Hot Streaks in Your Career Don’t Happen by Accident

What should you do if you're young and ambitious but don't know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action. But there is no systematic procedure you can follow. When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved.... See more

we can explore and exploit in parallel: become a jack of all trades, and a master of one. Or we can do it serially: lots of successful careers look like an initial period of exploration, followed by going deep on one thing for several years, then an exploration phase in an adjacent field, and so on. There is still a trade-off between these states,

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People tend to gravitate to different sides of the explore/exploit spectrum. If you are high on openness, like I am, exploring comes easy. But it is harder to make a commitment and exploit what you’ve learned about yourself and the world. Other people are more committed, but risk being too conventional in their choices. They miss better avenues for... See more