Why You Need This Book

This small book offers a great deal of insight for those who are looking for their first jobs after college; talented people with little or no experience; those with career interests but few clear goals; and those who want to find work that would be both financially rewarding and personally fulfilling, but don’t know where to look for it.

It’s intended for every 'Nobody' who's trying to find out he or she is meant to do... and who eventually wants to become a 'Somebody'.

The leaders interviewed and featured by Peter Han are:

BASICS: FINDING ONE’S CALLING

The lessons start with self-knowledge and enhancing it if need be.

Here are the five paths to self-discovery:

METHOD # 1: RANDOM WALK

This is about finding one’s destiny through a combination of luck and fortunate circumstance. People taking this approach, while talented and passionate, did not start their first jobs with particular angst about their careers. They have a relatively weak belief in preset destinies and very open-ended approaches to finding those destinies.

METHOD # 2: OPEN-ENDED EXPLORATION

Open-ended explorers are similarly open to the quirky turns of life and thus are like Random Walkers at times. However, they tend to be more open to the possibility that a particular destiny can or should be discovered in their life’s work. They use their first jobs to explore possible vocations, to pursue passions, and to make early attempts at translating aspirations to achievement.

METHOD # 3: CLOSED-ENDED EXPLORATION

These explorers began their first jobs with more specific aims. They evaluated potential career paths using very specific criteria. They typically started with a fairly clear idea of what they wanted to do, what fit their wants and needs, and where their passion lay.

METHOD # 4: KILLER EXCELLENCE AFTER EXPEDIENCE

A number of the people who took this route began their careers with their choices boxed in by some reason of personal expedience, most often financial need. These leaders displayed such competence and drive that they boosted themselves into positions of steadily ascending responsibility.

METHOD # 5: TRAILBLAZING

These people are those who had strong desires to find work that suited them and sometimes consciously created jobs, companies or market niches for themselves. These mavericks might be considered the most stubborn of society’s Somebodies, the ones least willing to fit themselves to existing roles and career paths.

These leaders all have four common threads of self-knowledge, threads that influenced their development from their first jobs onwards:

• STRONG SELF-AWARENESS. The profiled leaders got to know themselves. Their observations and analyses were particularly insightful when trained on their own personal likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

• PLAY TOWARD STRENGTHS AND AWAY FROM WEAKNESSES. Somebodies tended to put their egos aside and to see themselves clearly enough to play to their strengths and away from their weaknesses.

• EMPHASIS ON PERSONAL AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY. Authenticity here refers to an alignment between one’s underlying character and externally visible statements and actions, while integrity refers to the consistency of those words and deeds, from one day or another and across different situations.

• PRAGMATIC DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES. The leaders spoke repeatedly of a reliance on gut instinct, on trusting themselves and not getting overly bogged down in analytical exercises. This gut instinct rested on strong self-knowledge.

What were leaders’ mind-sets as they started their careers?

Many of the leaders interviewed said that they had nursed quiet but intense hopes, clear glimmers of ambition, as they took their first jobs. When the stories of their lives were just beginning, after all, they had no way of knowing how things would turn out. So they started putting one foot in front of the other and not thinking too far into the future.

Leaders were quite modest early in their careers in part due to another common trait: basic insecurities and inexperience. They did not sail through work and life without doubts. But even with the pressures of day-to-day responsibilities and bills, leaders didn’t completely shut off their dreams and hopes for a better tomorrow. Once at work, they often spotted opportunities, or created them for themselves, and jumped on them.

Did they have an inkling of where their remarkable careers would take them?

Leaders came to balance their immediate obligations with longer-term ambitions in a variety of ways. For some of them, it wasn’t conscious – the blissful ignorance of inexperience helped open up possibilities naturally. Sometimes ignorance could lead to bolder action too – helping young leaders move beyond the proverbial paying of rent, and onto bigger and broader moves.

How did leaders gain the confidence to raise their sights?

Leaders learned to swim in bigger ponds by mastering the small ones first. First jobs often hold prominent places in the psychology of today’s Somebodies. They remember seemingly unimportant events, conversations, glances, and people who had influenced the crucial first steps in their professional development as groundwork for their future success.

Once armed with confidence, they had the strength to follow their intuition instead of conventional wisdom – to make their moves, to advance their novel ideas, and to fight for their beliefs. Leaders possess this steady, sometimes quiet, but often fierce confidence in the face of adversity.

Ann Richards, who worked as Governor of Texas from 1990 to 1994 offers some advice about confidence to young people starting their careers: “Be proud of what you are. Be broad. Be big. Don’t let anybody put you down.”

KEYS: CHASING THE DREAM

Looking back on their careers, these outstanding men and women loved their work first and foremost, and didn’t particularly relish fancy maneuvers among jobs or organizations. On the other hand, they often described conscious and savvy ways of managing their career development.

Once under way in their early careers – what career moves did leaders make?

These leaders were a bit more patient than most people in their approaches to their first jobs. They did not necessarily turn out to be paragons of early-career stability, but they did typically commit to jobs and institutions to a greater degree than most young people do today. However, when circumstances dictated it, they showed a fair amount of mobility too.

What compelled them to depart from their first jobs?

Spotting potential slowdowns in a rising career motivated other leaders to change their paths. The hunger for excellence was common to all of them. It became part of their identities to find ways over, around, under, and through obstacles to success – and this included career moves beyond the first job.

What kind of moves did top achievers make?

Leaders often showed a knack for getting noticed early in their careers and using the extra visibility to learn about or create new opportunities for themselves. They delivered steady, highly competent work in the tasks and roles assigned to them, and also stepped up when they had the chance to do higher-profile work or come into contact with top people in their fields.

Another career move was the cultivation of broad expertise. But ultimately, in discussing career management with leaders across different fields, the greatest learning is this: almost all enjoyed their work with a passion.

Were there any wild cards?

Leaders are leaders in part because they hone a good sense of when and how to embrace risks. With remarkable regularity, the leaders featured described times in their lives when they left safety and conventionally prescribed paths to try something their background or circumstances or simple desires demanded.

In many cases, the leaders absorbed career risk in a fairly thoughtful way, understanding that short-term sacrifice might lead to long-term gain.

Did the leaders ever allow themselves to get swept up in unplanned fate, luck or contingency?

Several of these leaders echoed this idea that many of their best moments in life came from reacting to the unexpected. By remaining open to surprises and letting life unwrap gifts of serendipity, the Somebodies launched new episodes in their lives.

Were they thinkers or doers?

They showed an impressive ability to marshal decisive actions after big decisions. They might have wrestled with uncertainty at key crossroads early in their careers, but once those decision points were passed, they described an impressive capacity to throw overwhelming resources and attention at the challenge to be conquered.

Were they the hardest workers or the smartest? Or both?

Working hard, working smart and working well comprised a major component of the leaders’ success. The strength and persistence that enabled them to do these things sprang in many ways from within themselves.

Do they strive for some abstract, objective standard of greatness, or do they measure themselves more directly in comparison to peers and competitors?

A slight variant on raw competitiveness was the desire for independence from others’ sometimes arbitrary whims. They were often independent-minded and spirited people, and not surprisingly, they disliked having their professional fortunes flutter around at the direction of some random boss or organization. They described the drive for self-determination in competitive terms.

Do they somehow manage to stay above the fray?

These leaders had mental compasses pointing up. They weren’t necessarily egotistical in a smarmy, off-putting way, but they channeled competitive feelings. They used their pride, in other words, to push themselves to do better and to reach higher.

How did leaders relate to others?

Many of the leaders had similar stories of friendship with other Somebodies – experiences shared, difficult times commiserated over, contacts introduced, jobs offered and so on.

There are four ways in which they built those ties:

• THE COMMON TOUCH OR LIKABILITY. The leaders interviewed weren’t mandarins, or idols on the proverbial mountaintop removed from common circulation. To the contrary, they typically came off as remarkably humble, approachable, and friendly.

• RECIPROCITY. Another important point raised by the leaders in their discussion of peer relationships was the proverbial Golden Rule, treating others as you’d want to be treated.

• COMMUNICATION SKILLS. A third key interpersonal skill cultivated and practiced by leaders is their ability to communicate fluidly. Whether in verbal or written form, society’s Somebodies tended to express their thoughts effectively.

• SAVVY WITH ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND POLITICS. A fourth element is that many leaders grasped either consciously or instinctively was political savvy. Put simply, leaders understood how to move others and are sensitive to others’ feelings.

How did leaders who weren’t naturally outgoing build the social sides of their personalities?

The leaders’ social energy also translated into informal activities beyond their first jobs or formal institutions. They joined clubs, often lots of them. Whether naturally outgoing or not, leaders were highly social creatures who leveraged relationships in a variety of ways, in a variety of contexts.

END GAME: USING A LITTLE MAGIC

A specific kind of relationship – that with mentors or teachers – deserves special attention due to its important role.

What about mentors?

They did not maintain lifelong mentors who helped them consistently throughout their careers. Instead they took counsel from numerous situational mentors at different points along the way. The notion of a single consistent guide throughout professional life might not fit these people’s needs and habits.

The leaders did not necessarily assume that mentoring required a two-way relationship. That is, in some cases, when they worked in their first jobs, they learned from negative role models as much as positive ones – learning what not to do, as well as what to do.

Some leaders succeeded in establishing conventional mentor-mentee relationships with older contacts.

Society’s Somebodies were generally social people and tended to leverage personal relationships in a variety of ways, particularly for learning.

Did leaders care about work-life balance early in their careers?

Most of the leaders mention coping mechanisms they had developed to improve their life balance, or to preserve the important things from it that they needed. These coping methods generally fell into four categories:

• RELYING ON SPOUSES. Leaders made time for love. Besides critical emotional sustenance, spouses provided tangible support to their work too.

• PRESERVING FAMILY RITUALS AND ACTIVITIES. Regularity and structure in their personal lives provided a comforting anchor, a harbor amid the sometimes-rough seas of working life.

• SACRIFICING NONFAMILY ACTIVITIES. They reduced nonfamily socializing and leisure. They did so by determining clear priorities for their time and then adhering to those priorities with discipline.

• RECOGNIZING THE BENEFITS OF BALANCE. They maintained work-life balance by reminding themselves of its value.

What was the magic ingredient in the recipe for success?

Ultimately, leaders’ willpower and passions made them very positive people. They drove hard towards their goals, had high ambitions, and displayed passion for many things in their lives. This fundamentally forward-leaning posture and outlook colored everything they did.

What are the most important things they have to teach us?

• Strive to develop a sense of deep self-knowledge.


• You must be both flexible and willing to take unconventional paths.


• Life is an organic, change-filled process, constantly dynamic. Things rarely end where they begin. Don’t assume that certain starting points in life imply certain ending points.


• Welcome failure as part of the growth process. Don’t be afraid to fail! Strive to learn from your mistakes.


• Don’t follow preprogrammed career tracks.


• Don’t accept others’ assumptions.


• Understand and embody constant growth and personal reinvention; be open to change and improvement – this is the most fitting lesson of all.

So, work hard, devote yourself to the goals, search for the big breaks, and enjoy the ride all the way. There are a whole lot of Nobodies looking to become Somebodies out there. You can be one of them.