The Business Insider published a presentation from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
It is an executive summary of his 2012 book titled The start-up of you which was resonating my recent thoughts so I thought I would publish a summary of that summary here.
Hope it's enough to take the key points across. In case it isn't the notes are only useful to me but have a look at the original presentation or maybe even grab the book.
- everyone was self employed in caves but civilization supresses it
- today's challenging professional life requires us to rediscover entrepreneurial intincts
- you have at least one startup venture: your career
- old career ladder approach and old work assumptions doesn't work anymore
- permanent beta - ∞ β
- think of yourself as a work-in-progress
- invest in yourself every-day
- entrepreneurial adaptive skill set
- differentiate or die
- chart a career path that sets you apart
- you only need to be better than your local, professional niche
- assets: soft (knowledge, skills, connections) and hard (cash)
- aspirations and values: where you might like to go in the futute
- market realities: what people are willing to pay for
- none of them works without the others
- skills no-one is paying for :(
- aspirations without the skills :(
- being a slave to the market regardless of aspirations :(
- upgrade skills or change the environment (market)
- popular advice
- where do you want be in x years?, then plan
- find your passion then pursue it
- strengths but HUGE drawback: they presume a static world
- everything changes
- accurate self-knowledge is attainable only via experimentation (and not introspection)
- flexibly persistent
- always ready to adapt
- but also persistent in driving towards goals
- make assumptions a hypotheses explicit (about yourself/industry)
- prioritize learning over profitabilty (soft over hard assets)
- learn by doing: actions not plans
- maximize follow-on opportunities
- ABZ planning:
- experimental plan A
- alternative plan B
- unchanging, certain plan Z (a lifeboat)
- every job boils down to interacting with people
- people control resources, opportunities, information
- people you spend time with shape your personality
- I^we: individuals power raised exponentially with a team (network)
- professional relationships
- allies
- advice, proactive collaboration
- shared interests, promote, defend
- weaker ties
- introduce diversity
- opportunities and intelligence outside inner circle
- your network is bigger then you think: use introductions to leverage
- strenghten relationships otherwise they get weaker
- trajectory of remarkable careers tipically has breakouts
- breakout opportunity: career experiences that led to unusually rapid gains
- habits of behavior to increase the likelihood of this
- be in motion and court selective randomness
- tap the networks and associations
- opportunities are attached to people
- sometimes have to hustle
- constrains can encourage resourcefulness
- risk: isn't an enemy - permanent part of life
- being proactively intelligent about risks is a prerequisite for breakouts
- every possible career move has risks
- no risks? it's not a breakout
- risk: personal and situational
- most people over-estimate
- can tolerate the worst-case outcome? then be open to it.
- don't conflate with uncertainity
- buildup resilience to an unimaganable blowup
- stability by introducing low levels of volatility
- by introducing small risks on a regular basis
- ideally your day job has volatility built in
- how you gather, manage and use information will determine if you loose or win
- stockpiling facts doesn't get you anywhere because everything is changing
- intelligence by talking to people
- to understand assets, aspirations, market realities
- help to track risks attached to an opportunity
- network intelligence: map your network, get useful answers