Ten Year Career Reflections and Lessons

October is a special month for me, and not just because I love #SpookySzn. I started my first full time job at First Solar in October of 2014, ten years ago. And the same month three years ago (almost to the day), I left that company to start working with the DOE Loan Programs Office.

I feel incredibly proud of all the impactful projects I've worked on, the brilliant people I've met, and the amount I've been able to learn along this journey. In college, all I knew is that I cared deeply about helping to solve the existential crisis of climate change. It is a dream come true that I now get to work with some of the most knowledgeable and passionate people in the industry, along with the most creative entrepreneurs in the world, to help deploy innovative and impactful clean energy technology.

To reflect on this past decade, I wanted to share some of the most important lessons I've learned along the way. Some of these may seem corny, or obvious, but I share them because they are true for me and have helped me grow and expand my capabilities. I still have so so much to learn and am humbled daily by the complexity involved in decarbonizing our entire way of life. But these principles have guided me well, and I hope to keep adding to them as I progress in my career.

My younger brother is only 20 years old and has yet to start his career journey. So this article is addressed to people his age group, who are perhaps still in school and unsure of what the adult working world will bring them. In a way, these are lessons I wish I could tell myself ten years ago.

I hope these lessons are valuable to you, regardless of what you do or where you are in your career today.

Be a "Doer"

I'm a big fan of the acronym GSD - Get Shit Done.

It may seem simple and obvious, but it's not. If you can join a new organization and immediately start doing, whether its solving problems, addressing gaps, or saying yes to tasks that others wont do, you can create value. Offer your services up to anyone whom you trust, who can give you an interesting project that you can learn from. And in the workplace you only learn by doing, theory doesn't help you.

Throughout my career, I have taken on many new side projects just because no one else was doing them, but I thought they were valuable and interesting. At First Solar, I led the marketing for our power plant modeling platform PlantPredict because I thought it was a powerful tool for the industry and far superior to the alternatives. And in doing so, I learned how to run a webinar, how to write a newsletter, and how to conduct user surveys and understand user behaviors. All of these experiences were like a real-life crash course in marketing, with real stakes and end users.

Even while at the DOE, I've supported projects across the spectrum including nuclear, critical minerals, solar, geothermal, offshore wind, hydrogen, fertilizers, and long duration energy storage (plus much weirder stuff). I've briefed the White House and supported reviews of tariffs. I have even helped implement our CRM platform to track client outreach and opportunities. None of these were part of my original job description or mandate - but they were just things that needed to be done, so I helped make it happen. And by saying yes to such a wide range of projects, I've expanded my capabilities tremendously.

Learn How To Learn

In school, you have neat and tidy "majors" and "minors" where everyone's classes fall into a specific area. A chemical engineer takes very different courses than a history major. Yet in the working world, most jobs entail understanding all the parts of a problem. Here at the LPO, our engineers may work on a geothermal project one day, a nuclear project the next, and a lithium mining and processing plant the day after. They have to understand the principles of subsurface heat flow, thermal exchange, fluid dynamics, and nuclear physics. They also need to review complex construction and operating contracts, understand the legal implications of key clauses, and make sure these aspects are accurately reflected in a financial model. There is no one "major" that covers all of these areas - it is an interdisciplinary engagement. And while engineers coming into this role may have background in one specific area, they are forced to learn a vast array of new subject areas that they never took a class in.

So do they go back and get another six undergraduate degrees to succeed in this job? Of course not. That is where learning how to learn comes in. You don't need to write a Ph. D dissertation on the topic - you just need to understand exactly enough to do your job. The best way to learn is from someone who already knows and can teach you directly. This can save you many dozens of hours of Google, YouTube, Coursera, and ChatGPT. But even still, these tools are your friend. When I started working, I heard the phrase "I know enough to be dangerous" for the first time. And that is the key - go deep enough to know what you are talking about and get the job done, and build from there. And make sure to find people who have the patience to teach you what they know and guide you along the way.

When I first spoke to Jigar about potentially joining the LPO, I highlighted my long history in the solar space, going back to my undergraduate projects. He said something along the lines of "That's great, but we don't need help in solar. We need someone to figure out critical minerals." And my response, honestly, was "Cool! What are critical minerals?" to which he responded "You will figure it out".

You will be surprised at what you can "figure out" given the right motivation and support. The internet has infinite resources, and you can read a report,? join a webinar, or attend a conference and become familiar with a new topic in a matter of weeks or months.

Most adults that have been working for 10+ years have changed companies, industries, and roles several times. And in almost every situation., they are forced to learn a new area which they did not study or have any exposure to. But you learn how to figure it out!

Intelligence is Overrated

When you join the "adult" working world from the world of school and college, it can be jarring. The traits that used to matter don't necessarily matter anymore.

From ages 5 to 22 (or beyond), you are trained to believe that your worth and intelligence is based on learning certain materials and discovering? the "right" answer, whether in the form? of a quiz,? an essay, homework, or an exam.

There is no "grade" with your job. Because there is often no "right answer". Problems and projects are open-ended, vague, with many possible answers and rarely ever one "perfect" answer. There is the answer that helps you close the deal. There is the result that makes sure the bridge doesn't collapse. No business decisions are made in a pure vacuum like an exam - there are egos, personalities, politics, and many other factors involved. Being "right" is not as important in the workplace, because it is often not objectively clear what "right" even is.

Just being able to memorize facts and equations can take you far in college, but in the working world there is so much more to being successful. The leaders of companies are not just the "smartest" people, they are the ones that understand human behavior, comprehend markets, can communicate well, and can creatively solve problems, among many other things. It's important to go beyond "traditional" intelligence to other types of intelligence to succeed in the workplace.

Emotional Intelligence is Underrated

At the end of the day, organizations are run by people. Sure, you may see Apple's stock ticker and earnings reports and think of it as a large, successful corporation. But behind the scenes, thousands of humans are working together to design the latest iOS update, Mac keyboard, and iPad pencil.

Whenever you start working, you report to a human, you work with other humans, and your customers, vendors, and IT support staff are all humans.

Learning how to treat, listen to, understand, have empathy for, and engage with different kinds of people will take you very far in your career. I would argue that that emotional intelligence is more valuable in the workplace than "traditional" intelligence (IQ).

Everyone in your workplace has different motivations and approaches to their work. You can safely assume in the world that everyone is at the very least? acting in their?own self interest, even if it doesn't seem that way to you. So understanding people's motivations, and their communication styles, is critical to success in the workplace.

For example, you may encounter a situation where your manager has a big ego and feels the need to be consulted about every small decision. This can?come off as micro-manager behavior, but you can't call? him out on that directly. Emotional?intelligence gives you the awareness to find the balance of checking in with him frequently enough so he feels his input is received, while also earning his trust so you can develop more autonomy. And empathy will help you realize that maybe your boss' boss is meticulous and overbearing, so he is just being extra careful due the added pressure. Or maybe you are new and your manager has 20+ years of experience, so he has valid input for most of your work products.

Rather than getting frustrated that people around you wont agree with every idea you have, if you can understand the underlying psychology of the people around you, you will navigate these situations much more fruitfully. This is just as true for your personal life, so there are infinite benefits to maximizing your EQ.

The Power of Communication

Having great ideas is meaningless if you can't communicate them effectively. And this is especially true in the workplace. You can have the most brilliant, world-changing product idea, but if you are condescending, rude, and smug in your presentation, no one will want to help you build it.

So much of our effectiveness in the workplace today relies on communication. And in the remote world, it has moved beyond in-person to virtual meetings, phone calls, presentations, and everyone's favorite, EMAILS.

Like it or not, emails are a big part of our life. And being able to write a concise, persuasive, and effective email is a superpower.

It can mean the difference between closing a deal or not. It can mean getting a promotion. It can get your project prioritized, or canceled.

Writing is not an innate talent, but a skill that can be learned. Early on, my managers and mentors would go through important emails with me line by line to make sure they were hyper-effective for the precise audience. This helped me build that muscle over time, so i know that for the busy CEO, you keep the email short and to the point, but for the thoughtful and ponderous engineer, you can write out the entire detailed thought process.

Virtual meetings have overtaken most of our work lives, and it has become so easy to check in and tune out. But like the old meme goes - can this meeting be an email? Be ruthless with your time. If a meeting isn't adding value, skip it. If it needs to happen, have an agenda, have a key outcome, and for the love of god, TAKE NOTES.

I have seen an embarrassing amount of emails, sometimes from very senior folks, saying "What did we decide in that meeting?" Days or weeks after the fact. I write everything down out of habit because I know I have a poor memory. And my days are too busy to try to remember every detail of every conversation for multiple complex deals. And if you ever get the fateful "What did we decide" email, you can respond with "Per my notes..." and be THAT GUY.

Learning to be a super-communicator will pay immense dividends throughout your career and beyond. Again, this is one that definitely translates to your personal life. And the other half of communication is listening, which is also a skill. So many folks are multi-tasking, half-listening to a meeting while checking emails or doing their taxes. By practicing deep listening (and perhaps "mirroring" as Chris Voss recommends), you can make your colleagues feel heard and understood.

Active listening, combined with clear and concise communication on your part, will make you unstoppable.

Books Worth Reading

Here are some books that have transformed my approach to work and interpersonal relationships the past decade:

• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Graves
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
• Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
• The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Thank you for reading, and please share your thoughts in the comments!