creating as networking for career changers
It was a treat to be on the Career Crashers podcast where I spoke with founder Isaac Morehouse about launching a new career, something all athletes have to do when they stop competing.
Listening back to the podcast, it got me thinking about the choices I made when I stopped playing rugby and what I might do differently. I had a period of low pressure experimentation which as Isaac pointed out, isn't always a good thing as sometimes a bit of pressure can get you moving quicker than you would otherwise.
Range by David Epstein, a book that only came out last year, talks about finding careers and optimising for 'match quality'. You essentially want to take a tech 'fail fast' mindset to trying new things, testing your assumptions in a low risk way and moving on as quickly as possible.
That's what I was trying to do with my bits of work, try new things and see what I was drawn to or found irritating. This process is continuous and never ending in my view! I'm yet to find something that completely agrees with me, even if I'm now getting more and more interesting things to work on.
Anyway, the chat got me thinking about what I've learned and here are some tips for athletes and other career changers.
separate yourself
At Crash, they talk about pitching for jobs and showing your work. If you consistently demonstrate what you're interested in or what your learning, particularly if it's in a specific, targeted way, you make it very easy for an employer to like you. If you've gone above and beyond the other candidates, whether that's with a video pitch or a small piece of work that they can immediately use, you separate yourself.
David Perell, a man who advocates writing on the internet as a 'superpower', calls this approach making a 'serendipity vehicle'. Creating something in public that speaks for you, works 24/7 and enables you to be found by people that you want to attract.
what can you create to attract an employer?
So here, it's probably best that you only make things that you're interested in, or that are for roles you specifically want. Then your passion and genuine interest will be apparent.
My personal example is my Endgame project.
The Endgame project is designed to help athletes better prepare for when they stop competing. The first phase is to tell the stories of guys I’ve met through rugby, what they’ve moved on to, how they found the transition and their advice for people in the same position.
Here it is, archived somewhere onsite 👉 Endgame
I wanted to collate best practice advice, both in an academic way and an applied manner from people I knew who had moved away from rugby into entirely different careers. This was partly for my own benefit and interest but partly in an attempt to make something useful for people in a similar position to myself. Later, I spoke to a couple who had remained around rugby but in a new capacity.
This project enabled me to do a few things:
practice and learn skills - I interviewed, blogged and generally created content around a specific topic - rugby players who had moved into a completely different career on finishing.
collate useful information - what I gathered was actionable and what I elicited from the interviewees was occasionally quite moving. I think it's a useful resource for athletes who are changing careers.
speak to my mates - it was a fun and meaningful way for me to catch up with some old friends and teammates.
it gave me some topic expertise - later when a position came up at Life After Professional Sport, I had a body of work on the subject to point to. They ended up creating a specific role for me at the company that leveraged my skillset.
Other ideas you could create:
a podcast - an easy way to speak to interesting people, learn skills and easily distributable
an Instagram account - growing a social account is an employable skill in itself and could become your job if you grow it big enough!
writing book summaries - summarising information around a topic can become a useful resource in its own right
mock up some graphic designs - if you're applying for something specific, give the founder or manager something they can use immediately - an infographic, logo ideas or slide decks
record YouTube explainer videos - proving you know how to use certain tools and can break down information is really appealing to employers who need those skills
The sky is the limit here - Mark LeRuste got his break with a video CV that went viral, leading to a gig at Movember.
I pointed to this article summarising loads of side project ideas in Endgame and it's worth reposting here:
How 25 Side Projects Led to Dream Careers
Think about what you'd want to do ideally and make things that lead towards that.
why it doesn't matter if no-one sees your creations
Creating on the internet is hard. I know - I'm trying to publicise a book I've written! The lack of vanity metrics, low numbers of likes and retweets, can be disheartening.
The thing is though, when you're looking for jobs or work, you don't need these metrics. They'll help for sure, but you don't need to be seen by all the people.
You only need to be seen by the right one.
Better yet, you can make something for the person you want to impress and send it right to them.
On the internet, almost everyone is just 1 node away. If they're really hard to find - if they don't have a Twitter account or a LinkedIn profile - you can usually dredge up their work email using something like hunter.io and get a hold of them like that.
Creating things and displaying them publicly enable them to work for you in your absence. If you write, record or post something, it remains there when you're asleep, discoverable by the person you need to find it at any point.
These things are also intrinsically valuable. I felt like I gained enormously just from writing the book, to the point that I didn't feel too inclined to publish it. This was slightly fear-based - I was concerned people would think it was rubbish - but it was also because I genuinely loved the process of making it, improved my craft by doing it and got to learn some new skills unto the bargain. Releasing it has only continued this process.
unique yourself - combine unusual qualities
I'm trying to combine athletic qualities and principles with creative ones. It's certainly harder now that I've hung my boots up! If I'd had this mindset when I was still playing, I could have taken greater advantage of it.
The brutal truth of professional sport is that to other people, you're immediately less interesting when you retire.
You might feel that you're more interesting now that you can be a little less monomaniacal, but actually people find those playing the game interesting. Once you leave sport, you join the ranks of everyone else. Your experiences are still cool, they just become less relevant.
The point here is that to stand out in the new world, you should actively try to be as unusual, even as weird as possible. No one is 'normal' and identity is diverse. You can diversify yours publicly and in doing so, you become more specific and start to move into your own category.
Look for your unusual, potentially complimentary skillsets, look for your different experiences, combine your different interests. Make yourself as interesting as possible.
If you think what you're making is too out there, remind yourself that that's almost impossible and in fact, it's desirable. Think about what is popular, what gets the most views. It's often not good or it's derivative. Mass media needs to appeal to the lowest common denominator or at best the average - it's usually perfect for no one. The biggest artists that become popular and change culture usually began as a niche concern, with a new perspective and innovative material.
Being interesting doesn't need to be sharing details that are really intimate, mining your personal life for content. It just means being clear about your interests and what you want to pursue professionally.
A successful personal brand is a personal monopoly. Combining disparate interests is a way of becoming more original and by making a category of one, you avoid competition. As Peter Thiel says,
Competition is for losers
If you're in the ranks of job seekers sending identikit applications, you're one of many and the odds are really stacked against your success. By making something, whether that's a small content project or a video pitch, you separate yourself and monopolise the process.
Equally, if you're offering something that is really specific, your qualities are a really unusual combination, the scope of the internet means that for someone out there, you're probably ideal.
I've recently helped out another rugby player with this exact approach, taking some content he's recently put together, refining it, making it more personal to him and specific to the opportunities he wants to pursue and leaving him to distribute it through his network. I think he'll do well.
what to do next?
Get started.
I'm currently thinking about where to focus my next creative efforts. It's probably sensible to think who I want to speak to or what sort of opportunities I want to attract.
Still though, I briefly forgot how I began my book project in the first place. I didn't sit down one day with a fully formed idea in my mind. I noodled around, wrote fragments of different stuff in a low pressure way and allowed my concept to form itself over time. Then once I knew what I wanted to do, I attacked it.
I'm helping a couple of people develop their own creative practice at the moment, utilising habit forming strategies and principles from athletics in more esoteric pursuits. One is well down the road and has already begun to unearth some commissions in a totally new field. It's something I'd like to help others with and am working towards formalising as an offer. If you'd be interested then please let me know.