9 Career Mistakes to Avoid & 9 Habits to Grow

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Successful people in the world, I promise you, they're not comfortable. If you think about the healthiest people in the world, they're not comfortable. Now you may say j comfortable is more of an important value to me than success. And I respect and accept that. But here's the thing. If you try to get comfortable, then when there's uncertainty and your comfortability is disturbed, you're not sure what to do. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number.

One health podcast in in the world.

Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, today, I wanted to focus on work. I wanted to focus on careers. I wanted to focus on what you do to make money. Because the careers that we choose, the industries we choose, the jobs that we choose, end up taking up a lot of our lives. We spend a lot of time at work. We spend a lot of energy at work. And while I do believe I was watching an interview recently with Mark Zuckerberg. It's an older interview, probably one of the earlier interviews he did. And the interviewer asked him what he wishes younger entrepreneurs would avoid, what mistakes he thinks they should avoid, and he gave a really interesting answer. He actually said that he believes that we shouldn't avoid mistakes. We should make as many mistakes as possible because you learn so much from them. But I believe that he's right, and I love that mindset because I've made a lot of mistakes too, and I'm really happy I made them. I do also feel, though, that there are different levels of mistake. Like some mistakes don't cost you as much time, as much money, as much energy. But the insights I'm about to share with you on this podcast will save you months, if not years of pain, effort, struggle, and challenges which can set you up to have immense growth in your life. So I'm doing this because I so believe that when I learned from the Vedas, they talked about three levels or three classes of intelligence. They said that the most first level class of intelligence is someone who learns through other people's mistakes simply by hearing them, seeing them, or learning about them. The smartest people in the world learn from the mistakes of others, say the Vedic literatures. And you can think about this from the idea of, let's say there's someone you trust and respect, and they say, don't go down that street at night. It can be really dangerous. Now, as a smart individual, if you trust that individual and consider them to be smart too, I'm sure you'd agree you wouldn't go down there. But then there's a second class of intelligence. We hear someone's experience, but we want to experience it for ourselves. This is considered a little less smart because we still have to learn from going through pain ourselves.

Someone was asking me the other day.

They said, jay, why do we only learn with pain? And I said, that's not true. We can actually learn before we experience pain by being that first class intelligence. But for most of us, we like something to feel physical before we consider it to be real. And so often we'll go down that street, we'll have a poor experience, and then we'll realize never to do that again. And then the third class intelligence, the Vedas say, is someone who hears the mistake, someone who makes the mistake, but then continues to make that mistake because they do not learn. Sometimes we fall into this category where we're making the same mistakes again and again and again in our careers, in our lives, in our relationships, but we don't shift or change. So, as I said, the reason why I am recording this podcast to tell you about mistakes to avoid around money and careers is because I think that if I can in any way pass on some of the things I've learned from people that I've learned it from, that will really help. So the first one here is really powerful because I feel that this is something we all learned in a difficult way during the pandemic. And the first mistake to avoid is, is a lot of us build our careers around one revenue stream. We build our careers around one job. It's not just about the money, and it's not really about the money at all. We also build our careers around a paycheck. We are not exploring our curiosities, our interests, our passions. So there's a study that was completed by census.gov and it said that a small but steady number of American workers have more than one job because either they need the extra income or they want to gain more experience or explore different interests. Now, while most of these multi job workers only had two jobs, a small percentage, 6.9%, worked more than two jobs. Right? And women were more likely than men to have a second job, 8.8% compared with 8% respectively. And what was fascinating about this is that having more than one job showed a talent in time management. Men and women with only one job were more likely to work a full time schedule than those with multiple jobs. For example, 83.2% of men with one job worked full time, while only 66.5% of men with at least two jobs worked full time at their main job. Now why am I sharing this with you? It's because I really believe that we all need two jobs in our life. One that pays the bill and one that builds the passion, right? You have one job that pays the bills and you have another job that builds the passion. The job that pays the bills is your day job. It's your full time job. The passion is what you do in the evening, whether it earns you a little bit more income or none at all in the beginning. And I found that this is very normal for people who end up creating their dreams. It's rare for people to make a leap or a jump before something feels real to some degree. So when you're doing your safe, secure job to pay the bills, but then you make space and time beyond that to accelerate, to grow your passion and your curiosities, or maybe learning a new skill to even improve your job that sets you Apart. That sets you apart in a number of ways. One, you have an added revenue stream. Now, if anything happens to your main job or the passion, you still have what you need to take care of yourself and your family. Number two, you end up creating more passion, drive and energy for yourself. People who are pursuing their passions and their curiosities are generally more positive as well. And then thirdly, those people that are doing two jobs, you're learning new skills that you can apply in both places. You're keeping your life fresh. Now you may say, well, Jay, I want to spend time with my family. I want to take some weekends off. I get that. But how often do those weekends off turn into no quality time with anyone? How much of the time do we actually feel like we wasted that time or we didn't gain anything out of it? Often having a little bit more to do makes us a little more effective. Right. Have you ever had one of those days where you're completely free and you feel like you wasted it? Whereas a day, even when you had three or four key things to complete, it was much more likely that you were able to achieve a lot more. So I want you to consider how you can create a life where you can have a paycheck job and a passion career. The reason why I'm also encouraging you in this regard, and of course, each to their own. And you don't have to listen to my take on it, but the idea that when you're able to see that there are other options and opportunities, it gives you more confidence to make bold decisions in your life. All right. The second career mistake to avoid is being an out and out generalist. Right? You're kind of average at everything. And the mistake can be solved by becoming a deep expert or a clear, powerful skill set in a high value skill. Focusing on building and creating and investing in that is huge. Why is being a generalist a career mistake? It's a career mistake because when you average at everything, it's very hard to attract attention. Investment, qualifications, support, networking, mentorship into your life. Now, the question I always get asked.

Is, well, Jay, what if I'm really.

Good at being a generalist? Yes, that's called being a specialist in. In being a generalist, you're still an expert and you're still a specialist. So even if you're one of those people that says, well, Jay, I want to be a CEO, I need to be good at lots of different things, first of all, you're not average, you're good at them. And second of all, you're a specialist because you're prioritizing being a good generalist. So the career mistake is to be average, right? To be mediocre, to allow yourself. I even knew people at a company I worked at who became specialists in very niche technologies or very niche spaces or industries, but that gave them more value in that industry. And so across the board, whether you're a specialist at something as broad as social media or whether you're a specialist at something like pensions, law, right? Either of those still allow you to have a successful career versus being a broad person in either of those categories. So how do you learn a skill deeply? It requires the ability to go and find a coach, to go and find a community, and to consistently go to a class or program, right? So there's three Cs, coaching, consistency and community. If you're serious about something in your life and you don't have one of those three things, then you're not actually serious about it, right? Serious means I have a coach, someone to learn from, I have a community, someone to learn with and have a class somewhere to learn. All three of those things make you undefeatable. And one of the biggest challenges we have is that after we finish college, we stop learning. We don't invest anymore. The next thing you know, there's a new technology that's wiping you out. I remember asking at an event how many people believe their jobs would be replaced by robots. Most of those people would never put their hand up. And the studies show that 70 to 80% of the jobs in the room would be replaced by a robot. We have to do more human things. We have to do more deeper things because there are still things that robots can't do, right? And this also makes your career more meaningful. These aren't just ways to avoid being broke or avoid not having a job. It actually makes life more meaningful when you work on an art. I recently. I've seen it a few times now. King Richard. I don't know how many of you have seen it. It's the new Will Smith movie inspired by the story of Serena and Venus Williams father whose name was Richard. And you see the incredible journey of two girls raised in Compton, becoming the most timeless tennis stars and inspiring a generation and culture to dream, grow, improve. But what I'm really fascinated by is the gifts we receive when we refine something in our life. See, the refinement is not only to get more appreciation from people outside of us, but when we refine an ability, we almost develop more confidence in ourselves. We develop more of a appreciation of ourselves, right? It's like me, I only cook beans on toast, but if I was able to cook something more gourmet and if I wanted to, then my appreciation and estimation of myself increases. Our self estimation, our self esteem is based on our skills being deepened, refined and enhanced. When we see what we're able to push through and break through as we develop a skill, as we develop an interest, it's amazing to see what is possible. So I want us to really, really consider that and think about that.

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Number three of the career mistakes to avoid is disregarding social media. Now I'm biased towards this one because social media Obviously changed my life. I never dreamt of being a creator or a YouTuber or any of that.

That wasn't part of the plan.

I just wanted to spread wisdom. I wanted to share insight, I wanted to share what I'd learned from my teachers and mentors and I wanted to be able to pass on all these tools and techniques that I had and no one would give me a shot, no one would give me an opportunity. Ten media companies rejected me. Three media execs rejected me. People told me I was too old, I was too young, I was too over experienced, inexperienced. I mean, everyone had every excuse in the book and social media allowed me to break through. But even when I was in the corporate world, one thing that I was trained to do was always update my LinkedIn profile. Now this did something really special. First of all, when you update your social media with what you're doing professionally, you develop a sense of confidence and self esteem. Why? Because when we reflect on what we've achieved, what we've learned, how we've grown, that develops our confidence. At the same time, when you know you have to record it, when you know you're going to have to tell LinkedIn what you've been up to, you now do more. You now want to be motivated to achieve more because you know that you're going to share it. Now you may be saying, jay, why would I have to share my success? Well, we're living at a time when if people can't see it, if people can't see you, if you're invisible, you actually don't exist. It's not to say that you don't matter or you're not skilled. It's to say that the world doesn't take you seriously because you don't appear to be relevant or up to date. So if you go to someone's LinkedIn profile and you don't see their up to date experience, then that feels very different to when you go to someone's and there is. Right. It's just a normal comparison. Again, I'm not saying this makes you better or worse. I'm saying that it can be helpful. I'm saying that it can support you. I'm saying that it can make a difference. So when we're looking at this more deeply, I realized that when I updated my LinkedIn profile, it also attracted a lot of people reaching out to me and offering me jobs. Now, even when I wasn't looking for a job, I promise you, this was a very, very, very satisfying feeling. Right? Knowing that I was getting Job offers was a great feeling even when I wasn't looking for a job. And a lot of people feel stuck in their job or feel scared by their job because they don't really, really know when or if ever they were able to find another one. But when you're getting inbound inquiries, when you're getting inbound interest, it again, gives you a sense of confidence and space to build from. Why do I keep going on about confidence? I keep going on about confidence because I really believe that confidence is something we lack in our careers. Tell me if I'm wrong. Confidence is something we lack in our careers and we build it by knowing that we have value and worth. And often we need to know that by knowing that the industry feels that way. So research has shown that 82% of employees think that social media can improve work relationships, and 60% believe social media support decision making processes. And employees who use social media for work are more engaged but also more likely to leave their jobs because they get that interest. So overall, it improves your relationships, it improves your connectivity, it improves your ability to be hired. Using social media for work is powerful. Now, the fourth career mistake to avoid is complacency. This kicks in usually when you had a success or had a moment, you maybe just been promoted, things are going well. Now, I have a statement that I love to share. When things get hard, work hard. When things get good, work harder. Right? When things get hard, work harder. And when things are easy, work even harder. Why? Because when things are hard, it's easy to know that you need to work hard. But when things get good, we get complacent, we get laid back, we focus less, we try less, we overall sit back and relax. Now when I think about this complacency, one, I know that in my own life I worked so much harder when things went well. And that really, really helped me push forward and it really helped me gain momentum. And a lot of people said to.

Me, they said, jay, life's so good. Why are you working hard?

And I was like, because I want to sustain this. I want to be able to make this real. And I saw a lot of people in my life who when they had their early successes, they slowed down. Now there's reasons we slow down. One of the reasons is we're scared of whether we'll get that success again. So sometimes we slow down. I remember after my first video, I actually wanted to stop making videos. After my first video that I made that went viral, I was like, oh no, what if my next video doesn't go viral. And so I actually slowed down. So sometimes we get fearful, we get paralyzed by success. But sometimes that's the reason. At other times, the reason we stop creating is because we get comfortable now. Comfortable and complacency never created anything incredible. There's a beautiful statement that my spiritual teachers would often say, is that comfort and spiritual advancement don't go hand in hand. And that's true for anything. Comfort and material advancement don't go hand in hand. Comfort and success don't go hand in hand. They really don't. They really, truly don't. If you think about the most successful people in the world, I promise you, they're not comfortable. If you think about the healthiest people in the world, they're not comfortable. Now, you may say, jay, comfortable is more of an important value to me than success. And I respect and accept that. But here's the thing. If you try to get comfortable, then when there's uncertainty and your comfortability is disturbed, you're not sure what to do. Whereas if you were someone who wasn't comfortable in the first place, now when you're disturbed, you have so many opportunities and things happening that you're able to reconfigure. It's just a really important consideration to make. So when things are hard, work hard. When things are good, work harder. Remember that. Okay? Number five. One of the biggest career mistakes we make, and again, it's one or the other, is that we either celebrate for too long or we don't celebrate at all. Or we cry for too long or we don't cry at all, right? So if you're winning, you celebrate that one win too long. You've been celebrating the same win for the last 12 months, right? Imagine if someone won a Super bowl, an NBA championship, a Champions League trophy, and they're celebrating it for 12 months after. It makes no sense, right? It makes no sense. Or the other problem is if you're winning, but you don't celebrate at all, you never took a moment to honor your wins or honor your triumphs, or take a moment to really embrace that feeling and emotion of where you've come to. And the other extreme is that when you're losing, you cry every day for 12 months. You're just broken by it. Or the mistake you make is you.

Don'T cry even for a day.

You don't let yourself cry. Allowing ourselves to experience and accept emotions that we're feeling is so important. I used to have a football soccer coach that would say, if you win, celebrate for a day, and if you lose, cry for a night and then tomorrow go back to training. And I've lived that in my career and I think it's helped me avoid the career mistakes if I win. Like I remember when you all made On Purpose a number one podcast, when you made Think Like a Monk a number one New York Times best selling book. My celebration wasn't to throw a party. I sat there and I acknowledged what I'd learned along the journey. How fortunate I was to have each and every one of you in my life, and how grateful I was. Celebration doesn't mean a party. Celebration doesn't mean something external. Celebration means a check in of honoring how far you've come. And I've also had days when I've been going through something really rough or tough and I'll let myself cry, I'll let myself let it out and then I'll get back to training. So ask yourself, have you been celebrating for too long or do you block your own celebration? That's a lot of people. A lot of people just stop themselves from celebrating because they're so scared that if they celebrate then they won't work hard again. And I was scared of that once upon a time, that, that if I celebrate too much then I won't value hard work again. But I realized I had to give myself a day. I had to give myself that moment now. Career mistake number six is an over reliance on one client or one boss, or one manager or one partner. When you create an over reliance on one client, one manager, one person in your life, it is a big risk. Why? Because no matter how much you love that person and how much they love you, they have the potential to let you down. This doesn't mean that you set yourself life up in a way where you have lots of people. What it means is you're not again just dependent on one person in your life. I remember my friend at a company and they only had one big client and a couple of small ones. When they lost the one big client, that was 70% of their business. Imagine what happened to their employees. Imagine what happened to their profits that year. Imagine what happened to the business that year. Even your best clients should at most be 25% of your business, ideally 10%. Because if you lose them, if there's competition, if they leave you, if they find someone else, if they find someone cheaper, you're not affected by it. It's so important to build out your network to build out. And all of this is in the mind. I promise you that over reliance comes because you go, oh, well, wow, I just got one client. I'm getting PA by one client. What? I usually got paid by five. Now I don't need the other four. And then you just get focused on this one client, and in six months they go, oh, well, we found someone cheaper. We found someone better. We found someone who's my brother's son's cousin, right? Like, you end up in this weird situation, and now you realize how much you needed those four. But imagine you had one big client and you had the other four that were big as well. If you land a big client, go sign another big one. If you land a big contract, go sign another big contract. The seventh career mistake to avoid is just watching the competition and getting disheartened. Instead of just watching the competition, we have to observe the competition's moves, but obsess over our own innovation and growth. Observe your competition, obsess on your creation. It's only your obsession in your creation that creates incredible things. What we often do is the opposite. We obsess over our competition and we observe. We become observers in our creation when we need to obsess over our creation and observe our competition. Step number eight is listening to what your company tells you. I had so many friends at a company I worked at, and they were told, well, why would you start again? Don't go to another company. Just stay here. Why are you taking that risk? Don't buy any of that. Do what's right for you and your career. Don't waste your time and energy just listening to people who could leave tomorrow. No one's loyal beyond where they're at. And the last one I want to share is, don't ignore statistics, but be led by your intuition. The most dynamic way to live is data and intuition. Use data to be informed, but then add intuition to how you are informed. Thank you so much for listening to On Purpose this week. I am so, so grateful. We just had the two best months of On Purpose because of you. It's amazing to see how much you're all benefiting and gaining from this podcast. I love seeing what you share on Instagram and Twitter. Keep that going. This month alone, we've had, on the podcast, Demi Lovato. We had Robert Greene. We had Mel Robbins, which was a huge episode with Maya Shankar. This year alone, we've had J. Lo, Alicia Keys, Will Smith. We've had some phenomenal titans this year. Make sure you go back and listen to those episodes. Dive deep into them. We had Adam Grant. That was incredible. We had Daniel Pink. Who you loved. We had Dr. Mark Hyman right at the beginning of the year. We've had an awesome year on on purpose. We're not done yet. We've got some really exciting episodes left for 2021. I'll see you next week.

Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward.

Our two part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.

And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our which means being.

Honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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