Whether you’re an app developer biting your nails at a WWDC keynote, a teacher in a contracting school district, or a cubicle worker waiting on a Friday 5 PM email announcing the sale of your division, it’s coming.
Change is in the cosmic mail.
Since the economy took an extended leave to Shitsville in 2008, I’ve seen a lot of disruptive change. The idea that you go to college, settle down, and work in the same job or make the same product for the next three decades is an idea that now belongs in a museum of 20th century Americana.
I don’t care who you work for, stop thinking of them as a boss or a company. Think of them as a client. Think of yourself as a business. And start thinking like that right now.
One day—maybe soon—your client will tell you they no longer need your services. When that happens, the business of you had better be ready. Businesses usually need more than one client in their lifetimes after all.
Even if you can’t diversify your client base now, at least diversify your portfolio of interests. Focus is more important than ever, but you have to be ready to focus on something else.
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I wish someone had told me this a decade ago when I was getting out of high school and working part time in my father’s print shop. I could have easily started a career in prepress instead of “wasting” 4 years on an Advertising degree I’ve never used.
Working in IT now, this could not be truer. I’ve been an IT Support barbarian roaming the contractual planes for 8 years and finally settled into a full time job. It was a long road filed with a lot of wasted time staying at places out of an old school sense of loyalty. Was my loyalty ever rewarded? Never, not once.
How true! I think it should be forwarded to every student. Now.
Could you tell me the story behind this insight?
Lifehacker just had a quote by Jonathan Fields (of 37 Signals fame) a few days ago that really impressed me:
“Everyone wants better. No one wants change.”
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