Dear Carter,
I want to offer you some advice that I wish I’d been given at your age. Don’t follow conventions. Don’t put yourself in the box defined by society’s traditional way of thinking. We have endless paths to choose from — x have already been paved, and the remaining infinity minus x haven’t even been mapped out. A 9–5 job in consulting at some big company doesn’t need to be your christening into the business world. There are many more opportunities out there in which you can carve your own unique career path that aligns best with your personality, skill set, and interests.
It’s hard to acknowledge and go after this because we’re a product of the environment we live in and the mindsets we grew up around. Fortunately, we had a very stable and loving upbringing but unfortunately, it was traditional and unexceptional. This doesn’t set us up for the mindset needed to be a disruptor carving our own unique paths. We have to actively try and think differently, push against traditional thinking, peek outside of the box comfortably constructed around us, and seek opportunities that are uniquely optimized for the career paths we want. I’m not saying you should try and become the next Mark Zuckerburg or Elon Musk. I’m not advocating that you drop everything and try and start your own business (although I’d always support that direction if you’re mentally prepared to go at it 100%). What I am advocating for is that you look outside of the standard entry-level positions that many of your fellow econ majors have likely signed on for. What excites you? What can you spend hours on, forgetting what time it is, forgetting to eat because you’re so interested or focused on that thing? What do you read about? What success stories resonate most with you? Who do you most admire? These are questions to ask yourself when deciding where to look for your first career step. It gives you a sense of the industries to look at, the contacts to reach out to, the companies to read more about, the biographies and documentaries to study.
Now, it’s important to know that your first career step by no means will dictate your future. You can pivot many times before you find what it is you’re good at and enjoy doing (and often that’s the case considering personal experience is the quickest way to calibrate). But what it will do is shape and mold you and start tacking on the experiences that will influence the opportunities that come your way and the next steps you’ll take. So, ideally, the first step includes one or multiple of the following: 1. it’s in an industry you like, 2. it has employees or a founder whose work you admire, 3. it’s a role in which you can craft a skill you want to grow.
Time is our greatest asset. The 10,000-hour rule — Malcolm Gladwell’s proposal that it takes 10,000 hours of focused work to become an expert at something. What do you want to become an expert at? If you know now, you’re one step ahead of where I was at your age. And you have so much time ahead of you to hone it. Go find any job that touches that expertise, it could be a bottom-of-the-barrel intern position, and put your all into it. You might not make much money at first but the focused hours you spend on it will help you climb the ranks and reach the success you want. And at that point it won’t only be financial success, it will be life success because you’ll be an expert at something you enjoy. If you don’t know what you want to become an expert at but you do know what interests you, select a few mid-tier and low-tier startups and companies associated with that interest. Find its employees on LinkedIn and Angellist. Message them a humble note in which you simply ask to help them wherever they need it. Do your research on the company, speak about how fascinated you are in the product or mission and say you’ll work for free to be a part of it. Tell them what you’re good at and skills you can offer but leave it open to allow them to tell you the gaps that you could fill. You don’t really have marketable skills yet, these are yet to be defined. Be adaptable, agile, and flexible. Optimize for the company you’ll work for, the industry you’ll work in, and the people you’ll work with. Don’t optimize for the role description. Worst case scenario: you don’t get a response. Best case scenario: you get hired. Most likely scenario: they allow you to help them out for a few weeks, you work your butt off and prove your worth, they bring you on as a paid employee. You’ll learn an immense amount in 2–3 focused and dedicated years on the front-lines in the industry, at which point you can leverage your time and experience to climb the latter to the next tier, one step closer to your north star.
Love,
Your east-coast-corporate-escapee-to-west-coast-startups big sis
