30 Work Lessons From My 30 Years of Life
A birthday listicle
In no particular order, here are 30 things I reflected on this week as I celebrated 30 years of being a person:
There is no substitute––not a single one––for pure, hard work.
Thinking about your job is not the same as thinking about your work. Ditch the former and focus on understanding and succeeding at your work.
Trust is a more valuable currency than information, but it pays to be a (tactful) context broker.
Engineering a social problem so that you can then resolve is not actual problem solving.
Keep a record of the times your judgment was right. Self-doubt feeds on autobiographical cherry-picking.
There’s an inverse relationship between how much someone talks about what they are and how much of that thing they actually are.
You should do what’s within your power to stop bad decisions and then accept that most things are someone else’s mistake to learn from.
All documents need a 10% word count reduction.
Chaos really is a ladder, but you can’t expect to feel peace while you’re climbing it.
Confidence comes from learning to distinguish between your good work and your bad work. If you can’t, you’ll always be waiting for someone else to convince you that you did a good job.
It’s okay to not know where your moral red lines are until they’re crossed. What’s important is walking away once they are.
You will not get what you want just by earning it. You will most likely also have to ask for it.
An extra hour at your desk will rarely unblock you, but walking outdoors often will. Go touch grass.
Having real friends at work is an underrated career differentiator
There is always more money available to you. It’s only a question of what you’re willing to do for it.
You cannot be exceptional without making choices that other people wouldn’t. Figure out what price you’re willing to pay to succeed that other people deem too high.
Company culture is more strongly shaped by what you tolerate than what you celebrate.
Networking is about sharing your resources with others, not collecting resources for yourself.
It’s worth learning how to build a financial model, even if you only ever use it to look at your personal finances.
Joining “communities” is underrated. Seek out people who are solving the same problems you are.
You need to know the difference between commiserating and complaining. Commiserating is a social skill. Complaining is the lack thereof.
Ask yourself how you can make work 10% funnier, and then do that. Every day.
Good sleep, regular exercise, and healthy relationships are more valuable professional investments than any development course or certification.
Good leaders are willing to feel misunderstood. You can’t expect people with half the information you have to understand every decision you make.
If someone’s emotions are dialed up to a 6/10 or higher, it’s about them, not you.
Never start with the assumption that someone values the same things you do with the same weights. If you need to persuade someone, learn what they care about, and appeal to that.
Work should be fun. It might just be Type II fun.
Being un-gaslightable is the most underrated soft skill.
If you don’t know what you want to do, you need more data, not more rumination. Go try something new. Then something else. Make intuitive decisions until you have the experience to make an informed one.
You’re more valuable but less important than you think.
Thanks, always, for reading (and indulging the occasional listicle). Talk soon.
Usually, I'm "meh" about these lists, but this one had quite a few things that served as good reminders, or felt novel enough to capture my attention.
The one about taking note of moments of good judgment was one that hadn't occurred to me. I've been getting better at noting my rejections/failures (as a sort of exposure therapy), but I think it's equally valuable to have evidence of good decisions on hand for when your inner critic takes the mic.
Great post!