From my response on the Yabbly Startup Survivor Challenge: What would you tell your 18 year old self if you could go back in time and give him/her some professional advice?
My son is less than a decade from this point in his life. Scary. Between now and then, I have some time to flesh out my answer! What I’d say is pretty simple:
Know what you want to do. Rather than following paths of expected or least resistance, take the time to speak with people, understand what they do for a living, and try to determine what you’ll be happiest doing. By the time I graduated college, my path of least resistance was to get my PhD and become a professor of English Literature; but at heart I loved building software, and I should have taken the time to understand how I could make that my life’s work. If we’re lucky, some of us find our way back to professional joy….
Take more risks. For whatever reasons, we tend to overestimate the possible consequences of taking risks. If your belly is full, you have a roof over your head, and you possess at least one marketable skill, then the worst consequence of failing is that you look for another job or, better, take another risk. Without risk, reward is by definition limited.
Own what you do, from the minutiae of the work all the way through its context in the broader business. Workers who can do what they’re told are effectively commodities, but real agents of change, who drive a business forward independent of their role or title, are those who have the highest chances for success. Be that worker.
Work with joy, or look for something else to do. We live in an age and a country where many of us have the opportunity to push beyond bloodless labor, to actively work with joy, and to create meaning thereby. Don’t miss that opportunity!