Many young people feel lost when it comes to developing a professional career or starting out in the world of work. First of all, we must walk in something that we like or that we are good at, in order to fully enjoy what will be our work for a long time; and then you have to train accordingly.
In addition, one cannot forget the importance of choosing a good place to do an internship, of focusing on a sector that has hiring possibilities or of knowing when to change jobs if we are stagnant in our company and have no chance of promotion. if this is in our expectations.
The sum of all these factors can end up causing some anguish and, above all, an excess of planning about the career that we want to follow. This attitude of excessive control can end up being counterproductive. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has some advice for those just starting out in their career: “Keep an open mind.”
In fact, Khosrowshahi believes that the “most common mistake young people make is that they over-plan their career,” as vouched for in an Acquired podcast. And this opinion is based on his own life experience.
An advice based on personal experience
He worked in the nineties at the Allen & Company bank, where he thought he was going to end up retiring. Working as an analyst, he was assigned a large operation and, then, he had to work hand in hand with the managers involved in this operation. CEO Barry Diller demanded to meet him in person, and although the buyout they worked on ultimately didn’t go well, Khosrowshahi ended up working for Diller.
He went to work with him at USA Networks and later at IAC, which ended up buying Expedia, where Khosrowshahi also served as CEO. In 2017 he made the jump to Uber. From all this experience, the advice is not to over-plan as opportunities arise anywhere and at any time.
“There’s this human bias that is to look for a sign that matches the plan you have and ignore everything else that doesn’t match it. So my advice to young people is don’t plan too much, you never know what opportunities are going to come up.” “, he concludes.
