Work – Thought Canvas

The Importance of Foundation

Entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant highlights the importance of learning the foundations in life.

Put simply, it’s becoming competent in skills such as numeracy, writing, reading, speaking, and listening. The better you are at these things, the stronger your foundation and the simpler you will be able to learn anything else.

In my own life, my speaking and listening was more of a weakness so I decided to work as a door-to-door salesman in the summers – there was no way I could succeed in it unless I learned how to speak and listen to a high level. In my off-season I spend a lot of time reading books and writing on this blog, in order to become more comfortable and competent when having to communicate and understand the world through written word.

These skills are not only useful in the world of work, but also everyday life.

How to Increase Job Security and How Much You Get Paid

If you feel underpaid at work, the reason is simple – you’re replaceable. You’re dispensable. There are some types of jobs where you know if you left today, there would be a replacement for you ready and waiting and happy to pick up the slack that you’ve left.

You feel like you’re wasting your time – getting paid too little for a job that you know that most relatively able people can do, or at least get taught to do without too much time and effort.

So what can you do about it? One option is to try and find a more specialized job that involves skills that are more valuable and less common. But what if you have no unique or valuable skills? Then it’s time to start learning, either in your own time or by securing a new job with pure enthusiasm, humility and a hunger to learn.

The other option is to stay in your industry, but to find ways of adding value to your company that you know no-one else can do. This can be by building relationships with people outside your organization, so that you become the channel through which correspondence is made. This can be through learning the ins and outs of the industry, and keeping up with current trends where other members of your company may have dropped the ball. You could offer to take responsibility of big projects, so much so that if you left, the project would be almost impossible to see through. Find specific skills within the scope of your role that you can do better than not only everybody else in the company, but everybody else you know.

Either way, the key to job security and getting paid well is not only your value to the company but your indispensability. Become indispensable to the point where you know it would take weeks or months of headhunting to be able to find someone that could even come close to replacing what you were able to do for your organization’s success.

Working Hard Isn’t As Important As Knowing What to Work On

Most of us have been taught the importance of hard work – through our teachers, parents, mentors, and bosses. Hard work of course can lead to success and achievement.

But if you’re going to work hard, you have to know that you’re working on the right thing.

After all, is it really success if you have achieved something you weren’t interested in to begin with?

If you want to get rich you have to know what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. Working hard matters, but hard work alone isn’t going to get you anywhere. You could work hard at being a laborer or as a cleaner but you’re not going to get rich.

On the other hand, you may find some people working in certain industries or in certain roles who are very rich, but don’t work hard. They tend to get paid for their judgement and decision-making rather than their physical output.

Before you get your head down and start working without thinking about it, think long-term. Am I doing the right job in the right industry? Not just to get rich, but does it interest me? Does it fulfill me? Do I like who I work with? Can I see myself here in the long-term?

The Three Biggest Decisions of Your Life

Entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant advises that young people should be spending more time making the big decisions: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.

These three things will pretty much determine the quality and trajectory of our lives. Sometimes we find ourselves going with the flow, entering relationships that we aren’t 100% sure of, spending a lot of time doing a job but spending so little time deciding which job would be best for us. And usually the place we decide to live in will determine who we meet and which jobs are mostly available too.

Once we decide these three things we can be much more intentional with our lives instead of being taken whichever way the wind is blowing.

The Problem with Goals

I’m little wary about the idea of setting goals.

In a way, having goals makes us focus on what we lack, and it’s easy to link our happiness to the achievement of goals. But not all goals get achieved – in that case we postpone our happiness indefinitely.

In my first two years in door-to-door sales, I was encouraged to set sales and commission goals by my managers, so I did. Both years, I fell way short of the goal. Even though I did relatively well compared to my peers, and made two to four times the amount of money as I would have done had I stayed at my previous job, having that goal and missing it by so much was demoralizing.

In my third year of door-to-door sales – partly because of the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic – I didn’t set any sales or financial goals. In fact, I was almost certain that I wouldn’t beat the totals I had made the year before because our selling season was shortened. But, I ended up producing more than I had done the previous two years, in less than 60% of the time. Not only that, not having a goal made the whole process more enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong, I still felt pressure to succeed – it was my first year managing a team and I was determined to show the new reps how the job could be done, as well as keeping our technician busy with work. Some may say, if I set a proper sales goal I may have achieved even more! Although I’m reluctant to agree with that, I can’t deny that it’s possible. Giving up having a goal in sales made it easier to do my job with the right principles – instead of focusing on getting a sale at all costs, I was focused on whether I was truly helping the person sitting in front me as my guiding principle.

It’s not that I didn’t set goals at all that year, it’s that I viewed them more like systems. I would decide how many days of the week I would be working, how many hours per day, when I would be going to sleep and waking up. Not only did I view them as systems, I focused on actions I could take instead of outcomes like sales since there was no way I could truly guarantee that someone else would say yes to my offering – there’s an element of luck involved with that.

How to Fail and Still Win Big

Like anyone else before starting a commission-only job in sales, I questioned whether it was the right decision to try it. I’d had a few months experience of a lead generation job, but I’d never made a sale in anything in my whole working career to date.

So I played through a few outcomes in my head. What if I didn’t do very well? What if I made no sales? What if I came out with less earnings than if I just stayed in my current job working at the front desk of a hotel?

I came to the conclusion that it was reasonable that I would find the job very difficult, and there was a chance that some of those outcomes could indeed come true.

But even if I did “fail”, and earn less than what I would have had I stayed in my job at the time, in what areas would I still win? I would probably at least make a few friends, I would have travelled to new parts of the country, I would have learned at least a few transferable skills, and I would surely have practiced overcoming objection. Even if I made the slightly less money than before but still achieved the other things, I would still have counted that as a big win. At the very worst, I would potentially learn to never do a sales job again.

In the end, I did find it even harder than I thought it would be. There were whole workweeks where I didn’t get paid a single cent for my time and effort. At one point in the year, I went 20 working days without making a single sale – not a single commission. But overall, I had some better periods and I ended up making about 1.5x what I would have if I stayed in my hotel job.

What’s even better, as is the nature of commission-sales, I ended up getting better and better over time, meaning in my second year doing the job I ended up earning just over double of what I would have in the hotel. In my third year, I ended up earning about 5x what I would have in the hotel – I doubt the hotel would have given me a 4% increase in my pay within that time, let alone 400%!

The idea of putting yourself out there to potentially “fail” in order to still win big is sort of related to Robert Kiyosaki’s rule of “working to learn, not to earn”, but also can be applied outside of decisions at work too. Failing to hit a 45 minute goal for a 10 km run still means that you completed the race faster than the average runner, and you still get to reap the rewards of the fitness built up through weeks or months of training. Failing in a relationship, but coming out of it learning more about who you are or what kind of partner would suit you the best is still winning big in the long-term.

Which life situations have you flirted with failure and still won big?

Be a Go-Giver, Not a Go-Getter

The Go-Giver is a fable written by Bob Burg and John David Mann about a go-getter struggling to meet his quarterly target at work. He seeks the help of a mysterious man who connects him to people who have succeeded in the business world. He learns that being a self-motivated go-getter isn’t enough to succeed, and it’s making him unhappy at work as well as at home with his wife.

It’s only when he adopts a new approach to go-give, by proactively helping one of his competitors by giving him one of his prospects he couldn’t help himself – he ends up getting a big lead in return which helps him hit his quarterly target.

Being a go-getter is generally seen as a positive trait, especially in the world of work. But the whole purpose of business is to help people, and if we are only participating to help ourselves, it can lead to corruption, greed, or simply being ineffective. By switching to the mindset of giving and serving others, we not only get more in return since people will feel the need to repay you, you can also inspire others to use the same default mindset to give to others.

Imposter Syndrome: How Can You Use Doubt Positively?

We’ve all been taught that doubt is bad. Doubt is weakness. Doubt means you don’t believe in yourself or your ideas. Doubt is less persuasive, doubt is insecurity.

But what about arrogance and overconfidence? A mixture of ignorance and conviction in people can be dangerous – in the past, it led to the 2008 global financial crisis and the Brexit referendum.

In his book Think Again, Adam Grant defines imposter syndrome as competence exceeding confidence. On the other side, armchair quarterback syndrome is where confidence exceeds competence. The sweet spot is somewhere in between.

However, Grant argues that it’s better to err on the side of imposter syndrome. The humility of knowing that we can be wrong and fallible would probably have prevented the disasters mentioned above. With a healthy sense of doubt, Wall Street officials maybe would have stopped contributing to a broken system of bad debt leading to the collapse of the housing market in 2008. Prime Minister David Cameron was so confident of a Remain vote in the Brexit referendum that he felt forced to resign when the public voted in the opposite direction.

A potential benefit in imposter syndrome is that it drives us to work harder and to get better. If we don’t feel like we deserve the role or adulation we have been given, we may be motivated to prove ourselves even more. More importantly, imposters seem to learn better, seek out insight from others, and have the humility to know that they don’t know everything.

In some ways, it makes more sense that confidence should come as a result of competence increasing. Personally, my confidence got shattered quite quickly when I started in sales because I thought I was going to be much better than I actually was. Because my confidence was so high to begin with, it was pretty destructive, but luckily I still had the self-belief that maybe I could improve and finally see some results.

Grant advises us to be both confident and humble. Have faith in your strengths but also be aware of your weaknesses. Be confident in yourself but also have the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. Learning can be never-ending if you choose it to be.

Happiness the 80/20 Way

Richard Koch writes in his book The 80/20 Principle some daily and medium-term stratagems for happiness. Unlike money which can be saved and spent later, happiness is experienced in the Now and the more happiness we experience day-to-day sets up us for happiness going forward.

Koch’s Daily Happiness Habits

Exercise
Mental stimulation
Spiritual/artistic stimulation or meditation
Doing something for another person or people
Taking a pleasure break with a friend
Giving yourself a treat
Congratulating yourself on a day’s worthwhile living

Koch’s Medium-term Stratagems for Happiness

Maximize control in your life. This could come in the form of self-employment for example, and usually requires planning and some risk-taking. Those that lack autonomy in life usually end up stressed or bored.
Set attainable goals. Goals that are too easy lead to complacency, and those that are unrealistic lead to demoralization. Attainable goals give us something to stretch to and keep us stimulated. Err on the soft side when setting goals. Remember that hitting goals is good for happiness!
Be flexible. Chance events tend to interfere with expectations, and it’s our job to do the best we can do given the situation. Goals and strategy may change and the more ready we are to take the challenge on, the happier we will be.
Have a close relationship with your partner. Koch reminds us that the happiness of your partner will have a huge bearing on your mood too, and vice versa. In that case, choosing your partner is one of the most important decisions to be made in life – teaming up with an unhappy partner is likely to lead to you being unhappy too. This also highlights your own happiness you bring to the relationship, since it’s just as bad to be bringing your partner’s happiness down too.
Have a few happy friends. Most of your happiness will usually derive from a small number of friends. Make sure you are spending the most time with the friends that give you energy and happiness.
Have a few close professional alliances. You shouldn’t be friends with all your work colleagues, but it makes sense to be close friends with a few of them. Not only could this help with your career, it also increases the pleasure you take from the time you spend at work.
Evolve your ideal lifestyle. An ideal lifestyle is unique to each of us. Consider where you’d need to live and who with, what kind of work you’d be doing, and how much time is allocated to family, socializing and hobbies. An ideal life would be one where we are equally happy at work and outside of work.

The Defining Decade: What People In Their Thirties Regret About Their Twenties

Contemporary culture tells us that our twenties aren’t that important. They’re for experimenting, travelling and generally fucking around. But Meg Jay, author of The Defining Decade disagrees. As a clinical psychologist that mainly sees clients in their twenties and thirties, Jay wrote The Defining Decade to give readers an insight into how important the twenties can be.

The world is changing. Most people in their twenties are graduating from university to find that getting a graduate job in their field isn’t easy. Competition is higher than ever, and it seems more like it’s who you know rather that what you know that determines whether your applications will be seriously considered. As a result, many people in their twenties end up doing jobs that they’re overqualified for – jobs in bars, coffee shops or retail. Jay’s clients who end up in these positions often feel unhappy and disappointed. Too many of these types of jobs for too long can impact our future finances and career. Wages usually peak in our forties so we could be wasting valuable time to increase our earning power.

Jay recommends that people in their twenties focus on increasing their identity capital – the collection of skills, relationships, and professional resources that we build over our lives. This may be through taking a pay cut to work in a lowly job in a lucrative industry, in order to get your foot in the door and work our way up. A simple way summarizing it as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad says, is: “Don’t work to earn, work to learn.”

A common problem Jay encounters while speaking to her clients is that they are anxious because they are comparing their situations to other people on social media. They’ll say “All of my friends are getting married and having babies,” when that is statistically very unlikely. The ones that are doing so might even be people they never talk to anyway, but just happen to be friends on Facebook. It’s important to remember that social media is usually a highlight reel, and even so, comparison is not necessary – what’s important is that you are working towards your own goals, not trying to imitate another’s.

There is a huge discrepancy to how people regard dating in their twenties compared to their thirties. People in their twenties tend to partake in the hook-up culture that has become more normalized over the last few decades. They often go into relationships with people that they know for sure that they won’t end up marrying, but they’re okay with it anyway. When people turn thirty, it can switch like a game of musical chairs when the music stops – everyone ends up pairing up with others, even if they may not be entirely compatible. Jay recommends that people in their twenties be more intentional with their dating so that they don’t have to rush or panic when they start to get a little older.

Jay also warns about the dangers of cohabitation with partners. People in their twenties often move in with their partners because of convenience, or to share financial costs. Before too long, they feel like the next stage is marriage, but they might not really be totally compatible for each other. This is what Jay terms “sliding, not deciding”. Jay recommends if partners are to move in together, to have a conversation about how committed they are to each other and where they see their relationship going in the future.

Another gripe that Jay’s clients often talk about is how their relationships with their family aren’t what they hoped or wished for. Maybe they felt neglected, unloved or unsupported. The good news is though, as an adult they can choose a second family through their partner – getting along with your partner’s family can be a large source of well-being and a sense of belonging.

In a study of people in their twenties, they rated that their most important goal in their life was to be a good parent, followed by having a good marriage, and then a good career. So if people know for sure that they want to have children at some point in their lives, they need to know this: Females become half as fertile from their peak in their twenties at age 30, they are only 25% as fertile at age 35, and 12.5% as fertile at age 40. That’s not to say that people in their thirties and forties cannot have children, but the chances of fertility issues or miscarriages are much more common, and it can be devastating. For men, quality of sperm decreases with age too, although it is not quite as drastic.

The biggest takeaway from Jay in The Defining Decade is that we must do the math on our lives. If we are planning on going to law school and becoming a lawyer, and then want to get married and have three kids after, then what age do you have to start law school? The answer most probably is right now!

For a lot of people reading in their late-twenties or early-thirties, the outlook can seem bleak. But it’s much better to know all this now before it really is too late.