BOOK SUMMARY 168
The Start-up of You
·
Summary written by: Andy Budgell
“The
key is to manage your career as if it were a start-up business: a living,
breathing, growing start-up of you.”
The Start-up of You,
front-cover flap
Reid
Hoffman (cofounder and chairman of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha share a little
secret in their book, The Start-up of You: The workforce escalator
is crowded.
Not so
long ago that wasn’t the case. After graduation, you made your way onto the
escalator from the bottom step, and slowly rode your way to the top, attaining
new career heights the longer you were on for the ride. But with the death of
the traditional career path, the escalator’s overcrowded and many are left
feeling exasperated and directionless.
But
it’s far from hopeless for those who look at themselves as a start-up. “The
business strategies employed by highly successful start-ups and
the career strategies employed by highly successful individuals are
strikingly similar,” write the authors (page 20).
All
human beings are entrepreneurs. Get investing in yourself.
Golden Egg
The Evolution of You
“So which is it? Should you follow a plan or
stay flexible? Should you listen to your heart or listen to the market? The
answer is both.”
The Start-up of You, page
51
Starbucks
and Flickr. They’re two of the biggest start-up successes in recent memory. But
did you know that they were both very different companies when they started
out? Initially Starbucks sold coffee beans and the equipment to brew it. Flickr
wasn’t even called Flickr. It was called Gaming Neverending, where photo
sharing was just one component. But it was that one component that took off.
Recognizing that this feature filled a marketplace need, the entrepreneurs at
the helm made photo sharing their singular focus, and Flickr is the result.
Starbucks did the same, when they realized their quality beans and unique
culture was their real market advantage.
But
for every Starbucks or Flickr who successfully (and almost seamlessly) evolved
from Plan A to an unexpected Plan B, there are countless more examples of once
successful companies who failed to evolve… and became extinct. One of the most
obvious examples in recent years is Blockbuster. Blockbuster “just about
laughed us out of their office” when a growing start-up met with them about
teaming up in order to solve some of their distribution problems (page 20).
That start-up was Netflix and the year was 1999. 11 years later, in 2010,
Netflix made a profit of 160 million dollars, while Blockbuster filed for
bankruptcy because they “failed to adapt to the Internet era” (page 20).
Just
as start-ups have to be adaptive, so do individual careers. Reid and Casnocha
offer Sheryl Sandberg as an example. Sandberg grew up not taking her Western
privileges for granted and graduated from school with the expectation that she
would find a job directly helping others. And for awhile she was, working at
the World Bank and later working on American policy. But her career took her to
Google and most recently to Facebook where she is now the social media giant’s
COO. Sandberg isn’t helping others in such an obvious way, but when you look at
the role social media (and Facebook in particular) has played in the Egyptian
uprising, she’s still providing others with the tools to better their lives.
The
point is that no matter what you may think, the plan that you create for your
career is bound to evolve… so long as you’re open to the journey, no matter
where it may take you. The two following GEMs will make it easier for you to
shift your thinking now, in order adapt your career later. Because chances are
you will have to.
GEM # 1
Retain Your Identity
“…have a professional identity that you can
carry with you as you shift jobs. You own yourself. It’s the start-up of you.”
The Start-up of You, page
64
We’re
all our own commodities, and the faster we realize that, the better. Screen
legend Elizabeth Taylor learned it when she was thirteen. When she wasn’t fired
after telling off Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, for speaking distrustfully
to her mother (“You and your studio can both go to hell!”), Taylor
realized that she had some intrinsic value to Mayer; that it was the stars who
packed the audiences into the darkened theatres. After all, had she been
a janitor and spoken to Mayer that way she likely would have been let go on the
spot. Taylor was irreplaceable, and would harness this power later while
negotiating the first million dollar salary for a single film (Cleopatra,
1963) and creating the most successful celebrity fragrance of all time (White
Diamonds). Preserving your sense of self, and knowing what you’re worth as a
commodity, is important.
For
many of us this awareness is difficult however, and we find it challenging to
look past the job we have now. Casnocha and Reid offer a satire from the Onion as
an example: “[After Obama became the president elect in November 2008] medical
personnel had to be dispatched to help Obama campaign workers found lying on
park benches and wandering city streets aimlessly, their lives devoid of
meaning after election victory” (page 64). A satirical exaggeration? Certainly!
But I think we can all see the truth in it.
Coincidentally,
just this week I was Skyping with a friend and asked him what he could see
himself doing if he didn’t hold the job he has now. He listed a number of
possibilities, which showed to me that he knew his worth as a commodity in the
work force.
The
authors of The Start-up of Youmake some great suggestions on how to
retain your own identity (brand!) while working for someone else. Establish a
blog and build up a portfolio of work that is separate from your paid job. Go a
step further and commission some stylish business cards in your name, with your
personal e-mail address and phone number on it, and maybe even include the
address of that new blog on it!
GEM # 2
Learn Something New—On Your Own
“Unfortunately, for far too many, focused
learning ends at college graduation. …. But as much as you can, prioritize
plans that offer the best chance at learning about yourself and the world. Not
only will you make more money in the long run, but your career journey will be
more fulfilling.”
The Start-up of You, page
60
Education
should not stop when you receive your university diploma, or be limited to
on-the-job learning. Unless you’re very fortunate, gone are the days when
companies would offer their employees extensive training in order to broaden
their knowledge and foster their talent. The responsibility is squarely
on your shoulders to invest in yourself and your future.
Not to
mention the fact that we’re living in an age of rapidly changing technology. If
you don’t keep up with it, you’re putting yourself in a very precarious
situation where you could easily be eclipsed by the competition.
The
good news is that it’s easy to not only keep up, but also expand your knowledge
(transferable skills) in order to more effortlessly change careers
(should such a move be in your future).
“Writing
skills, general management experience, technical and computer skills, people
smarts, and international experience or language skills are examples of high
option value—that is, they are transferable to a wide range of possible Plan
B’s. Once you’ve figured out which transferable skills to invest in, make a
concrete action plan you can stick to, whether by signing up for a course or
conference, or simply by pledging to spend one hour each week self-learning” (page 78).
For
me, I’ve pledged to learn PhotoShop. Do I think I’ll ever be at the level to
create a print ad? Probably not, but investing in this skill is something that
will benefit me down the road, and will also provide me with a creative outlet.
It’s
no secret that the workforce has changed drastically, and at Actionable Books
it’s one of our missions to remind our audience of this. Sure, the escalator
may be crowded, but withThe Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman and Ben
Casnocha have provided us all with tools to ensure you land a prime spot near
the top.
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