How to Find a Career That Feels Fun & Meaningful | Bill Gurley

0:00 There's this cool book called Grit.

0:01 We talked about it a ton here on this podcast and you cite it a bunch.

0:05 It's awesome.

0:06 I forget the exact equation but it's basically like she Angela Duckworth,

0:09 she's like I think she started the original

0:11 book with 50% passion and 50% perseverance.

0:16 And one thing we highlight,

0:18 we actually had a chance to talk to her which I'm super grateful for.

0:21 But we found this podcast she had done 10 years later where she said

0:24 it probably shouldn't have been 50/50 that it

0:27 needed to put more weight on passion.

0:29 And her her fear is that we've taught children, young adults how to grind.

0:34 So that we've taught them to persevere for the sake of perseverance.

0:38 And she believes that now that now she believes that leads to burnout.

0:43 And so if you have like all this effort without the love for it,

0:47 it it feels more like work.

0:49 And one of the things you know, my the second principle here after you

0:53 chase your curiosity is to hone your craft.

0:56 And that's a lifelong journey, always learning.

0:59 And for people that are in the right space, that comes free.

1:04 Like you just do it naturally.

1:05 You wake up and want to do it.

1:07 Like you're drawn to knowing more about the craft.

1:11 And and I think that that correlates nicely

1:14 with where she where she came out which is you

1:17 it's hard to do all the things I recommend

1:20 in this book if you don't truly love it.

1:22 I didn't realize that but passion I think is

1:25 probably I think passion's kind of a bad word.

1:27 Because like passion kind of implies that I'm going to like everything I do.

1:31 And if you like talk to like a lot of athletes,

1:33 they're like well I love competing.

1:35 I do like practicing but there's definitely days that I hate doing it

1:37 but I'm a pro and I'm going to do it no matter what.

1:39 And like I love winning.

1:40 We highlight in the book that that word's kind of clicheish and overused.

1:45 Seinfeld gave a talk at Duke where he said fascination was a better word.

1:50 I think obsession's a good word.

1:52 We titled the chapter chase your curiosity.

1:55 Like we just what is it that you you can't ignore?

1:59 Like what is this thing that you love so much

2:01 that you always want to know more about it, you know?

2:05 What was your uh You did a good job

2:07 of like listing all these exercises to like find it.

2:10 What was the uh most productive one that you found?

2:12 Well, I mentioned the one that Tito had used.

2:15 Um the the team that wrote Designing Your Life

2:17 has has one that they say is most popular, which is is battle carding.

2:22 So, like come up with three to five potential career paths,

2:26 not just one, and let your brain roll around in them for a while.

2:30 So, you you could do that.

2:31 Especially with AI today, you could imagine I'm going to do this.

2:35 What does it look like 2 years from now?

2:37 Like who are, you know, what might I like?

2:39 What might I not like?

2:40 You can you can And then, you know, you could say,

2:42 "Well, what if it were this or this?" So, that's an exercise.

2:46 Um I think having the mental relaxation to not

2:50 feel like some path you've been down is some cost.

2:52 Like I'm going to go try this, and if it works, great.

2:55 If not, I'll do something else.

2:57 Just as your parents said it's okay to quit college and go work there.

3:02 Um it's okay to quit the job you're in as well.

3:05 And I just fear we've put so much weight on economic stability.

3:11 You know, you mentioned some of those immigrants' families

3:13 and what they they pushed that that that There's

3:16 this burden to do that above and beyond what might be fulfilling in your life.

3:23 And I I think it'd be better if we got out of that.

3:26 And and or or at least this way, think of it as a a you know, a gauge.

3:31 We've gone pretty damn far to one side.

3:33 Let's let's bring it back a little bit.

3:35 Have you messed up with your like have

3:38 you had to pull yourself back with your kids?

3:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

3:40 I think there is a And having um they're all in their early 20s,

3:44 so they're all trying to find it.

3:46 Like I don't know if they're all even there yet,

3:48 but there is this intuition as a parent,

3:51 and I think I think it's well-intentioned to to to worry

3:56 to feel like they're on a safe path and safe is usually economic,

4:00 but it's also uh it's just risk feels like your risk like

4:05 it like and and I I love the story what your parents did

4:08 and I've got a few anecdotes I found since we finished the book

4:12 that are great on that are very similar to what your parents did,

4:15 but I think it's the exception.

4:17 I don't think it's the rule.

4:19 I think a lot of parents would have tried

4:21 to convince you to finish out and get your degree.

4:23 I think that's built into to most uh parents and and so

4:27 there are other people other than myself that that have

4:30 highlighted that the I'd call it like this industrial college matriculation

4:37 path has gotten very rigid and and it's competitive and it's grindy.

4:43 That the the like getting into college now is significantly harder.

4:47 Yeah, they've not expanded they've not

4:49 expanded the uh enrollment at these schools,

4:51 but the number of people that want to go to college has gone way up.

4:55 It's crazy.

4:55 It's crazy and and starting around 6th grade, once again,

4:59 well-intentioned parents start building the resume to get into college

5:04 and so we over-schedule children today compared to when I was young.

5:09 For sure.

5:09 And so they're they're scheduled from when they wake up to when they go to bed.

5:13 There's actually a chapter in Jonathan Haidt's book Coddling

5:16 of the American Mind called The Decline of Play.

5:19 Where we've just we've we it's harder, I think,

5:22 for a child to explore and try on different ideas because

5:27 they're caught up in this game to try and get into college.

5:30 You had this crazy stat.

5:31 You said um I think it was uh the people who won a Nobel Prize in science,

5:37 the scientists who won Nobel Prizes correct me if I'm wrong,

5:40 but they were 22 times more likely to participate

5:44 in things like acting or dance class and things like that.

5:47 What was that stat?

5:48 So, this was work that Keith Holyoak had done at UCLA and it

5:52 relates to a lot of the concepts in the back of Range,

5:55 the book by David Epstein, but it it was the people at the top of their field

6:01 um are like much more likely to have a a breadth of hobbies.

6:06 Um speak more languages, do more things,

6:10 um and and almost I think have a lens on the world

6:15 that's broader because they were able to try so many different things.

6:19 So, I read this book uh Mastery and like

6:21 the premise is like being a generalist is kind of nonsense.

6:24 You have to specialize in something,

6:26 but once you specialize then you become a generalist.

6:27 I think that's the right pathway.

6:30 Like I I do I do think you want to get

6:32 started in an area where you can differentiate yourself and then

6:36 and then in many of in both the principal chapter on mentors

6:40 and peers in here and even in the learning uh principle,

6:45 I recommend, you know, as a more advanced level once you get,

6:49 you know, up to this level then go broader.

6:51 Like start to learn outside your field,

6:53 find mentors and peers outside your field

6:56 and you'll get pulled in more innovative ways.

6:58 So, tell tell me more about that.

6:59 That like just like kind of blew my mind.

7:01 Well, I think what Keith's work um highlighted was that some of the people

7:07 that are able to reach the top of their field are able to draw

7:11 on mental models from much from a variety

7:14 of different places and where a hyper-specialist

7:19 and and David Epstein's book Range is

7:21 all about this specialist versus broad thing.

7:24 Like that's the really the the whole point

7:27 of the book and he quotes Holyoak as well,

7:29 but many different innovations in science have come

7:32 from people who repotted from one place to another.

7:35 A chemist who becomes a physicist.

7:37 The person who's a lifelong physicist has mental models that are

7:41 pretty rigid at that point in time cuz that's all they know.

7:45 And so, once again, I think this is an advanced skill.

7:48 I don't I think after you're succeeding, you start to do this.

7:52 I don't think it's the pathway to the beginning

7:54 of success cuz I think you'd just be too broad.

7:57 But, some of the smartest people I know like

8:00 like one person profile in the book is Danny Meyer,

8:02 the great great restaurant tour.

8:04 We were asking him about his mentors, and one of the mentors that had influenced

8:08 him the most isn't from the restaurant industry.

8:11 You know, and so it's it it is a more advanced skill,

8:15 but it is where you will Look, the whole goal, I think,

8:18 is to differentiate yourself along the pathway,

8:21 and that is a great way more advanced way,

8:23 but a great way to to take yourself places you wouldn't have thought of.

8:27 You had this cool line.

8:28 You said, "There's if there's one takeaway

8:30 that you should have from this book, peer groups,

8:33 more so than coaching, consulting, courses, whatever,

8:35 is probably the most powerful thing that you could use,

8:39 and it's under discussed because it doesn't feel intuitive to like want

8:43 to be peers with someone who might take the same job as you,

8:46 but it's really powerful." Yeah, I think the way you described it is right.

8:49 Like, everyone talks about mentors, and no one talks about peers.

8:53 So, I do have a chapter on mentors,

8:55 and I offer a ton of very practical advice about how to play that correctly.

9:01 But, the peer thing, the idea is that when you get on that first

9:05 rung of the ladder and you're trying to climb it,

9:07 if you could develop a friend group, it might be four, it might be six,

9:12 that are also on that same journey,

9:14 and hopefully I think outside your organization.

9:18 I think you could start maybe with one person in your org,

9:21 but for all the reasons we just talked about how

9:23 breadth of knowledge might give you insights you wouldn't have.

9:26 If they're outside your org, they're going to see different cultures,

9:29 they're going to see different management structures,

9:31 they're going to bring a different viewpoint to you

9:34 that you wouldn't have had if they were inside.

9:37 Um, and then with today's modern tools, you know,

9:40 create create if you're adventurous create a Slack channel,

9:43 if you're if you just want to do a WhatsApp group or a Signal group and share,

9:48 you know, share your learnings along the way.

9:50 When I moved to San Francisco for Airbnb and um

9:54 I didn't actually end up getting the job by the way.

9:55 They offered me a job and I got it and then when I

9:58 was in college I was like kind of crazy and I got arrested.

10:01 I got DUI and I'm sober now.

10:03 I don't do any drugs or alcohol.

10:04 I'm completely clean and and by the book

10:07 but they're like you lied on your resume.

10:08 You said you didn't have a criminal record and so I didn't end

10:11 up getting the start and so I was stuck out in San Francisco.

10:14 I was like what the hell am I going to do?

10:15 So I ended up starting a company and it worked out well but it was like super

10:18 low point in my life and when I

10:19 got there I created this thing called the Anti-MBA.

10:24 It was my version of a book club and we met

10:26 once a week and we would get a book and we

10:28 would read a book a month and talk about a quarter

10:31 of the book every single week and it changed my life.

10:35 Like having those group of guys to like and I think that like

10:38 you need a few things to make a group like that work.

10:39 I think you need like rules,

10:41 you need like some rituals and you need to like take it serious.

10:44 Yeah, and I think if there are people that are sharp-elbowed,

10:46 they're climbers that that step on other people, you kick them out.

10:50 Like I I I think you need like-minded

10:52 people who are equally gracious to one another.

10:57 Who is in your group now that's like big shot now?

11:00 Well, we one thing I've I've I've discovered lately is

11:05 setting up different like WhatsApp or Signal groups for different topics.

11:09 I think for someone coming in early into a career it's better to have

11:13 people that are on that exact journey and I'm not in that place anymore.

11:17 I have a company called Hampton.

11:18 That's my main company.

11:19 Are you familiar with YPO?

11:21 Sure.

11:21 It's like YPO.

11:22 So we have thousands of members all over the country and you it's

11:25 creates peer group and then we have

11:26 executive coaches who like lead the conversation.

11:29 It's for CEOs.

11:30 So you have to the average person has like 30-million,

11:32 20-million in revenue or so.

11:34 And it's been really cool to like watch these members like

11:37 team up and I'm in a we call them core groups.

11:40 I'm in one as well and it like you have this a bunch

11:44 of lines in there about peer groups and I'm like, "Oh, you're right.

11:46 My ads for me."

11:47 Yeah, but but but and those things exist with YPO and and your thing for CEOs,

11:52 but it could be done by anybody.

11:54 For sure.

11:54 I mean like my wife when she was pregnant, she had one for moms.

11:58 I've got a buddy of mine has one for Jewish dads.

12:02 Like like it could be anything.

12:04 You know what I mean?

12:04 But like it really does like change things.

12:07 It does.

12:07 It really does.

12:08 I think it can and and almost all of the other principles are accelerated.

12:14 So your learning is accelerated.

12:16 There's a great story in the book about Mr.

12:18 Beast that ties to that.

12:20 There's your your your network is accelerated.

12:24 So your network isn't just your network.

12:26 It's now the network of the group if people

12:28 are willing to share introductions and that kind of thing.

12:31 You know, both for mentors and other peers and and then

12:34 the group I think can be really helpful on bad days

12:37 and everyone's going to have bad days and there's a support

12:41 element that comes into play that I think is really useful.

12:45 And then also you you may be at a shitty company.

12:49 Like your your dream job may be the one you're

12:51 in and you might be at a shitty company and if you're alone,

12:54 you have no way of knowing if that's normal or not.

12:57 Like the the stuff you're exposed to.

12:59 Whereas if you had a group of eight

13:01 people that were all doing this in different companies,

13:04 you'd get different perspectives on that.