Pursuing a Job vs. a Craft
Edition #089
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The Newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
How do I progress to the next level in my career?
James Stanier is the Director of Engineering at Shopify. He has written two books: "Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager" and "Effective Remote Work". This article is a must-read for anyone looking for career advice and having questions about planning and taking your career to the next level. It contains brilliant nuggets of advice purely derived from years of experience.
Here are some thoughts from the article which will make you think and reflect on them:
Ask a question: What do you actually want? Don’t fall prey to shallow thinking but deeply introspect about what you truly want.
If you are optimising towards your total compensation at all times, the best thing you can probably do is keep changing jobs.
Focus on the craft, and the opportunities and money will come.
Progression inside any organisation is a team play. It’s not a solo quest that you can win through brute force and friction.
Model and learn from others in the company who you are inspired by.
Finally, career progression is about discovering where you’d like to go and what positive action you will take to work towards it.
Read the entire article here.
Thinking Faster, Talking Smarter
Matt Abrahams is a Larsen Lam Family Lecturer in Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. In his new book “Think Faster, Talk Smarter”, Matt distils his wealth of knowledge and experience into a comprehensive guide that helps readers sharpen their communication skills and excel in their personal and professional lives.
Here are some topics that you will find valuable from this conversation:
What are the challenges people face with spontaneous communication
Why Professional success needs strong communication skills
Applying the six-step method for better communication
Understanding the difference between communication and messaging
How to communicate one-to-one, one-to-many, one-to-a group
You can listen to the entire episode on:
Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Google Podcasts
How to Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry
Sean Johnson is a founding partner at Manifold, Speaker and Adjunct Lecturer of Marketing at Kellogg Graduate School of Management. In this video, he talks about the concept of ‘Hurry Sickness’ in our lives, where we are in need or in a constant state of hurry when there is actually nothing worth hurrying.
Here are some of the thoughts which you may find valuable:
You need to understand that ‘Busyness’ and ‘Hurry’ are different. Busyness is an external state when, for example, your calendar may be filled with meetings, but Hurry is an internal state of the condition of the soul.
Remove your reliance on your phones or avoid checking your social media or messages on chat, which creates a continuous loop of context switching.
Practice ‘Single Tasking’ - Time-box - a time of day, or create time slots to check emails and messages. This can help you stop reacting and decrease your state to hurry.
Find ways to document, delegate and automate.
Learn to create cycles of intensity and rest.
Practice Solitude and unplug from the world around you.
You can watch by clicking on the above link.
Pursuing a Job vs. a Craft
It is crucial to deeply introspect and appreciate the difference between a job and a craft. Most people use the term career quite casually when, in reality, many are not sure what they want or what they are pursuing. They are doing a job or playing their assigned role, but their deeper interest may lie elsewhere. This shows up as a gap in their professional knowledge and competence, but they refuse to see it themselves. This leads to frustration and disillusionment, but in reality, they have not been able to zero in on their interest or practice hard enough and then take control of their career.
The correct definition of a job is doing a ‘piece of work, especially a specific task done as part of the routine of one's occupation or for an agreed price.’ Most of the time, they try to maximise the best possible money they can get from their job. They don’t work to improve their skills during this time, as their genuine interest doesn’t lie in what they are doing. Over time, they become too expensive for the job that they are doing, and they also don’t get the promotion they seem to believe they are eligible and deserve. People evaluating them think precisely the opposite. Their career plateaus and leave them deeply dissatisfied.
Contrast that with that of craft. They get skilled in a craft over time with rigorous practise through a method of being an apprentice, by observation and application over many years. In the early years, it’s not the money they can earn, but learning to be the best in what they want to do is the key driver. They tend to take up everything that comes their way, ensuring they get to apply and learn continuously until they become an expert. The money they earn in their early years may be significantly lower than what they may deserve, but they look to gain expertise and experience, which pays back over time.
Therefore, pick your area of interest after considerable thought or even look at the job you currently do. Maximise your time doing the hard work with discipline and practise, and become insanely competent and knowledgeable - in short, become a master of that craft.
When you convert your job into a craft, career growth, respect, reputation, and money will be downstream benefits that will accrue to you.
Practise the art of converting your job into a craft.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Focus on the craft, and the opportunities and money will come in your career.
Professional success needs strong communication skills.
Don’t be in a constant ‘State of Hurry’.