Career

Anyone with a brain will tell you there's no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to growing your professional career.

That being said, here are 5 principles that have served me well during my 10+ years at KPMG, EY, and Google:

1. The best mentors are those just 1 step ahead of us. They understand your struggles but have also found solutions.
2. In the long-run, capability always wins. Sucking up, backstabbing, and other under-handed tricks may work in the short term, but if you focus on being the best at what you do, you will come out on top in the long-run.
3. Over-communication is under-rated. I've landed in trouble for forgetting to sharing updates with stakeholders, but no-one has ever told me I'm over-sharing. Always err on the side of over-communication.
4. The Work-Life Balance is a myth (if you're ambitious). No senior leader will ever admit this in public since it would be career suicide but just know you will need to make massive trade-offs in life if you want a quick climb up the corporate ladder.
5. Execution beats strategy every time. If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the exact industry-disrupting new idea to build, but your end product is slow and buggy compared to the competition, you will still lose the game.

A few of my favorite quotes

At every job you should either learn or earn. Either is fine. Both is best. But if it's neither, quit - Garry Tan, President & CEO, Y Combinator

Is networking the same as sucking up? Nope.

It's about showing that you've invested in their work before you ask them to invest in yours - Jenny Wood, Director, Google

The concept of work-life balance while being a high-performer is bullshit; successful individuals got to where they are by being out of balance for a very long time - Daniel Priestley, Entrepreneur, Best-Selling Author

If something is easy for you to do? It’s just as easy for your competition too.

That's why easy doesn't usually stand out - Austin Belcak, Founder & CEO, Cultivated Culture

A few of my favorite workplace templates

• Meeting Notes (self) - How to take effective notes at work for yourself
• Project Recap Email - How to recap learnings and takeaways without playing politics
• Meeting Recap Email - Capture key takeaways and action items. Leave out all the fluff
• Meeting Notes (team) - How to take notes when multiple teams are involved
• Project Management Spreadsheet - Best practices for managing projects that involve multiple teams
• Tri-color Template - A super beautiful template a friend created (thanks Max 😁)
• Gmail filters I have exported from my own Gmail account (you can import them in less than 2 minutes)
• Project Recap Email - How to recap learnings and takeaways without playing politics