Career Advice

I’d like to share the wisdom I gained in the three decades of my career. If you are still in your 20s, remember:

Be fun, not responsible. Being responsible is not memorable or noticeable because responsibility is a logical concept, not an emotion. If the subway runs on schedule, nobody is thankful, but if it’s even a few minutes late, people get furious. To be noticed and appreciated, you are better off being irresponsible but fun to be around.

Words speak louder than actions. For actions to be appreciated, they must be observed and evaluated. That’s too much work. Most people are preoccupied with themselves; they are not very observant. And, even if they do notice what you did, it must still be interpreted, that is, turned into words. Simply delivering words eliminates the need for all that work for the observers.

Short-term thinking trumps long-term thinking. Most people’s attention span is very short. These days, they can’t watch a video longer than a few minutes or read a text longer than 280 characters. Seeing the value of long-term thinking requires foresight and careful calculations. Most people have no such patience. Long-term thinking is a tree that falls in a forest.

In business, don’t make a joke that requires too much thinking.