Future-Proof Career Strategies | SXSW 2021

I'm at Hyatt and I'm so glad that you've chosen to tune in to my South by Southwest talk today. We are going to be talking about future-proof career strategies and I think, after the year, we've just experienced all of us need this. A little bit in our lives. Now, for me being, our career is more about removing mental barriers than anything else, is it going to focus on going into, stem, careers, like science, technology, engineering and math, or how we're going to compete with robots in the future for me, and my experience is actually not a

correlation between the highest paid jobs with highest growth industries, lack of happiness in your career is not. So we're going to focus in on that. Really creating something of which you can be proud. No future. Proofing. Also means consistently doing things. We've never done before. I can feel a little intimidating, but I promise you, it is. The four-minute mile from the beginning of time since we've been measuring foot races or minutes was physically, impossible, 1.6 kilometers, or four miles is a long shot but

it wasn't until 1954. When Rodger Bannister finally broke this barrier, we realized it was just a mental barrier in a physical one is four minute. Barrier was a mental barrier because it hasn't been broken by a / 1400. It is not a standard for all male. Professional athletes. What used to be considered impossible is now the standard for a piece of his level. I think that's very analogous for our careers and broken Industries as well. The training challenges

into pivots and changing. Your mindset is truly what was in the driver's seat to achieving even greater success than we might. Not then we might have thought otherwise possible. So I started my career as my first real job out of University and that was it was a time of great talent. And reinvestment then experience again while working for Eric Schmidt. He was the CEO of Google during the 2008 economic crisis. Again, as after I found my own company to do business in the future proof. I'm creating something that I called personal. Rli to

guide us through this process and in this definition Roi doesn't have the traditional definition of return on investment. But instead, it is recognized first, we're going to recognize, where do we want to go? And who do you want to go there with second? You're going to own it, we're going to be improving our networks and encouraging. This is a very purposeful instead of reactionary in our careers and where we want to go is recognized, this is the part where we're going to define success for ourselves.

You're going to set up your own personal vision and Mission plan for who what and why you want to accomplish, and having that establishes going to get guide to decisions that you make. I need you towards this Northstar goal of yours. So first is who, who do you want to be serving? Who's your ideal client, or customer or audience? Second, what do you want to put into the world? What is this Legacy? Do you want to be setting for yourself? And third is, why is this important to you and importance? Those who you want to receive it by creating this clarifying personal

mission statement. You better align yourself with the industries and opportunities that are going to get you closer to that and that passion will really dry you for keeping you on the Forefront of your abilities to keep you very future-proof to the principal. He was one of the youngest people ever really well. Everyone is really proud of him idea to create this book store in risking it all, moving himself to the other side of the country. You doing something, he's never done before. No one had

done before, and he really was sure that it was worth taking a chance. And when Jeff is asked, how was he brave enough to take that risk himself? He describes this as his regret minimization principal and this was when he was having a conversation with yourself at the end of his life, he imagines that he would be more disappointed if I'm taking a chance on this thing called the internet and if he had failed. I think that's exactly the right framework for us to ask ourselves when we're feeling a little hesitant about taking a big risk. I think we'll be more upset with ourselves if we

didn't take it and didn't invest ourselves, then if we did in jail, For me, I'm not a natural way. So for me, this very early in my career and my dream resume was a list of accomplishments networks. I want to be part of, but equally important was what was not and it wasn't an extreme resume. Be accomplished management experience Avatar Force Avatar exist, But I went to people who right now are doing in that Network to get myself, one, step closer, and this is very much about your Network's, most of my big brakes and opportunities and projects to

bring social scientists explain University come from similar backgrounds, speak the same mother language. And then, you have someone that you just met the same sports team. Favorite author is going to ask some questions that you might not have asked yourself otherwise and this is when game-changing opportunities come to like what I really look for when considering a roller and Industry, three common traits that have served me well over my career Journey so far and in the future,

and Continued, Education and Training are their employees experiencing upleveling regularly. Second is a pattern of innovation for your company demonstrate. Behaviors, or are they? Is it a group of Highly engaged hard-working people who are going to inspire me to raise my personal bar, and third, as I really look for, if you want to future-proof your career, you need to be surrounded by people who are That's an adult. When he was describing his turnaround of the culture at Microsoft's described really wanting to harvest a culture of lerna dolls and

not know at all. For him did not want any of this. Complacency, I'm assuming that you are great and you always will be you really want people who are going to stick out the next level. So the second in our Ally is owning it. This is where we reinvent yourself over and over again. This allows us to know, when to take risks, I take at least an educated guess, he transition from being CEO to Executive chairman that was a bit of a calculated risk because Google had never had it before.

We were both having to Define what success looks like. What were the rooms that you needed environments that are needed to invest in? And how are we going to define success in our active role to take? Because he was done on tethered from headquarters in the traditional responsibilities and CEO and able to get out into the world. Watch Technologies being adopted in unique ways. Looking for these emerging Trend, be able to use that to informed decisions as we were growing from alphabet and

into aqua. The second part of owning, it is really setting, some new expectations for yourself. And for those around you, and this is a pattern of teaching people how to treat you and think about you can feel a little intimidating because you're disrupting your status quo. You're going to take something people might be asking about you, or you about yourself and you're going to be a little Brave. You're going to refrain yourself in your abilities in your growth path. And this I

encourage you to take a proactive step and how would I call a promotion plan conversation. So whenever I started on a new team with a new manager, I would in that first week have a conversation with him or her, why would I describe my calls when I wanted to be promoted? What am I should be promoted to and when invite them to be part of my team in qualifying, I want to know where were the Delta between my current abilities and what I would need to be successful in my future dream rules and then we created an action plan project, I would need

experience leading the certification levels. I might need any opportunity to up level and I created an alarm hours which is often essential part of that comfortable. Being uncomfortable industry, is this a status quo that deserves disrupting? Now this is a way if you're like me and you're very analytical a good way of assessing, your risk-taking tolerance. It's a look at your calendar right now. Really literally do math on how you're spending your time, an ad up what percentage of your day is

spent inside your comfort zone. For me, I found my sweet spot is not spending more than 80% of my time in my comfort zone. If I'm spending a little complacent and comfortable, if I can get it, put me in a room. I never would have a skill of mine that I haven't yet. For me so much joy. This is where you need to take big that's on yourself. Back when I was a Google, I interviewed thousands of people to work there and one of my favorite and most consistently accurate questions of assessing

someone's grit and ambition was to ask them to tell me about it. Took them more than one year to accomplish those that had. We're absolutely level of grit and tenacity and ambition. That could perform consistently my team was ever dated. Now, if you get intimidated by this one year ago, yourself yourself. Remember that being ready for a challenge? Doesn't mean ready to be perfect at it. This means ready to try. This is ready to jump and makes mistakes. And I really enjoyed watching a company evolved over the last year. Called

lunch Club is one of my favorite pandemic discoveries and this company had to ask during the pandemic lockdown, lunch Club had been amazing with you with somebody that I hear that Mentor that inspiration that you needed that you probably wouldn't have. Otherwise Matt. It was at very real, human can actually increase the growth. An impact in All of the world and it wasn't possible with the original Vision. Third and final element is to implement and I think this is the secret sauce to do something seemingly impossible. This is going to provide

an opportunity to conjure up, Serendipity, oxymoron. But you can actually create the hard work of knowing exactly what you want for your future. So that you're capable of spotting it. When it comes to miss it, it's going to be ready. You're going to get in that room. You're going to join that Network. You're going to pull up a chair and get a seat at that table because you know, it's one of these irrevocable opportunities that you don't have passing by I trust my career, that taken three different forms. One for me, it was getting in as an

hourly employee at a fast-growing ambitious company. That's when I joined Amazon. It was very intimidating. Second is working for leaders that I wanted to become, like, getting yourself a mentor where you can watch and a team or a war room or a project launched is the best way to you can learn to do so yourself in the future. So, surround yourself with the people and third for me is really sick and consistently going to add to my skillset to about. I wanted to be in the teams that are the skills that I wanted to master. And in the end, that's actually why I

left my absolute dream job of working a Google after 12 years because I realized in order to ACO mentors I had across my career to needed to make a big bet on myself and take us to Silicon Valley and served in this new environment. It has not been easy, but that's really. So, passionate line has given so much if I was going to summarize. These principles into one simple statement it would be don't get complacent. You really want to set a reputation for yourself for being the one who gets tough. It takes it right wrist who jumps into a project and who is the one who challenges the status quo, not

only for yourself, but for your teammates around you, that you were consistently The Bravery needed to take some calculated risks. And really the most important because I have always been recruited into future opportunities and that is because you are or what you think you deserve and qualify yourself through a lot of hard work now, I can't absolutely did not do this alone. I am so grateful to have had some of the best mentors in the world and they see it was at work for, but they also have mentors.

And coaches, Bill Campbell, is that famously, most popular. Google, which every influential company in Silicon Valley, if he was able to help them up level their game and see their challenges in a new light and help them make connections in a new way. I even Olympic athletes who are quite literally has to invite, just push back challenge. Are thinking about yourself in your ability and pushed you to be yourself future-proof careers in a million chance that you would ever succeed. There's 7 billion people on this planet and if it's a one-in-a-million chance.

So why not you stream? Resume takes Embrace test to accomplishing it and really find This Joy that's going to drive you forward, okay? I have taken steps to put together a worksheet and we'll kind of guide you through this still help. You know, where do I get started? How do I get started today on future proofing? My career, if you go to my website which is a n n, a h i a t t. Click on the link and you'll be able to download a worksheet that will help you. Remember when I talked to you today you don't have to take

Ashley to give you something. Directions that like my brain in the future with you. I look forward to hearing your feedback, please connect with me on social, the rest of yourself by Southwest experience.