Vanessa Van Edwards shares three steps for a career pivot: define your ideal workday by clarifying how you prefer to communicate and work, develop a narrow "micro-expert power" that sets you apart, and choose work aligned with what sustains you through trade-offs.
Thinking about your ideal workday is the most important question in whatever career pivot you are thinking about. I'm Vanessa Van Edwards. I'm a behavior hacker, author, and researcher, and I have a crazy weird job. I've been thinking a lot about my entrepreneurial journey as I prep for my big speech at the ENTRE Leadership Summit with Dave Ramsey. I hope you're going to join me. I want you to think about your ideal workday. Specifically, do you like working alone or with people? Do you like being in your jammies at home, or do you like getting a little gussied up and demure and going to the office? Thinking about your ideal workday is the most important question in whatever career pivot you are thinking about. I'm an ambivert, so I like being alone for most of the time, but I do need a little bit of social stroking. In my ideal workday, I'm writing all morning and then I do one podcast, one little team call. What is your ideal workday communication-wise, time-wise, location-wise? Number 2, I wish I had thought about my micro expert power. An expert power is the influence that comes from having a unique skill set or expertise You have really good expert power, people seek you out for your opinion, you have a lot of trust and credibility, and you become the central focus of decisions. You want this in your job no matter what you're doing, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're in a career, you want expert power. Here's the mistake most people make. I want you to get really so much more specific with this. For example, I'm a decent writer, but I still cannot figure out a comma. My writing expert power is writing something that grabs attention. I have this unique skill where I can read a very boring 20-page research paper and I can take the one little nugget and turn it into one good sentence. It's the reason I write self-help books with behavior hacks. What is one specific skill you are excellent at? Not just marketing, LinkedIn marketing, or even cold DMing on LinkedIn. That's a micro expert power. Not just styling, but styling plus-size bodies. Styling plus-size bodies with a budget. Third and final tip: choose your heart. Every career is hard. Working at a company is hard. You have a boss, you have limited vacation days, you have 9 to 5, maybe you have a commute. Being an entrepreneur is also hard. You have no boss, you're your own boss. You might not know where your money is coming from. You might not have a commute, but you might be working 70, 80 hours a week. Is it how many vacation days do I have, or is it how am I going to pay payroll? You need to structure your psychology methodology to be effective. This is what high performers do. Think about what drives them and they plan for it. I hope you're going to join me at Entrepreneurship Summit. If not, I'll keep sharing tips.
