Career Fear (and how to beat it)

Get the Perspective, Mindset and Skills You Need to Futureproof your Work Life

Somi Arian

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781789664638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

What's going on with the world of work? Will my job exist in five years' time? What's 'disruption' all about, and what does it mean for me? Jobs don't look like they used to. In this age of innovation, staying in control of your work life can feel overwhelmingly challenging. So what does it take to have - and be in control of - a successful and fulfilling career? Career Fear (and how to beat it) will help you answer this question for yourself.In this practical and reassuring book, you'll explore the perspective, mindset and uniquely human skills you need for a resilient and thriving career - without the fear. From understanding how the world of work is changing, to self-reflection and developing your critical thinking; author Somi Arian guides you through everything you need to be ready for an exciting and varied journey through life and work. Packed with clear, useful examples and inspiring case studies, Career Fear (and how to beat it) helps you beat that career fear and prepare to succeed - no matter where your career takes you.

PART ONE

Perspective

Everything that we do and say in life is a story. Every single conversation, text message, social media post, film or piece of news is a story. A compelling story has three parts to it: set-up (or context), conflict (or problem) and resolution (or answer).

Another critical aspect of storytelling is ‘perspective’. Tolstoy said that there are only ever two stories: ‘A man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.’ I would take this one step further and say that there is only ever one story – of course, the man that goes on a journey is the stranger that comes into town. The question is from whose perspective we tell a story.

This book is also telling a story, and so it has three parts to it:

• The set-up
  Disruptive technologies have entered and are entering our career landscape. We will look at this in Chapter 1.
• The problem
  We lack a proper framework, and mindset, for dealing with these technologies. We will explore this more in Chapter 2 – and start looking at practical solutions in Part Two, Mindset.
• The resolution
  We need to develop the right kind of skills for coping with disruptive technologies. Chapters 3 and 4 look forward to the future of work – and Part Three, (Human) skills, looks at some practical ways to develop those skills.

But first, we need to start with the right perspective – who’s telling this story? The best way to gain perspective and see the context is by looking at the career landscape in the past, present and future, which is what we will do in the next four chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

A history of work

The concept of work, or its modern version ‘career’, has become such an essential aspect of our modern lives that it’s hard to imagine a time when people didn’t even have a word for work in their vocabulary. I find this particularly mind-blowing, because my personal relationship with work is a very close one – work, for me, is linked to my identity. Even if you are strongly in the work–life balance camp, chances are your work has a big impact on your sense of identity, too.

In this first chapter, we will look at a history of work: a whistle-stop tour of human beings and their ‘jobs’, ‘careers’ and attitudes towards work. For me, learning about the history of work is like a lightbulb moment; finally, everything makes sense, as you learn why we work and how it all began. Once we grasp where it came from, we can understand the most important thing for you and me: where is it going?

First, though, let’s address the elephant in the room.

The question of work–life balance

There is a lot of discussion these days about ‘work–life balance’. As I mentioned, work for me is closely tied to who I am – so much so, that for a long time, I didn’t get why people insisted so much on separating ‘work’ and ‘life’. Surely, work was life?! At least it seemed that way to me: some people can’t wait for the weekend so that they can have a break, whereas I’m the kind of person who can’t wait for the weekend so I can do my most creative work without interruption.

If you are a fan of books like The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, you may be in the ‘work–life balance’ camp. This is the mindset that views work as mainly a source of income. Ferris – and many others like him – suggest that you should strive to minimize your work hours and maximize your income, preferably making it as passive as possible.¹

What I’m about to say in this chapter may appear to be the exact opposite of this point of view. However, don’t be too quick to judge. I’d argue that what I’m going to say isn’t actually that far from Ferris’ viewpoint at all. For example, some people may be inclined to say that I’m a workaholic. That’s not how I see myself at all – but here’s the point: what other people define as work, to me, is just being. I enjoy what I do so much that I don’t separate work from leisure.

As I write these words, I’m on a short holiday in Portugal. I know that if I’m found typing on my computer for too long, my boyfriend will remind me to rest and enjoy my break. For me, a break is not separate from work, and work is not different from the pursuit of knowledge and growth. I’m the kind of person who would sit in a bubble bath and listen to an audiobook or an article from The Economist – grateful that they now make them available in audio format. Could you say that I’m having a break or working at that moment as I bathe? I consider my work as a calling: it’s not a job to me, or even a career.

Work–life blend

And I’m not the only one. When you look at social media today, you will see that I’m not an anomaly. This attitude to work seems to be the standard way of life for many entrepreneurs, authors, scientists, content creators and artists. It has always been that way throughout history. Do you think, for example, that Mozart, Einstein, Nietzsche and Aristotle were concerned about work–life balance? I very much doubt it. But, of course, they didn’t have the internet so they were unable to share their progress and excitement on Instagram and LinkedIn. I can imagine Einstein tweeting his thoughts as he developed his theory of relativity! Newton famously worked such long hours and immersed himself in his work so much that he once boiled his watch instead of an egg.

Here’s what I believe, and what we’ll look at more closely later on in this book: if you view work as a calling rather than merely a job, your attitude will change. You will be much more flexible and ready to learn and adapt to new technologies. You will naturally be inclined to find areas where you can contribute to society, have an impact and feel fulfilled. Most importantly, you will never compare yourself to others. It won’t matter how successful other people may appear on social media. You will know who you are and what you can do.

All of this will become a lot easier and more interesting when you find your place in the world and get passionate about having a calling. To have a calling is to live life as a game. It is to enjoy the pain and the frustration of learning, growing, creating, failing, and starting all over again. It is not just a job, or just an income, or just a means to an end.

All of which raises the question: how did the value of work diminish to ‘just a job’ in the first place?

From early humans to the first disruptors

When I look at the history of work, what strikes me is a sense that humans have had a love–hate relationship with it. At least, this is the case in so far as we think of work as a means to feed and shelter ourselves.

In his excellent book The History of Work, Richard Donkin notes that, historically, the term work meant something to be avoided. It referred to what we might now describe as chores. In other words, from early history, work was viewed as a kind of burden. Ancient Greeks didn’t even have a word for this action, Donkin says. They had words for leisure and learning, but nothing that directly defined the activity we now know as work.²

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that most of the early history of work was based on slavery. Sadly, the further back we go into the depths of human history, the less information we have about how our ancestors lived: in his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari explains that early humans’ position in the food chain was in the middle. He describes a scenario where a lion would kill another animal: the lion and her family would eat the flesh; hyenas and other animals ate the remainder; and finally, humans were able to get to the middle of the carcass (the bone marrow). Humans did this using sharp tools that they created from stones and wood. This enabled them to access nutrients that were untouched by other animals, avoiding contamination.³ We can think of this process as an early form of work. You can imagine why it wasn’t exactly pleasant: you’d have to have a lot of patience hanging around until it was your turn to get to the food.

But of course, things moved on. As humans got more sophisticated at creating sharp tools, they were also able to kill smaller animals. Discovery of fire enabled them to cook previously indigestible foods. Access to these new kinds of nutrients was crucial in the growth and development of the human brain. As our brains developed, we also became more adept at using our hands to create tools and make fire and shelter. At the same time, humans started to stand upright and walk on two feet.

According to Harari, the combination of standing upright and the growth of the human brain came at a high cost, especially to women. Standing upright meant that women’s hips got narrower over time, making childbirth much more difficult. This was just at a time when our brains were getting bigger. The combination of bigger brains and narrower hips in women has meant that children are born while most of their vital systems are still underdeveloped. In most other animals, their babies can stand on their feet and live independently much more quickly than humans. But human babies need the protection of their parents for many years before they can be independent.⁴

This evolutionary fact has had both positive and negative impacts on human evolution. Perhaps most relevant for this book was the need to create social bonds and contracts to be able to survive. From there, it’s not hard to imagine how the concept of work was born: imagine a group of hunter-gatherers. While men were out in the wild in pursuit of meat, women looked for fruit, nuts and grains that could be cooked and prepared.

If a woman with a toddler needed to leave her child to go into the woods to gather fruit and nuts, she could ask a teenage member of the group, or an older adult, to look after her child. The development of language helped humans negotiate and come to an agreement on these social roles. To leave your child with another human also meant that you would have to have similar values and be able to trust one another. The person looking after the child would ensure that the baby was safe until the mother returned. In return, the woman would share her food with the ‘nanny’.

This scenario is a very early form of ‘paid’ work, but it is far from organized. It’s not clear exactly when organized work began to take shape in human society.

Organized work and slavery

The concept of organized and supervised work is intertwined with a history of slavery. For most of our history as a species...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part One Perspective
• 1 A history of work
• 2 The modern career landscape
• 3 The future of work: AI and humanity
• 4 The future of work: Time, transition and machines
• Part Two Mindset
• 5 Knowing yourself
• 6 Your place in the world
• Part Three (Human) skills
• 7 Emotional intelligence
• 8 Critical thinking
• 9 Contextual creativity
• 10 Mindfulness
• 11 Bringing it all together
• Index