[Career] Step by Step

We are on day 3 of our first weekly series (#1) discussing careers.

On day 1 we established the significance of careers in our life. On day 2 we discussed how to make careers truly meaningful. Today let us use a gauge to understand where we are in our careers.

Inspired by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I created a Career Maslow as a gauge to understand the stages of a typical career evolution.

Stage 1: It is a job that pays bills. Life runs between pay checks. Grumpy on Monday. Treats job as a necessary evil.

Stage 2: Exchanges skill and time for money. It is still a job. Does it for economic stability and security.

Stage 3: Identifies himself/herself with the work. Belongs in the tribe of craftsmen. It is more than a job and less than a career. Does a good job. Involved in the craft.

Stage 4: It is not a job any more. It is a career. Divorces financial aspects from the career. Career and the related craft is a big part of the person's identity. Has traits of workaholic.

Stage 5: Strives for mastery. Obsessed with the craft. Works irrespective of being paid or not. Career is beyond identity.

The slingshot of the career Maslow is to escape the rat race and makes it a joy everyday.

Know what stage you are in and think about the stages that will help your life get more meaningful. Moving from a job to career to mastery makes a lot of difference. Nirvana comes from operating outside the Maslow. Make those 7000 days of your life count.

🥂 to slingshots !

In December 2020, I started a program called LEARN STREAMS. The idea was simple. If we spend an hour everyday in a live stream for 60 days with a practitioner (who has been there, done that and doing that even today) and compound the learning, we can learn product design.

In the learnstreams, we dedicated the last two weeks to deep dive into design career paths.

There has been phenomenal demand for understanding product design careers from a number of designers as well. So we are opening up the module to a wider public to take the career streams. Starts Feb 15 2021.

Join the career streams: https://learnstreams.xperian.xyz/#career

Please, pass this along to your friends who are aspiring to become a designer or who is already a professional designer but want to know more about growing in the career path. Appreciate your help my friend 🙏