#33: meaningful careers
👋 Welcome to the 33rd volume of Out of Curiosity, a weekly newsletter promoting ideas to help get 1% better everyday.
Every week, I go through nearly 100 pieces of content (from books and podcasts to newsletters and tweets), and bring you the best in this newsletter together with what I publish on my blog and podcast.
In this issue:
💼 Finding meaning in our careers
😌 Using creativity as a remedy for worry
✅ How to instantly show your value
🌸 100 things that made my year
💼 Finding meaning in our careers
I had a great conversation with Nick deWilde on the kick-off episode of my podcast. Nick is a product marketer and writes The Jungle Gym, a newsletter focused on careers, personal growth and learning – I’m a big fan!
On the show, we talked about work-life integration, fulfillment and meaning in our careers, and the pros & cons of being a generalist. We also touched on learning and the benefits of creative side projects.
Here's Nick's take on side projects and personal vs. professional identities:
We live in a place where it actually benefits companies a lot to be able to have employees who have their own identities and have their own audiences. That actually increases the surface area of the business to be able to pull people into it.
For individuals, I think we're moving towards a world of more fractional careers. I think that people will be doing a lot more things at once. People spend a lot less time at one company. It's almost trite to say, but the age of somebody spending 30 years at a company, then walking off gold watch in hand, that's gone!
And so, to some degree, the audience that you build (and what you build it for), is really your career stability going into the future.
And making sure that audience is one that you want to continue to tie in with future jobs is a valuable thing.
😌 Using creativity as a remedy for worry
Art is widely recognized as a helpful way to boost wellbeing in so many different ways: to aid communication, to alleviate depression, to uncover hidden meanings and conflicts, but it doesn’t have to be a big cathartic expression of inner turmoil to have healing benefits. Even a small amount of creativity is good for us.
I’ve used art and creativity all my life to express myself and make sense of the confusing vagaries of life. But it wasn’t until I began my counselling training I realized that art could be used as a powerful therapeutic, tool. Expressing oneself and making sense of life are two important processes in therapy. When I began training I realized I had been doing a lot of therapeutic things without knowing it.
✅ How to instantly show your value
I know a lot of you reading have a product or service you're building and selling. Here are some tips on how to quickly convey the benefits of your offering (value proposition):
Use contrast (before-and-after)
Don’t just decrease friction, increase desire
Aim for “no-brainer status”
Focus on what your customer wants to hear about (not what you want to talk about)
Do what makes their eyes light up
🌸 100 things that made my year
I found both relatable and surprising moments in this list of 100 by Austin Kleon, the author of Show Your Work.
More than anything, it reminded me of living in the present moment, noticing the small things (because they're the big things), and of course, writing a list of what you're grateful for.
Here are my favourites:
Talking on the phone instead of Zoom.
Reading a Ray Bradbury short story every night of October.
Having great books to read.
Until next week,