Those who put little no value on others peoples livelihoods tend to be just as reckless with their own career. It's ironic but in my experience it's been true and the piper is always paid on time. Poor leaders are willing to put their teams in the line of fire just to save face and it's done under the guise of what's best for "the business." And maybe so, but it's also cowardly when that leader doesn't take any accountability at all. Identify your leader's level of integrity, their goals and objectives. Are they putting themselves first at all costs or prioritizing your career? If it's the former, you'll likely end up cannon fodder or at the very least, idle standing on the battlefield waited to be called home.

There’s an expression out there, “Great talent knows great talent.” This may be true, but in my experience great talent doesn't refer great talent, they usually refer their friends. The problem with this isn’t that your friends suck; it’s that your ideas become stale. You’re too comfortable around them, and eventually the lines just blur. I once asked my manager on his last day of the job if he had any advice for me. He said, “I hired you because I knew we’d never have the same idea and we’d rarely agree on the same thing, and I was right. Don’t hire someone like you, hire someone like me."

You can become irrelevant without even knowing it, and for managers, staying relevant becomes an essential part of the job. For many, the management ladder is a means to explain why it’s okay to be disconnected. The age old tale that they now manage managers and they’re really conscious of micromanaging so they lean back, or even more ridiculous, that they’re supposed to be “operating at 30,000 feet." Staying relevant not only requires you to know what your team does, but how they’re doing it without actually being in the weeds. If the day comes that you have no idea how long a task should take and can’t read the tea leaves when it comes to roadblocks and gaps in your team’s initiatives, then you’ve entered your stone age.

A mentor of mine starts these business ventures at what feels like every other month. When I asked how he knew when it was time to close the book on one project and start something new, his response was, “keep a consistent process with a defined timeline.” It takes a year and half to bring an idea to market, another year and half to improve and scale it, and then a year to give it to someone else to run. If our goals are designed to improve ourselves and our situation, whether it be starting a new company, completing a screenplay, or recording an album, nothing we start should take more than 4 years.

Whether you’re working on processes, operating principles, improving your tech transformation operating model or selling sneakers with two of your friends, business as usual is a euphoric state that once reached means you’ve created a level of sustainability. You are a success! But in reality, your function, workflow, and processes should evolve and become anything but as usual. Don’t fall in love with BAU because it causes slow down as the way the companies and all successful organizations operate change faster than you think. What worked for you 3 years ago, let alone even 18 months ago, shouldn’t work today. How we measure success is critical to driving success, however, if you’re still measuring success against the way you used to scale your function and venture, then you’re not scaling horizontally or vertically. You’re merely getting by. Business should not be usual. As an individual, you should be offering new capabilities and new services to be relevant.

As I began to focus more on creating leaders out of individual contributors, I learned the biggest misconception for others was the idea that they too needed direct reports. There’s an individual I worked with a few roles ago who desperately wanted to be a manager, but eventually realized that as a leader there was much more flexibility in rallying individuals behind his initiative. By having managers as sponsors, he was able to create efforts that elevate himself first and others along for the ride, as opposed to elevating others first and foremost in a management role. He would bring similar job functions together through all these grass roots efforts, maneuvering between cross-functional teams to move the needle in his direction. He became a master of the art of persuasion, and everything this individual thought he loved about management, turned out to be the very things he really loved about leadership without the responsibility and overhead.

Comfort is lazy's little cousin. Or maybe not but they're definitely related. If you're doing anything for a period of time that gets you too comfortable, then it's time to switch it up! You can't shoot from the free throw line forever. At some point, you're going to have to step back, let it loose and try to sink that 3-point bucket, even if it means you're going to miss big. There are times in the morning after I wake up when I'm about to start my day that I start to feel FIDGETY, maybe even a little agitated. It didn't take long for me to realize it was because the day was predictable, and predictability -- no matter what field you're in -- is boring. Shake it off and add that new change to your day.

The hardest job I ever had was when I was a lead engineer at an ad agency, what feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time. This place beat me down in so many different ways. Everything I did was never good enough, with every deliverable requiring a frustrating amount of revisions. Even when I knew in my heart of hearts it was finally great, it got sent back for more tweaks. After I left this agency, it somehow made every job afterward less challenging . When others struggled at their jobs, I was being praised for what would’ve been considered shit at the previous agency. They demanded perfection only so they could squeeze out great from me and somehow, it’s the only place I’d ever work for again.