For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.
In today’s email:
Designing your life
Update your mentors
Schedules defend us
Treat it like a puzzle
Zaha Hadid’s career wisdom
ON YOUR CAREER
Designing your life
Bill Burnett & Dave Evans wrote Designing Your Life (2016). It’s based on their popular Stanford course that applies design thinking principles to career and life planning. Here are 3 career tips we deduced from their book:
1. Stay curious. Ask questions and stay open to new possibilities. Curiosity helps us navigate uncertainty. It helps us embrace life as an adventure rather than following a fixed path. Passion emerges through exploration and mastery, rather than being a prerequisite for success.
2. Have a bias to action. Effective designers act rather than overthink. Experiment with small changes instead of waiting for perfect solutions. Trialling different roles and projects helps refine career goals through real-world feedback. Taking action reduces fear of failure by reframing experiences as learning opportunities.
3. Radical collaboration. Seek input from diverse perspectives. Our clients, colleagues, and mentors broaden our understanding. Their collective wisdom helps us navigate complex decisions. Collaboration fosters creativity and accountability.
Problem Finding + Problem Solving = Well-Designed Life.
COMMUNICATION
Update your mentors
“Just giving you an update…” are some of the most rewarding words I receive from mentees. I love hearing their progress. Including the need to try something else.
Mentors invest time in us. We show our respect for them when we update them on how we’ve implemented their advice.
An email or text takes less than 5 minutes. And it validates the mentoring relationship.
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
PRODUCTIVITY
Schedules defend us
A well-planned schedule helps us achieve our goals. Be loyal to your schedule. It defends us from disruptions.
A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.
1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS
Treat it like a puzzle
Before my son and daughter commenced a school exam I would say, “treat it like a puzzle.” They liked this encouragement. And it remains one of the running memes in our relationship.
A puzzle-solving mindset also lowers stress at work. It unleashes our curiosity. We’re more open to hearing and suggesting possibilities when we’re not anxious. Every significant problem at work should be treated as a puzzle to solve.
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
CAREER WISDOM
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid (1950 — 2016) was born in Baghdad, Iraq. Her family emphasized education and travel. Hadid completed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut. She then moved to London and attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture where she won the Diploma Prize for her thesis.
Hadid’s major works include the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, and the Guangzhou Opera House in China. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004. Hadid also received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2015 and the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011.
The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku
Hadid created dynamic, fluid structures that appear to defy gravity. Some of her career insights:
There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one.
I am sure that, as a woman, I can do a very good skyscraper.
Architecture is really about well-being. On the one hand it’s about shelter, I think that people want to feel good in a space… but it’s also about pleasure.