Three Stages of Your Career
Hey friends,
What should I do with my career?
A lot of my mentees ask me this question on a regular basis. Some of them are still in college, while others might be in their early 30’s and feeling a bit lost. Given I’ve answered this question too many times, I thought I’d write about it here so you can apply it to your own path.
I think one’s career journey can be divided into three stages:
Exploration
Learning
Mastering
Exploration - Ages 15-30 years old - This is the first stage of your career and I want you to explore as many opportunities as possible. Imagine you’re an alien who just landed on planet Earth. Your first stop? Obviously, a Häagen-Dazs ice cream store (👽’s are fancy!). The only right thing to do now is to grab a spoon and try every flavor of ice cream in that store; that’s the only way you can figure out what flavor you like the most! In your own life, this means to go and meet with as many people as possible, regardless of industry, geography, and vertical, and get a taste of their day-to-day life. When you’re at this stage, you can take these risks and try different flavors of experiences, live in different parts of the world, and slowly refine your personal palette for what you love the most. Most importantly, at this stage, there are no wrong steps.
Learning - Ages 30-40 years old - This stage is all about going pro. Imagine you’re a basketball player in college, but now, you’re going to declare for the NBA Draft and go pro. This means you know what you love doing the most and you’re going to go deep and learn everything about that passion. To do this, the first thing you should do is to leave the thing you hate doing behind. So, let’s say you just don’t like working in Excel and building financial models, great! Leave that behind. Only focus on what you love doing and surround yourself with the best coaches who can teach you that skill…people who can help you go pro. Learn from them and spend the next ten years developing your passion.
Mastering - Ages 40+ years old - Full disclosure, I am not here yet (even though my hairstyle suggests otherwise). This is the final, and the longest, stage. This is when you go from being just another NBA player to the Michael Jordan of X…the best at it, the G.O.A.T. You’ll spend the next 30 to 40 years refining your craft and become the industry expert at your passion.
Now, I know most of you are likely in the first stage but feel like a long time has gone by and “you still don’t know what to do”. Good. That’s how it is supposed to be! This is the exploration stage: go explore all the flavors of life, take risks, live in different parts of the world, meet people from unique backgrounds, and have fun doing it.
So, the next time you feel stressed and lost in your career, just remember, you’re that alien in the ice cream store trying all the flavors. Now that’s a tasty memory! 😋
Sherjan
PS: my favorite ice cream flavor is Green Tea
