The Boomers Are The Original Job Hoppers
Ten thousand Americans, tracked week by week from age 18 to 58. The death of the steady career trajectory happened long before we let go of the idea
Modern Careers
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Modern Careers
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The Boomer Blockade, Six Years Later
Six years after the original Boomer Blockade post, the Fed's data tells a different story than I expected. The CEO chart finally crossed into Gen X. The wealth chart didn't.
Modern Careers
Leap Capital: The Financial Resources You Need To Quit Your Job
The financial milestone that convinces you to make a change. Whether it's $7k or $10 million, the story you tell yourself about the number matters more than the math.
Modern CareersMoney & Finance
How to answer "what do you do?" on a pathless path
When you leave a conventional career, people ask what you do. You need three stories: one for skeptics, one for the curious, and the real one for fellow weirdos.
Modern Careers
The Case For Quiet Quitting (and the dangers of slacking at work)
People doing almost nothing at their jobs aren't lazy. They're stuck in job-shaped containers without access to good work. The real problem is an absence of meaning.
Modern Careers
12 Common Experiences of People Making Life Shifts
When I left my job I thought I was having an n=1 experience. I became fascinated by how people make life shifts and talked to hundreds of people. I started to notice many common experiences and patterns.
Modern Careers
The Inspiration Deficit - Or Why So Many Young People Still Crave More Challenging Work
Young people aren't lazy or entitled. They're starving for inspiration in a working world that offers far less challenge and growth than it did a generation ago.
Modern Careers
How Much Reality Shifts When You Move From Full-Time Work to Self-Employed Work
It still sort of amazes me how different almost every aspect of my life is compared to five years ago. Routines, work, time, money, relationships, desires, travel.
Modern Careers
People Who Reinvented Themselves in Their 30s
Many people think their 30s are too late to start a new path. Ram Dass, Gretchen Rubin, David Whyte, Jeff Bezos, and others who made big transitions in their 30s.
Modern Careers
Accidental Meaning: How The Baby Boomers Misled Us About What Leads To A Happy Life
People are still pursuing the default american dream path and not getting what they expect, meaning. How do find meaning in today's world?
Modern Careers
How Obsession With Work Killed Our Connection With Leisure
We've lost connection to an ancient definition of leisure which was centered around contemplation and an active engagement with the world
Modern Careers
The Inevitable Decline Of The Elite Full-Time MBA
The full-time MBA performs a certain number of jobs well but it is being replaced by new options that are using the power of networks to scale
Modern Careers
Don't Follow Your Passion, Work In The Corporate World First
People have more freedom in the corporate world than they imagine. A corporate job can be a great first step to an entrepreneurial journey.
Modern CareersOrganizations & Culture
The Knowledge Worker Mind & The Birth Of Careerism
How did the worker become transformed into the modern career-driven performer? It wasn't Frederick Taylor's fault
Modern Careers
Spaceship You: How To Understand Who You Are as a Remote Worker
Grappling with the existential question of \"who are you?\" as a remote worker is hard, but we can design our own answer to the question.
Modern Careers
The best advice on working remotely your boss doesn't want you to see
Advice on how to reclaim freedom while working remotely. Warning: Do not show these tips to your boss - it might make them nervous!
Modern Careers
Questions About The Future Of Work
Will people continue to believe in the 20th century work beliefs? How will the coronavirus pandemic impact our future narratives of work?
Modern Careers
Hamsternomics: Printing Money, The Economy & Work Beliefs
What are the effects of printing unlimited money and having millions of people out of work on our work beliefs and the ability of the economy to recover?
Modern Careers
Dear Leaders, It’s Time To Wake The F*ck Up
The shift to remote work for established firms will require a new type of leadership: courage, vulnerability and leadership beyond the default way
Modern Careers
Rethinking Meetings In A Remote World
Most companies have too many meetings on the calendar. How can companies rethink the purpose of meetings when shifting to remote work?
Modern Careers
Virtual Spaces: How To Teach & Engage With Virtual Communities
Lessons on facilitating video sessions & virtual collaboration for team meetings, online courses and virtual hangouts on Zoom
Modern CareersPersonal Reflections & Essays
Work From Home
A short story about an SVP who spent 34 years resisting flexibility at work, until a pandemic forced him to remember what he'd forgotten about being human.
Modern Careers
The Reality of The New Economy: Go Tech, Go Solo Or You're SOL
The new economy is not going to have manufacturing or coal jobs. It has a select few tech jobs and for everyone else? Low-wage service jobs.
Modern Careers
The Boomer Blockade: How One Generation Reshaped the Workforce and Left Everyone Behind
Baby boomers came of age in the workforce during two decades of prosperous growth. They were promoted early and have remained in power longer than ever.
Modern Careers
The Big Law Trap | Guest Essay by Ranjit Saimbi
Ranjit Saimbi left big law after five years. He reflects on his journey, how he got there and how he overcame inertia to make a change.
Modern Careers
The best career and life advice from Scott Adams, Debbie Millman, Hunter Thompson & Others
A collection of career and life advice from Scott Adams, Marc Andreessen, Debbie Millman, Hunter S. Thompson, Paul Graham and Barry Ritholtz
Modern Careers
Hunter S. Thompson's Life Advice To A Friend Is Priceless
Hunter S. Thompson, a popular gonzo journalist delivers some profound life advice to a friend that is helpful to anyone still to this day
Modern Careers
It’s Time We Bury The Idea Of A “Good Career Trajectory”
The \"career trajectory\" is from a time when magical 4-5% growth happened in some western countries. It's time to move to a new idea of talent development
Modern Careers
Reinvention Is The Most Important "Skill" You Need To Have In Today's World
The ability to reinvent your career and life is vital in the 2020s. Five strategies for learning, creating, experimenting and carving your own path.
Modern Careers
The Future Of The Prestige Economy: Who Gets Status?
The Prestige Economy is a better lens to understand who gets status. Yet who we admire determines who gets prestige. What is the future of prestige?
Modern Careers
Are our expectations of work making us miserable?
Can we be happy at work if everyone is telling us we need to be passionate & fulfilled at work? Have corporate culture initiatives undermined themselves?
Modern Careers
Work Isn't Broken: How To Reframe Your Relationship With Work To Improve Your Life
Sure, work sucks. But what are we supposed to do about it? Luckily countless people across the globe are paving the way in reinventing life.
Modern Careers
Four Lessons From Starting An E-Commerce Clothing Brand | Guest Essay by Wesley Kang
Wesley Kang is the co-founder of Nimble Made, an e-commerce clothing brand focused on serving the Asian-American market with \"actually slim\" fit shirts
Modern Careers
The Five Things You Need Before You Quit Your Job
There are five things that people who successfully become self-employed have. The first and most important is to find a friend who has been there before
Modern Careers
The list of reasons we are scared to quit our jobs
There are many reasons we are scared to quit our jobs: belonging, meaning, financial, economic, future potential problems, biological...what else?
Modern Careers
The Future Of Work Is Five Different Conversations
The future of work is five separate conversations about macro trends, the gig economy, organizations, personal transformation, fundamental questions & philosophy
Modern Careers
How the fear setting exercise can help you unlock the courage to take bold action
The fear setting exercise inspired by Tim Ferriss to tame your fears around money, execution, health and lack of approval to build a life worth living
Modern Careers
Future of work mindsets: comparing full-timers, side-giggers and alternative workers
Survey data comparing full-timers, side-giggers, and solopreneurs reveals who finds the most satisfaction at work and why autonomy matters so much.
Modern Careers
You Are A Person, Not A Business
People keep asking me about my business metrics and growth plans. My business goal is to live a good life. My strategy is creativity and generosity.
Modern Careers
The Nine Future Of Work Mindsets You Need For The Weird New World of Work
Are you ready for the future of work? These nine mindsets are important in helping you adapt to the changing state of work.
Modern Careers
Should you try to get an MBA from a top-tier school? It’s complicated.
Is it worth it to get a top-tier MBA? $150k+ for an MBA?! It depends how you look at it. Increasingly, there are better and cheaper options.
Modern Careers
My awakening: How I learned to harness my creativity, build the courage to quit my job, and start a new chapter of my life
Paul Millerd had a fancy job, high income and decided to quit his job and leave it all behind. Why? To figure out what really matters.
Freelance ConsultingModern Careers
Three better ways to figure out the answer to the question “what do you want to do?”
Stop asking 'what do you want to do?' Instead, assess your skills, define success on your terms, and reframe what risk really means.
Modern Careers
Career Mental Model #2: Thinking about the “how” instead of the “what”
Stop chasing the next job title and start asking how you want to work, interact with people, and spend your time. The 'how' matters more than the 'what.'
Modern Careers
Career Mental Model #1: Price your time at $1,000,000 an hour
If you valued your personal time at $1,000,000 an hour, would you still chase that promotion? A mental model for protecting what matters.
Modern Careers
STEM is overrated — why we shouldn’t be pushing everyone to get a degree in science
Looking at after-college earnings by major is a mistake. We need human skills. Pushing everyone to do STEM will have unintended consequences.
Modern Careers
Planning a Career is Insane — Here is a better approach
The job I have now didn't exist when I graduated. Instead of planning a career, try managing your energy and experimenting.
Modern Careers
The Skills That Matter In Today’s Working World
The fastest-growing jobs require social skills and math skills together. Schools aren't teaching either well enough.
Modern Careers
Task-Competency-Responsibility
A simple framework for thinking about strengths: do your tasks, skills, and responsibility for outcomes actually align?
Modern Careers
A quick ten question assessment of your own employee engagement
Forget the Gallup stat about 70% disengagement. Here are 10 questions to assess what's actually energizing or draining you at work.
Modern Careers
Forget your dream job and grab a beer: three tips to stay sane in the crazy, modern working world
Your dream job doesn't exist yet. Guard your energy, share your passions, and invest in friendships. Research shows social connections predict 75% of job success.
Modern Careers
ABL = Always Be Looking (For Jobs)
You should always be casually looking at job listings, even when you're happy. It keeps you informed and prepared for the unexpected.
Modern Careers
Skill building as a career strategy
Instead of aiming for a specific role or company, I focus on building skills. In a world where most jobs didn't exist ten years ago, versatility is the strategy.
Modern Careers
Beware of the Default Path
People limit their careers to the obvious next step because recruiters and hiring norms reinforce it. The default path fallacy is holding back enormous human potential.
Modern Careers
So You’re Getting an MBA… Now What?
Four lessons from my MIT Sloan MBA that actually mattered: none of them involve your finance grade or GPA.
Modern Careers
Even Michael Jordan Had a Coach
“You already are a coach, you just need to start doing it. The words stopped me cold in my tracks. Why? Because now I knew I had to do something about it.”
Modern Careers
The Career Transition Playbook
This 10-step career transition playbook is a set of exercises, tools and tips needed to make a massive transformation in your career to land your dream job
Modern Careers
Should you go to business school?
Six reasons to go to business school and one big caveat: it won't help you figure out what you want to do with your life.
Modern Careers
Finding my passion — my journey to unlock my purpose
I got rejected from 100+ consulting firms before landing at McKinsey. Finding my passion meant years of learning who I actually am.
Modern Careers
The e-mail that launched my coaching side hustle and helped me quit my job
One e-mail changed my life. This short e-mail helped me land my first two coaching clients and build the confidence to eventually quit the corporate world.
Modern Careers
How to know when it’s time to quit your job
The right time to quit your job is usually now. Listen to your gut. Others will tell you to wait, but the important thing is to contemplate what matters.
Modern Careers
How to overcome rejection: harnessing your superpowers
The story of a young man who broke into investment banking against the odds. His superpower was a growth mindset that turned every rejection into fuel.
Modern Careers