Stop Overthinking: Career Success in 7 Minutes

Today I'm going to share my best career advice for young people, and it's really different than what you might hear from others. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs, and I recently got a great question from one of my newsletter subscribers. Love you guys. Sneha, I hope I pronounced that properly, who wrote in to say, "Hey Evan, I hope you do read this mail and really hope you can advise me." Here I am. Let's go. "Till the time I graduated, I was fixated on being someone with a capital S. It's quite sad perhaps that I did not know exactly what I wanted to be in life." At that time, being just someone and something big seemed important. I graduated in 2014 and got hired for Deloitte. The past 5 months I enjoyed like I never had. From being extremely introverted, I changed to being some social. I got confidence and also my job demands networking. It has all worked out perfectly well until now. I've realized that there is no more to life than one little accomplishment. So obvious that is, I know where I want to go. I will admit I'm not an entrepreneur type, but I do want to expand my skill set. I believe I can be a good team leader, not now but someday. There's a lot I have to work on and I'm ready for those challenges. I was hoping you could tell me a few essential things that I should not miss while climbing up the ladder. How should I get the best out of my company? I'm not an extrovert, so what ways are there of networking? Are they always about socializing with people on a personal level? How do I learn most effectively and improve my value in the company? I know these are a lot of questions, but please help me out. I really need your advice. Thanks a lot for taking the time reading this email. It means a lot to me. Thanks and regards, Snah. This is a fantastic question and I think one that a lot of young people face. I think every young person faces at some point. You're trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. And I think with every big decision, and I've talked about this on the channel, every big decision you make is with the heart and not the head, right? Stop thinking so much and start acting more. Now that's not saying be totally reckless and go crazy. You know, it's good to have a little bit of a gut check there, but too many people overthink, and as a result, what happens is you stay within the box. That's what's happening, right? Corporate America is a box. And, and I'm not saying you have to be an entrepreneur. It's totally cool. You don't be an entrepreneur. It's not meant for everybody. But be an entrepreneur within the corporation. What happens to so many people is they get on a career path and it's so well-defined for them, right? You start off here, you go here, you go here, you go here, you go here, you'll be here. And gradually as you move up, most people become more and more and more and more miserable. Right? Most people hate their jobs and they're living for the weekends and living for the evenings, and they don't like their life, right? They feel like they haven't become that Somebody with a capital S. So the way to do it and have success is to follow your heart within the organization, and that'll mean stepping outside the box that the corporation has defined for you. So, you know, your manager wants you to do these 5 things. Well, you know, maybe your colleague is working on a project that really excites you. Go help them as well. Maybe you see an initiative that you could be a leader on and help bring to the company. Go work on that as well and try to bring it. Don't ask for as much permission. Still do the job, you know, you're not getting in trouble from your manager, but look for other ways to expand yourself and pour your heart and passion into something, even if it's totally outside your current domain. Because what most people follow is that path of linear growth, right? You're slowly moving up the ladder. Well, really, if you want to have massive success and you want to be tremendously happy in your life as well, it's going to look a lot messier, right? If you don't know where you want to go, you don't know quite where the top is going to be for you, it'll be really messy. You're going to jump from here to here to here to here to here to here to here, and slowly you'll move up. You might move down a little bit, and then you'll take a huge leap forward, and that's normal. Right? That's fine, that's okay, but it's not the safe thing that most people do. Most people get locked in one thing and that's where they are for the rest of their careers. Look at something like networking, okay? You hate networking. I hate networking. I'm not great at networking. I'm an introvert. You may not believe it from the videos, you know, I can get excited and get vocal, I can yell at the videos, but I am, I am by nature an introvert. I don't talk to people on the airplane, I'm not talking to the guy next to me, I hate networking events with a passion, I don't know what to say, Hey, I'm clumsy, I don't want to go up to somebody and say, "Hi, I'm Evan. Who are you? What are you all about?" Some people are great at that. Some people are the life of the party, they really stand out, they're amazing. That's not me, it sounds like it's not you. So for you to think that you have to have a networking skill to be effective in your company, that's living inside the box and you're always going to be restricted by that because it's not who you are by nature. So many people focus on their weaknesses and what they're not great at and trying to improve it instead of focusing on what you're really great at and being one of the the best in the world at that. Instead of being a mediocre networker and slowly moving your way up, you could double down on your strengths and do something that you are so unbelievably amazing at to build an amazing future for yourself. So for me, again, I hate networking. The way I flipped it was I'll only go to events where I'm speaking, right? I built myself up as an authority in my industry, and now I'm speaking at events instead of attending as a networker. The only other events I'll go to is where I'm genuinely interested in learning from the speaker or from the people who are going to be there, in which case I have something in common, right? I'm not going there just to hobnob with some of the people and try to get to know them. I'm going there to actually better myself and learn, which gives me something to potentially talk to people about. So flip it. If you are not going to be the master networker, it's not in your DNA, it's not part of your personality, it's is not a skill that's worth for you to, to really double down on and maximize because that's not who you are, then think about how can you flip that. How can you be the speaker at the next event? Or how can you set up and be the creator of the events and have people come to you, right? Create a system where people want to come and talk to you instead of you having to go out and talk to them. And that's just one example. There are probably countless of examples and examples of examples of how you think that this is the only way to succeed because that's how corporate America tells me to succeed and that's how everybody in the company has succeeded so far. Where you'll have a lot more success if you are able to think outside of that box, break free, don't let them define who you are because if you are living somebody else's expectations of who you're gonna be, you're never going to be the best version of yourself. You're never going to accomplish the success success that you can. You're never going to have the impact that you would be able to have. You're never going to be that Somebody with a capital S because you're living somebody else's expectations on you to be a great team leader, to be a great networker, to be a great fill-in-the-blank. And instead, you need to live your own version of your life, bet on your strengths, be the best person in the world at what you do, and that brings tremendous value to your company and gives you the best chance at not only success but also happiness and impact, which I think are pretty important. So thank you for the great question and continue to believe. For those of you watching, I'd love to know what you think. I went on a little bit of a rant and a tirade there. Let me know what you think about how to have success in corporate America. Leave a comment underneath. I'd love to see what you have to think. And of course, if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and the newsletter. Newsletter. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon.