Flying cars

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

In today’s email:

• Flying cars

• Face-to-face

• Copy

• Cleanse

• Jack Weil’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Flying cars

Chris Dixon, partner at the venture capital firm a16z said, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got Zoom.” Disappointing! However…

Soon after road cars were invented, people imagined flying cars. But it’s unlikely these people imagined smart phones or the Internet. Imagination of future technology typically builds on what we already understand. Most people extrapolate current trends. Others, like Marie Curie and Steve Jobs, stretched their imagination to transform the future.

When imagining our future career, many of us also extrapolate our current job and current industry. But AI is transforming jobs and industries. We’re getting tools to leverage our creativity and remove the mundane. It’s a time when we can stretch our imagination to what our careers might hold.

We need time to work on our careers. Is it worthwhile going for a walk this weekend to stretch your imagination on how you can enhance your career?

P.S. Flying cars are getting close to reality.

COMMUNICATION

Face-to-face

We’re more likely to get what we want when we meet face-to-face because we:

✅ Can use positive body language: smile, sit at the table, sternum up

✅ Receive immediate feedback from their body language and words to adapt our approach

✅ Are perceived as important and legitimate because we are sharing the same space as them

✅ Build an emotional connection by prompting the release of oxytocin which predisposes them to trust

It’s too easy to rely on asynchronous email. Telephone is better, but nothing is more persuasive than spending time face-to-face with people.

PRODUCTIVITY

Copy

Imitation can be more productive than innovation. The economist Theodore Levitt said, “Imitation is not only more abundant than innovation, but actually a more prevalent road to business growth and profits.” Copying is faster and lowers the risk of failure. Creative copying works even better. IBM, Walmart, and McDonald’s succeeded by copying and improving the innovations of others.

We can also creatively copy in our careers and jobs. What do the best performers in our job do? How are others succeeding in our organization? We can copy some of their behaviors and adapt them to our talents. This is adaptive intelligence. It means we can grow faster.

1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS

Cleanse

Have you done a 24-hour tech cleanse? No devices. I haven’t for a long-time. Maybe long-haul flights count but even then I’ll listen to podcasts. The best I do is when I hike for 8 hours with friends and don’t switch on my phone. So good to not scroll news. Nor check emails, Signal, WhatsApp, Insta, Messenger, and SMS.

It’s not a digital detox. More a mini-cleanse. Being in nature more than makes up for the dopamine ping of my phone. I need to do it more often.

CAREER WISDOM

Jack Weil

Jack Weil (1901 - 2008) was still working as a CEO when he died at 107 years of age. Papa Jack, as he was affectionately known, founded Rockmount Ranch Wear. He created a distinctive style of Western clothing and said, “the world doesn’t need another boring shirt.” Jack’s family said he was “to Western shirts what Henry Ford was to cars.” His designs have been worn by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Some of his career wisdom: