I'd like to add something that rhymes with the flexibility you have mentioned.
It's about taking advantage of the opportunities that appear in your way. Sometimes you won't be able to fully choose the job you want to do. But even if you don't, there will always be interesting things to learn. Be conscious about the opportunities coming your way, seize them, and they will become new sills in your skill set.
I will give an example based on learning languages. I spoke good English when I was 16, but I only learned French when I was 27 because I did an internship in Brussels. I learned Italian at 30 because I got a job in Italy and lived there for 2 years at the time. I learned Portuguese at 33, because my wife is Portuguese.
I never planned to speak 5 languages, but I took the opportunities that were appearing along the way. I think this can be extended to other skills too.
Absolutely. Having strategy allows you to be flexible in that you would know what is most valuable to learn in every job that presents yourself.
Also, this brings up something that I could have probably highlighted better in the article: not only every job that is not optimal for the strategy can be leveraged in the strategy itself (because you might learn useful things or move to a nice country etc), but the strategy itself will vary and mutate over time, so it’s good to be aware of this and be open to the opportunities that come your way.
I think Steve jobs once said that it’s easy to connect the dots looking backwards but hard to build a line adding dot by dot.
I'd like to add something that rhymes with the flexibility you have mentioned.
It's about taking advantage of the opportunities that appear in your way. Sometimes you won't be able to fully choose the job you want to do. But even if you don't, there will always be interesting things to learn. Be conscious about the opportunities coming your way, seize them, and they will become new sills in your skill set.
I will give an example based on learning languages. I spoke good English when I was 16, but I only learned French when I was 27 because I did an internship in Brussels. I learned Italian at 30 because I got a job in Italy and lived there for 2 years at the time. I learned Portuguese at 33, because my wife is Portuguese.
I never planned to speak 5 languages, but I took the opportunities that were appearing along the way. I think this can be extended to other skills too.
Absolutely. Having strategy allows you to be flexible in that you would know what is most valuable to learn in every job that presents yourself.
Also, this brings up something that I could have probably highlighted better in the article: not only every job that is not optimal for the strategy can be leveraged in the strategy itself (because you might learn useful things or move to a nice country etc), but the strategy itself will vary and mutate over time, so it’s good to be aware of this and be open to the opportunities that come your way.
I think Steve jobs once said that it’s easy to connect the dots looking backwards but hard to build a line adding dot by dot.
Good point! Thanks for your comment