Category: The Startup of You

“I don’t feel ready.”  That’s what I hear again and again from people starting—or restarting—their careers.  But I have good news: you’re more ready than you think.   I’m not saying this just to make you feel better. It’s true. You’re more adaptive than you think. If you don’t have enough relevant work experience, you may…

Your personal brand at work is not just what you say about yourself. It’s also what your network says about you. While this isn’t something you can fully control, there are ways to better understand and shape it.  On the seventh episode of the Startup of You Podcast, Ben Casnocha and I discuss how to more effectively…

One of the riskiest things you can do in your career is to try to eliminate risk entirely.  In fact, it’s impossible—and unadvisable—to avoid risk. For example, if you’re not aware of the risk involved in a potential career move, it’s probably not a breakout opportunity.    The world changes—as do our jobs, companies, and industries.…

After a wave of early customer feedback, LinkedIn shifted its primary product development focus from individual to corporate subscriptions.  One problem: I had never built a corporate product.  I didn’t know who could best advise us when I called David Sze at Greylock. He introduced us to Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri, who connected us to Mike Stankey on his team. Mike had the…

In my first startup, I was told “no” by almost every VC I pitched.  True story.  How did I get beyond that? How do you become relentlessly resourceful in your career? How can you master the art of the hustle without being perceived as a “hustler”? On the fourth episode of the Startup of You…

Many professionals are turned off by the idea of “networking.” They think it’s about slimy glad-handing and using others to get ahead. But when pursued with an eye toward leveraging your skills and experiences to help other people succeed, building a professional network becomes something else entirely – a chance at authentic human connection that…

Risk tends to get a bad rap. We associate it with things like losing money in the stock market, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet. But risk isn’t the enemy—it’s a permanent, pervasive, unavoidable part of life. Risk is the flip side of every opportunity, every career move. When George Clooney aggressively auditioned and sold…

Interconnectedness feels good emotionally, but professionally it is limiting because the same information recycles through your local network of like-minded friends. If a close friend or ally knows about a job opportunity, you probably already do too. That’s why the breadth and reach of your network is valuable. When thinking about how to expand your…

Navigate Professional Challenges with Network Intelligence Our educational system trains us to memorize facts stored in textbooks and then regurgitate them on an exam. Better schools will “teach you how to learn,” but it’s still not learning by doing, and it’s still not a particularly social undertaking. You study for a test and you take…

In today’s world, the rules change — fast. Unexpected things happen: Strange shifts you couldn’t have imagined. Competition comes out of nowhere. Technologies disrupt the playing field. Jobs, even entire industries, disappear. The very fabric of the game changes, and whole new careers are born. In the early 2000s, if you told people that in…