen. 


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Teamwork

Can this project be saved? How to respond when a proposal totally misses the mark

<ul>
<li>Strong emotions on both sides;</li>
<li>A focus on character rather than on behavior;</li>
<li>A lack of clarity about what needs to change and why;</li>
<li>Negative or critical feedback threatens not only our self-esteem but also our basic need for safety and security;</li>
</ul>

Constructive Criticism: Why Feedback Goes Wrong

Wrong reasons:<ul><li>defend/excuse your own behavior;</li><li>to demoralize/condemn;</li><li>you're in a bad mood;</li><li>to appease a third party;</li></ul>to make yourself seem superior/powerfulRight reasons:<ul><li>commitment/concern for another;</li><li>sense of responsibility;</li><li>to guide/mentor;</li><li>to support/enhance.</li></ul>

Right vs. Wrong reasons to give feedback

<ul><li>Specific, Timely, Meaningful, and Candid;</li><li>Goal-oriented;</li><li>Focused on the future;</li><li>Focused on the process, not the person;</li><li>Isn't afraid to be negative;</li><li>Can be positive;</li><li>Doesn't assume it's right.</li></ul>

Effective Feedback is...

"Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions."

"Information becomes feedback if, and only if, I am trying to cause something and the information tells me whether I am on track or need to change course."

A simple template for giving effective feedback that ensures you’re hitting all the right points, that goes like this:<ol><li>Ask to give feedback.</li><li>Tell them "You did X. It caused Y."</li><li>If you’re giving positive feedback, say "Good job."</li><li>If you’re giving negative feedback, tell them how they should adjust their actions in the future.</li></ol>

Manager Tool’s Feedback Model

"Never criticize the person. Always criticize the actions. And when you’re making suggestions, make suggestions about actions, not about the person."

Despite being the number one driver of our personal and professional development, constructive criticism can be incredibly hard to give.

"Giving feedback turns out to be the unnatural atomic building block atop which the unnatural skill set of management gets built," wrote Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz. Despite being the number one driver of our personal and professional development, effective and actionable feedback can be incredibly hard...

The 7 Essential Qualities of Effective Feedback

The 7 Essential Qualities of Constructive Criticism

Many of us believe that having emotional intelligence means being “nice.” But this belief conceals some fundamental benefits to developing one’s EI. 
For example, simply saying someone is nice can belie the fact that they’re only nice to some people and not others. Niceness is also interpreted as someone who tries to avoid confrontations and is thus easily manipulable.

Emotional Intelligence ≠ "Being Nice"

They are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
None of these is aligned with “niceness.” In fact, being skilled in each of the four components of emotional intelligence would allow you to have confrontations when you need to, and to do it more strategically and productively.

The Components Of Emotional Intelligence

<ul>
<li>Strong self-awareness and self-management would let you control your initial impulses or any anxiety you might have around a hard conversation.</li>
<li>A highly developed sense of empathy (part of social awareness) would allow you see the situation from the other person’s point of view.</li>
<li>Handling conflict is an important part of relationship management. You’d say what you have to say, clearly and strongly, and in a way the other person can hear.</li>
</ul>

Emotional Intelligence In Confrontations

<ul>
<li>Cognitive: "I know how you think."</li>
<li>Emotional: "I know how you feel."</li>
<li>Empathetic concern: "I care about you."</li>
</ul>
They reside in different parts of the brain:

Three Kinds Of Empathy

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

What People (Still) Get Wrong About Emotional Intelligence

<ol><li> 
Truly understand what you need and and tailor everything in your selection process finding the perfect person.</li><li>Determine how you will find the perfect person to fill need that need. You don't want the best of what you saw. You want the best person for the job. </li><li>Explain the process to the interviewee.</li><li>Have a background check on the candidate before the interview.</li><li>Make the interview a conversation, not an interrogation.</li><li>Always ask follow up questions.</li><li>Spend as much time answering questions as you do asking.</li><li>Describe the next steps, don't let him be the one who ask.</li><li>Provide closure every time. Failing to follow up is incredibly rude.</li><li>Observe on how they act with other people before the interview.</li><li>Check out the references of the candidate.</li><li>Conduct one more interview to be positive that you're choosing the right one.</li><li>Make an enthusiastic offer.</li></ol>

Conduct the Perfect Job Interview

Your goal is to hire the best people you possibly can. That means your interview should be the best it possibly can.

Conduct the Perfect Job Interview in Twelve Simple Steps

People often let themselves be influenced by a management position by either becoming more aggressive or emulating other successful managers with disregard to the behavioral differences brought by context.In order to be a great leader, you must be yourself and make peace with the fact that some people will not like you. If you try to be someone else, not only will you not be able to lead, but you’ll be ashamed to have people emulate you.

How To Be A Great Leader

I don't want you to be me you should just be you -Chance The Rapper, " Wanna Be Cool " In 1993, the professional basketball player Charles Barkley famously said: "I am not a role model. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean that I should raise your kids."

The Career Success Guide

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload

Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

Ethical Dilemma - Definition, How to Solve, and Examples

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