Faster

PLUS: Hack oxytocin

June 10, 2025

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

  • Faster

  • A letter from a contrarian

  • Reputation is your bridge

  • Hack oxytocin

  • Emma Walmsley’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Faster

Reed Hastings, Chairman and Co-Founder of Netflix, said, “Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.” This is also true of our careers.

We accelerate career growth when we lean into our strengths. Improving deficits might help, but working with our strengths has much greater leverage.

Are there other opportunities for you to use your strengths in the next month?

Amplifying what is great within you will accelerate your life faster than trying to fix what you think ‘limits’ you.

— Brendon Burchard
COMMUNICATION

A letter from a contrarian

“I did a personality test several years ago and it said I’m low on agreeableness. A lot of my colleagues think I’m a total pain because I’m sarcastic and love debating. At a recent offsite, our CEO asked me to be one of the Red Team arguing against a project because I was the biggest contrarian he’d met. The room laughed. But now I’m typecast. I was recently overlooked for a promotion because my manager said I needed better communication skills. In hindsight, I wished I’d acted differently in my job. It’s a great company so I don’t want to leave for a fresh start. Your thoughts?”

— Joe, Logistics, San Diego, California, USA

The best antidote to groupthink is people arguing alternative opinions. Red teaming, or appointing devil’s advocates, is a robust way to test assumptions. It can prevent significant losses. So preserve your independent thinking Joe! But your contrarian spirit is now costing you and it makes sense to rein it in. Your personality test isn’t your destiny. Here’s what I’ve seen other coachees do to change strong opinions about their communication style:

Reboot your language - give this significant focus now. Commit to having more positive conversations with everyone. Abandon sarcasm. Have banter that’s more playful. Be self-deprecating but not to the point where you diminish your gravitas. Display more curiosity about the lives of your colleagues. All of these will be within your personality bandwidth.

Be consistent - it will take time for people to change their opinion of you. Trust can be slow to win and easy to diminish. You will likely have some communication relapses because you’re human. When you do, simply re-commit to how you want to be. You will have the power of surprise on your side - small positive actions by you will have a big impact.

Share your goal - let your manager and CEO know you’re embracing this change. Maybe wait 6 to 8 weeks so that you have tested whether you actually want to live the change. It also means you have some momentum and your leaders will probably have noticed you are communicating in a different way.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

— Christopher Hitchens
PRODUCTIVITY

Reputation is your bridge

Having a good reputation makes it faster for people to trust us. Our reputation can be a bridge to collaboration. A bridge to creating significant value with colleagues and clients.

A good reputation for yourself and your company is an invaluable asset not reflected in the balance sheets.

— Li Kai Shing
1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS

Hack oxytocin

Oxytocin and dopamine are “feel-good” chemicals released by the brain. Both chemicals lead to thriving in our careers.

Oxytocin is associated with social bonding. Its release is prompted by working with people we like and trust. We can trigger an oxytocin release in others by being friendly and kind to them. We can also get an oxytocin release by imagining hugging a loved one or looking at pictures of animals with large eyes. Oxytocin calms us.

Dopamine drives motivation. Its release creates a craving to pursue rewarding experiences. We can trigger a dopamine release in ourselves and others by focussing on stretching, attractive work goals. Dopamine makes us feel alert and energized.

If we want to quickly experience less stress, we should hack oxytocin over dopamine.

CAREER WISDOM

Emma Walmsley

Emma Walmsley (1969 — ) was born in Lancashire, England. She completed a Master of Arts in Classics and Modern Languages at Oxford University. Walmsley worked for 17 years at L’Oréal. She held senior management and marketing positions in Paris, London, New York, and Shanghai.

Walmsley joined GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2010 and led its global consumer healthcare division. She was promoted in 2017 to become CEO. She was the first woman to run a major pharmaceutical company. Walmsley led major acquisitions, restructured GSK’s leadership, and focused the company’s strategy on pharmaceuticals and consumer health. She was awarded a DBE for services to the industry.

Walmsley has ranked among the world’s most powerful women by Fortune and Forbes. Microsoft appointed her as an independent director in 2019. She says she never had a master plan for her career, attributing her success to curiosity, hard work, and a bit of luck. Walmsley is married with 4 children. Some of her career wisdom:

What matters in life is the company you keep, whether it’s personally or professionally – I always say work is absolutely a human endeavour.

Worry less about having a strategy for your career and worry a lot about loving the job you are in and being the best at it… that’s how you unlock opportunity.

Be kind, be brave, and be truthful. And probably add: be curious.