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Career Mindset: Not a Watched Pot
For career success, stay detached and be responsive to serendipity.
Recently I heard a talk about the energy of money. The speaker said that money grows when it is watched, measured, and tended. That may be true.
But careers are more like “The watched pot never boils.”
Careers usually move more slowly than we would like.
They have an element of luck. I don’t care what anyone says: you can’t be totally strategic when you plan your career.
Over the years, a few times I’d take a job where I was welcomed enthusiastically by my future boss. He (or, more rarely, she) genuinely appreciated what I had to offer and was thrilled to hire me.
Then a new boss appeared. Sometimes I never got to work for the boss who hired me: he was already gone, leaving me as a legacy for the next boss, who had a totally different vision for my role. At other times the boss left 6 to 12 months later. Once I took a job (against the advice of a savvier friend) where the boss was going to be hired around the same time.
Military officers tell me this is the norm. If you don’t like your boss, just wait it out. He’ll be transferred or you’ll be transferred, hopefully with no damage to your career.
