The 1 thing that actually matters for building a career

I’m 21, so my opinion doesn’t matter. But the best thing I’ve done for myself is work for specific people, not jobs.

On my gap year, I worked with a YouTuber (learnt how to build a coaching biz to 200K ARR), then grew Alex Brogan’s media companies (750k+ follower personal brand and 120k newsletters subscribers) before selling them, tried to work for Brett Adcock and failed (I didn’t try hard enough), and joined the Everlab team (co-founders have >$500M in exits).

If you want to do something as a career, I see three paths:

1. Do it
2. Learn from extremely talented people doing that thing
3. Create false requirements for yourself and say you’ll do it later

For example, if you want to build companies, you can:

1. Build your own
2. Work at an early-stage startup
3. Become a consultant/quant/banker who talks about doing a startup “one day”

Option C really pisses me off, and I try to minimise the number of steps between what I want to be doing and what I’m doing now. People choose option C for “credibility,” salary, “it’s safe,” or whatever else. I do not want to be hit by a bus tomorrow, having slaved away for an ex-(Goldman/McKinsey) on my LinkedIn.

In my 20s, I am optimising for learning, which means finding insane people doing what I want to be doing, doing my own thing on the side, and working long hours. This is not for everyone, but if you want to do cool stuff, it’s a good way.

Don’t be a bitch and choose option A or B.