Gaining Career Clarity #3

Mindset determines how far you go in life. In broad terms, there is an abundance mindset (positive view of life and work, expecting fruitful results), and a scarcity mindset (there's only a limited amount of pie, and if your slice is bigger, mine gets smaller).

For your career, you want to cultivate an opportunity mindset. That is, there is an abundance of ever-evolving opportunities; not some restricted, limited number of possible jobs for you.

Our space-based telescopes, including NASA's new James Webb platform, reveal that in our vast universe the clearer our view is, the more abundance there is. We just need to be able to see it. There is a vast world of professional opportunities out there if we're willing to open our eyes.

I was speaking with my wife this week about the process of "creative destruction." How old formats, old companies, and old approaches must give way to new technologies and new business avenues. The dynamic nature of our modern marketplace means that there will ALWAYS and INCREASINGLY be new opportunities for business creation.

Think about just one example: book publishing. This area of the marketplace used to be pretty well confined to big publishers and local (physical) bookshops. It was hard to break in, it was centralized, and the opportunity to get published was scarce. Now, with digital technologies, Amazon, and an endless array of publishing avenues, a massive world of authors, graphic artists, ghostwriters, editors, and other professionals is involved in the book creation and selling business. The disruption that has occurred through digital technologies has wholly re-made the landscape of who can get their ideas into print.

Almost anyone can start a company now, and reach a targeted audience, through inexpensive and widely-available tools. Even a pandemic can create new opportunities - my workshop business flourished once my clients were forced to do virtual sessions instead of live meetings. The gig economy and the work-from-anywhere movement mean whole new landscapes of opportunity for contractors and consultants.

College football has changed dramatically in the last few years, in part because of the "transfer portal." If a player does not like the opportunity at a current school, it is now much easier to transfer to a different program. They used to be more "stuck" in the program they started with - now, a world of options is open. It's all about free agency these days.

Standing in front of you right now is a transfer portal. You're a free agent. You have plenty of opportunities.

So, take a deep breath and do a mindset shift. You don't have 2 potential avenues for professional growth, you have 100 - and some of them you can create yourself (as I did 15 years ago). Tomorrow, next year, next decade - there will be even more new kinds of opportunities. It's never been easier to dream it, and do it (or find it).

Steve Woodruff is known as the King of Clarity.