#587 80,000 hours with Benjamin Todd (A Career Well Spent Series)

And, and I know I found it fascinating because I think I'm not always that zoomed out.

So just part of that, reading that chapter in the book, I think it just helped me to sort of zoom out of some of the problems that I try to solve and then think, "Wow, these are really big, significant problems," and, um, am I in any way spending time supporting them? But even, even just generally as a thought process, I think starting with what are the problems in the world that you choose to work in-

Mm-hmm

... and how can you use your time to solve them? I think that is a very different career question to ask and answer than the one that, to your point, starts with, "What job title do I want?" Or, "What jobs are available in my organization?" Or even, "What jobs are available in my function?" 'Cause we see a lot of people end up getting stuck in a silo 'cause of how they think about their development.

Whereas I think starting with a problem, whether you're as significant as the ones that you're talking about needing solving or whether it's an industry problem, you know, it might not be as significant as the ones you talked about, but it's still, it's still a slightly different way of thinking about your career to start with the problem.

Yeah, and I mean, I'll try, kind of try out a framing that I don't know if I've quite managed to get stick, but I kind of often think, like, internal versus external.

Mm-hmm.

And I feel like a lot of careers advice is very internal-focused.

It's like, it's all about your strengths and preferences and interests.

And often, a lot of careers advice almost sounds a bit like psychotherapy.

Um, like- Whereas another approach is much more external-focused and it's more like, okay, like what actually matters, trying things out, seeing what's working, um, like testing things, and it's this more kind of like empirical approach.

Mm.

And I think that is a big theme of the book, is trying to get people to, like, yeah, just get outside of their own heads a bit and their own like, like self kind of focus-

Yeah

... and think like, "What can I offer?" And I would, I would argue that actually, you know, is, is actually a better way to make yourself happy as well.

Um, and again, it kind of comes back to the, the follow-your-passion advice.

Like in a way that's quite, um ... it's quite limiting 'cause it's like, "Well, what am I passionate about now?" And then like can I try and like find something out there in the world that like matches this, th- this vision that I have? But the, the kind of motto I suggest instead is like, so I sum it up as like do what matters or-

Mm-hmm

... build valuable skills and apply them to meaningful problems.

And I think taking that, that approach, like, it's getting you to think like what is actually helpful to ... what is actually helpful to other people, and that both like is satisfying in itself, 'cause like helping, helping others can be really meaningful, but it also means you then get skills that actually are valuable, which then means you also can get the personal, the things that you want personally, too.

Mm.

So yeah, like we would say like passion follows from mastering valuable skills, because then you get that sense of competence, and you also get the bargaining power to get all the other aspects of a filling career that you want.

Yeah.

I think sometimes where we talk about, um ...

so one of the things we talk to people about in the context of squiggly c- careers, uh, a- and it starts from this sort of premise that in a squiggly career your talents trump titles.