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

In today’s email:

  • Be useful

  • Louder

  • Go slow

  • Interested > interesting

  • Kerry Stoke’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Be useful

It’s understandable that we focus on what we want from our colleagues. Including our managers. Feeling competent, having autonomy, and building positive relationships motivates nearly everyone. And many of us want promotions and increased compensation.

Our strategy to get what we want is simple — be useful. Adding value first, fixing annoying problems, and identifying opportunities makes the life of your team better. Not every colleague will reciprocate, but enough will over time.

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You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

— Zig Ziglar
COMMUNICATION

Louder

I interviewed a candidate last week. His voice was too quiet. It wasn’t a negotiating ploy to have me lean into the table or to listen harder. He simply wasn’t loud enough to be persuasive.

It doesn’t take much physical effort to project our voice. Sitting with our sternum up enables more air to be pushed across our vocal cords. Opening our mouth wide allows our words to be clear and loud.

Sometimes projecting our voice requires greater psychological effort. We may need to believe more that our ideas are worthy of being heard.

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The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

— Coco Chanel
PRODUCTIVITY

Go slow

3 ways to be more productive by going slower:

  1. Perform pre-mortems: consider how a project could fail and mitigate such risks

  2. Invest time in relationships: people collaborate faster when they know and trust us

  3. Test AI: ask your LLM to re-test its answers for greater accuracy

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We’ve become so used to the idea that the only reward for getting better at something is to get faster at it. But that’s not how mastery works. Mastery comes from doing things slowly, deeply, and with intention.

— Cal Newport
1 MINUTE TO HAPPINESS

Interested > interesting

Friendship brings us happiness.

And friendship is advanced by us being interested in others.

Having someone truly listen to our fears, hopes, and joys builds a deep connection.

Meanwhile, social media prompts us to be interesting, to cultivate an enviable life, to get us on a dopamine treadmill of digital ‘likes’.

Being interested is greater than being interesting for our enduring happiness.

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You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

— Dale Carnegie
CAREER WISDOM

Kerry Stokes

Kerry Stokes (1940 — ) is an Australian billionaire who was adopted at three years of age from a Melbourne orphanage. He left school at fourteen because his family was unable to support him to continue. Stoke’s first job was working in a radio factory. He then worked as a mechanic’s assistant and truck driver before moving to Perth.

Stokes built a small business installing TV antennae which helped him identify opportunities in Perth’s land boom. He soon became a millionaire as a property developer. This entrepreneurialism later extended to owning television stations, newspapers, and Caterpillar franchises.

Stokes has four children, with his son Ryan now assuming many of his management responsibilities. Stokes continues to be active in the arts and philanthropy.

Career & life wisdom:

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Business is about taking responsibility and backing your judgment.

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You don’t build anything worthwhile without patience.

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Success comes from persistence more than brilliance.

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