How I think about my career

And yes, mostly how to structure a path toward it

Work isn’t just work

It is no secret that I’m a 5-12 person. Every time my eyes are not closed, I work or do something relevant to personal growth.

I always think of work as a mean to complete my life. Part of why I’m here is because I’m still working, and it has meaning as long as I continue the “struggle.” So let’s set the tone here: If you think about work as a “have to“ on the checklist or struggle to find a reason to get off the bed every morning, this blog isn’t for you.

Do have purpose

I thought I knew what I wanted to do, very clear since I was about 10 or so, after some books, so you probably know how it ended.

The last time I revised my purpose was 4 years ago when I switched to tech, that was a pivotal moment to change from Diplomacy toward Tech (Not even Product manager) and yeah, I was terrified... mortified... petrified... stupefied.. (insert John Nash here) but I know if I want to get where I wanna go, I have to take the leap of faith.

For this purpose, I don’t think everyone has one in their life, most of us can have several, and some of us have none and this is, for me, a blunder. If you don’t know why you trying, why try at all? And if you even try, how do you know where you are going?

And yeah, admittedly I know many people who have the same idea of not having a goal and going with the flow, for me it is the same category as considering work is just “work“, you do things because you do things. In my world, being that state it’s just so strange.

Once you have a goal, a purpose, everything you do just makes sense.

For my purpose

For me it just simple, I wanted to be better, and at some point the best, I was also been competitive and aggressive on that. It used to be “The best in everything“ but then I realized none could ever complete that, try to get Ulsan Bolt to run a marathon or Steve Jobs to code, they each excel in their field but 1 inch to the left and the result is different.

Apart from that there are always secondary goals that I have, making things better as I grow, so when a 10-year-old me looks up, I can still be proud of my 30-ish me (OMG I’m an uncle now), it is not like saving the world (even if I want to) but a small thing that count, I’m still having a casual chat with the cleaning lady at the office every morning for example, just want to make them feel “seen” if you know what I’m mean.

Creating a life goal like this isn’t hard, at least for me, understanding who you are first and what you want in life is a first step, starting with maybe some framework to kick off the rocket, I read

• “Designing your life” book concept, not sure if it has a name;

• Life compass and yearly reflection - Have a life goal, get yearly goals, and then reflect every year to adjust the goals;

• 3 life plans

  • Your first plan should be the thing you already do. Essentially, imagine extending your current life trajectory forward. Alternatively, if you need change, consider an immediate plan you have and prioritize that as a life goal.

  • The second plan is your fallback plan in case you stop making any money from your first life goal.

  • Your final plan should be associated with the things you would do if money and others’ judgments were irrelevant.

• BCG strategizes life -

But all of them are just suggestions, if one doesn’t know back then, why they should know now?

So that brings me back to my simple 2 cents

The simple way

It’s simple stuff

• Imagine you are 10, life is prob easier (or not), what do you want to be when you grow up? (Something vague work here, like become a hero or POTUS)

• Imagine you are 70-80 ish, reflect on your life, what do you love to see? (Make it vivid here, something like title or asset are good quantitative metric)

• Are the 2 above the same thing? If not, why? => Fix this first

• And then where are you now? What are you doing lately?

If these 3 goal sets ain’t the same, it’s time to take huge steps back and see if you still want the life you have now, and what needs to be changed for everything to align.

• Break down into decade goals for the next 5 decades, then yearly goals for the next 5 years (Just a draft)

• Reflect twice a year and see what needs to be adjusted

That’s it, do that for 4 years now and got everything KPIs I set for myself, easy, innit?

Get some role models also, I have several

Early in life, I looked up to politicians, as I was surrounded by them growing up, some of the names are:

• Lee Kuan Yew

• Atatürk

• Park Chung-hee

• Deng Xiaoping

Now, if you know your politics, you would probably see a pattern here, these guys are in the same genre and the characteristic is still reflected in my agenda until now, a ruthless efficiency for the greater good along with other things.

When I grow up, learning stuff in tech I like others as well

• Linus Torvalds

• Bill Ackman

• Elon at some points, not after buying Twitter but he kinda makes sense again now.

Now, these guys may look like different people, but if you listen to them for a while you will see the connection. This impacts some of my views on things.

Understand who you want to be, and see if anyone goes that way and success before, learn from them. Role models don’t have to be perfect but if you build yourself up, you are reflecting the world around you, choose wisely who you put your bet on.

My path

For my career path, I started with Diplomacy as I envisioned things will be better, and wanted to gave a impact on my country from High politics, something different back then.

But it was idealistic, I would say, that after the 1st semester of the Master's degree, I didn’t think I wanted to be like the people in the same class as me, I wanted something more impactful and practical.

The choices after that all reflect my purposes, I choose

• An industry that is growing, highly competitive and rewards the best well

• The domain that positively impacts the world

• The companies that allow me to work with the best people to either learn or compete with

• Jobs that grow fast (knowledge and other things) that I get where I want to be early enough

And for my last 2 jobs, everything just came together perfectly.

I believe in the American self-made men concept, that life is free will and not deterministic, I believe that one makes their life happen so I made mine.

What’s next for me?

Busy with my plan recently, and lots of big changes coming up this month (including my age but we don’t talk about it here, okay?), but the future is clearer to me.

Things are going well, so well that I wake up in the middle of the night wondering when the bad thing will happen.

But the shore is nearer than I thought it would be, still swimming but with certainty, it’s still a good year.

From Zima Blue, one of my favorite animations that raises questions about life and its purpose, sometime it just as simple as being a pool cleaner.