Saturday, April 9, 2016

career advice 2

For an example of a good career advice, I want to point to James Whittaker.  I've attended his classes "Career Superpowers" and "The Art of Stage Presence", which also are available as books. He is a great presenter (and hopefully a good writer too, I didn't read the book versions).

I wouldn't say that I've learned a whole lot from the class on Career Superpowers but that's because it largely matches what I already know from my experience. But I really liked it being presented in a systematic fashion, and I did learn some things (and perhaps I need to exercise more of following them).

Or you might say it the other way: maybe I've liked it because it matched my own thoughts so much. Either way, he's done quite a career, much better than me.

And that's one of his points: it makes sense to follow the advice of someone who know what he's doing and draws this advice from a success. Well, there are lots of caveats too. One, the career recipes are different by the times and by the industries. Following the advice of a CEO from the auto industry in the 70-80s won't help you in the software industry now. James's recipes are for the software industry, so if you're in the auto or financial industry, they might be a bad advice for your situation. The second caveat, you want to follow the advice of someone of who is analytical. Succeeding by following a good instinct is one thing but breaking this experience down into an advice that can be transferred to other people is a whole separate feat.

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