10 Takeaways from a ‘Work in Progress’ (or, how to build a career)
Series: Work in Progress | Part: Summary | Author: Rick Foerster
| Reading Time: 7 mins
This is a summary of the 10-part series Work in Progress. Last week, I talked about the surprisingly existential question of “was I lucky?”. Subscribe to get the next series.
The Work in Progress series signifies the end of a chapter in my life. Where I joined a young, ambitious startup and left 12 years later as a public company executive.
To cap it off, I wanted to sum up the “big 10 ideas” from the series, including a bit more off-the-cuff commentary.
It also signifies the beginning of a new chapter where I’ll go deeper into meaning, identity, and where we fit in the world of work (coming soon).
Here are the big ideas I hope you’ll remember…
1. Commit before it’s obvious to commit
As the world has become increasingly transactional (“what do you do for me?”), commitment is now a treasured virtue.
Life is short. And we waste it being half-in on our relationships: with our work, with others, and with ourselves. We hesitate until the opportunity is clear, the ROI glaringly positive, or until someone else commits to us. Instead, we need to make the first move and commit to them.
Commitment requires a different mentality than what we’ve been trained for: immersion, loyalty, even love.
➤ Read more: Committed: how to give a damn about your work (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: The Second Mountain, by David Brooks
2. Advance toward “Career Leverage”
My main source of luck was stumbling upon (and nailing) a high career leverage opportunity, in the form of an early startup.
I easily could have spent the last 12 years doing something equally difficult, with a lower return. This is why I’m sitting here today, able to do my own thing.
We need to be careful of not wasting our whole career in no or low leverage roles. We’ll lose opportunity for upside, whether in the form of impact, flexibility, or money.
Consider your career leverage now, and find ways to progress to more leverage.
➤ Read more: Why you probably have a low leverage career (and how to create more leverage) (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, by Eric Jorgenson
3. “Be clutch” in key work moments
Sure, I was a pretty solid employee most of the time. But more importantly, I was there for the team in the clutch. When the company was on the line, when we launched new products, and when key leaders vanished. Those were my moments. They accelerated my career and cemented my reputation.
You too will be remembered for your clutch moments. You can be pretty good most of the time, but then an all-star in clutch moments. Be sure to make those moments count.
➤ Read more: In the Clutch: Seizing high leverage career moments (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
4. The underrated opportunity: pick the right Company Stage
Everyone thinks about the title, compensation, and company when choosing their work. No one seems to think about the company stage.
Yet, the wrong company stage will sink you.
There are big differences between early and late stage companies, and people like to think they’d do fine in any environment.
No, you won’t.
You have preferences and skills oriented towards certain stages. Find your fit.
➤ Read more: Stage Fright: The wrong company stage will crush you (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: Moral Mazes, by Robert Jackall (Late Stage); Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight (Early Stage); Scale, by David Finkel & Jeff Hoffman (Scale Stage)
5. Appreciate the innovating, more than the innovation
This one drives me nuts… I’m sick of hearing that innovation is so cool and popular. If you believe that, you’re in for a big whack of reality when you actually start innovating.
When you are building something new, you will hear crickets.
Most people will not understand what you’re doing. That’s the nature of doing something unique and new!
And you’ll have to work for a long time for your innovation to (hopefully) become a reality.
The winners of innovation love this period. They love playing with ideas, tinkering, and seeing where the ideas take them. That love is what enables them to see the idea through.
➤ Read more: Early Stage Innovation: What it’s like at the beginning (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, by Tony Fadell
6. Stay out of their box to remain independent
I get anxious every time someone puts a box around me. The quickest way to get me to quit, is to tell me: “stay in your lane.”
What lane? The one you invented for me? Sorry, I'm not interested.
Yes, it can be useful to communicate “who you are” to other people. But there’s a difference between telling someone a thing versus becoming that thing.
The problem comes when we take someone else’s box and carry it with us, sometimes for our entire life.
➤ Read more: How to stay out of their box (in your career) (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: Self Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. Continually reinvent yourself, by giving up control (you’ll have to)
The world is not doing us any favors. Stable careers of old? Gone.
They are replaced by an unsettled lifetime of shifts and turns that we must navigate to not only survive, but hopefully find fulfillment.
I think there is a way out. I call it “fluidity” - an ability to flow easily and continually reinvent ourselves in a river of change. But it requires new ways of thinking where we let go instead of holding on.
➤ Read more: Fluidity: How to continually reinvent yourself (in a world of change) (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: Pathless Path, by Paul Millerd
8. Know when to commit, but also when to quit
If we are going to reinvent ourselves, we also need to let go of old opportunities, at the right time. This is tricky because we also want to be committed.
Some changes are obvious, but most are gray. When it’s difficult to know the right answer. But making the right decision in those gray moments can make or break you.
Retrospectively, I’m grateful for when I stayed and grateful for when I left. I hope some of my lessons can help with this difficult decision.
➤ Read more: On Quitting (when it’s unclear whether to quit) (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: Lost and Founder, by Rand Fishkin
9. Come to grips with your success (or failure) by considering your luck
Luck is fascinating to me. We tend to gloss over it and not give it much thought.
But I think that the question of luck has a deeper meaning: do we matter? Did the world really change because of our impact? Or was it all just luck, and could have happened to anyone?
After some introspection, I got comfortable with an answer. I’m part lucky and part responsible.
We could debate this forever without ever making a decision. But the bigger point is I can choose the story I tell, which may be the most important story of all.
➤ Read more: Luck: Things worked out for me, so they should for you too (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker
10. Believe in someone (or something), before they believe in themselves
My career has been a series of taking chances.
Taking a chance on a new company, taking a chance on myself, taking a chance on others, and someone taking a chance on me.
In any successful career, I’ll wager there are always two bets being made:
one bet by the person on themselves, and
one bet by someone on that person, whether a boss, customer, or investor.
To do something great, I believe you have to take these chances.
➤ Read more: From early startup to $2B public company, what 12 years at Privia Health taught me (🎧 added)
➤ Further reading: subscribed and stay tuned for the next series 😉
Series Credits
Special thanks to the following people for their direct or indirect contribution to this project.
➤ For inspiring the writing (among many others):
Jeff Butler, Dave Rothenberg, David Young, Mark Foulke, Keith Fernandez, Graham Galka, Jenny Ballard
➤ For the support around writing (among many others):
Khe Hy, Anne Loehr, Alicia Foerster, Mark Foerster
You made it! It’s the end of the series. But, of course, there’s more coming soon. The next series will… go off the deep end. I hope you’ll stick around.
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Note: views are my own and do not represent the views of any companies or people referenced within.