FEATURED IN ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE
Prepare for the job that you want, instead of the job you have.
I received some advice as a young person: Study what you love, because the job you'll have probably hasn't been invented yet." If that was true 20 years ago, it's even truer today. My current job title is "Director of Executive Storytelling." Where's the degree for that? The flowchart to qualify me for a role like that would probably be several pages long and bear no resemblance to what I was envisioning as a 17-year-old choosing a college major.
How do you prepare for a mystery?
Experts have estimated that potentially 85% of jobs that today's college students will hold in 2030 do not exist yet. And with an average tenure of 2.8 years for workers aged 25-34, even those who have graduated are unlikely to accurately predict where they'll end up. Current and aspiring entrepreneurs know this all too well, paving roads where there was previously only wilderness.
If you can't predict the future, what good is there in training for anything? What can you predict, anyway? Planned happenstance.
Planned happenstance theory, articulated in 1999 by Stanford University professor John Krumboltz, encompasses the idea that we can "plan" the unplanned events that play a pivotal role in where we end up. Transformative (and lucrative) opportunities can come from "accidental" or "coincidental" connections — but how often do we put ourselves in situations where this can occur? What we know and who we know fall largely in our own hands, and both of these things load the cannons for planned happenstance to pay off.
Be curious
Your travel route should include some bushwhacking — the bulk of our discoveries happen when we find ourselves in the weeds. It's only a distraction when it's not intentional.
Learning should be a lifestyle. Watch educational videos online for fun. You never know when your "random knowledge" will furnish an instant bond with a potential client or business partner. Keep audiobooks running in your ears, and scan Wikipedia pages. These diversions, when done on purpose, can release fresh wind into our sails.
Look for opportunities to perform new functions or take on new roles at work. You'll get paid to learn something, and your coworkers will see you learn it. They'll know what you're capable of and maybe even vouch for you later.
Reflect on the most enjoyable part of your current job, and make sure you're doing enough of it. Figure out ways to do more of it, and do it better. Many business leaders and entrepreneurs are great at process improvement, except when it comes to their own lives. Take the skills you use in the workplace and examine how you'd use them in your career journey. What advice would you give someone else?
Study the marketplace. Read job listings to figure out what others who share your skill set are doing and to identify gaps in your own skills. Keep an eye out for startups to see what other entrepreneurs are up to.
Meet everyone. Talk to people who are smarter than you. Buy them drinks. Follow them on social media. Other human beings are arguably your most important resource. If you're introverted, get creative. The digital age allows us to connect with others in new ways that are less socially taxing. Even joining like-minded people in social media groups (and populating your daily feeds with their content) can put you in the right place at the right time. Who knew scrolling could be so strategic?
Learning is where hobby and career meet — when we can marry the two, we're golden. At least introduce them!
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