Your Career Is Just One-Eighth of Your Life

Anything meaningful takes five years to do, whether that’s getting a company off the ground or mastering a skill.If we start working at 20, that’s 60 productive years — or 12 five-year blocks to do new things, then move on.Instead of living one life or career, why not live a dozen instead?This ebb and flow of interest and desire feels natural to me... See more

Thinking about our career, we might think in abstractions like “a job.” But really a career is made up of a bunch of different things like a salary, an identity, relationships, status, a sense of meaning, and so on. It is often easier to find a fit if you unbundle these things, and think about the parts that matter to you individually. Do you actua... See more

We should be chefs when it comes to career-path-carving (a.k.a. reason from first principles). This is because of the following: (1) it takes up a significant chunk of our lives, (2) it plays a big role in determining the quality of our lives, (3) it serves as our primary mode of impact-making, and (4) it also serves as our primary identity.

A chef ... See more