(So stop looking for them).

I recently picked up Steven Bartletts book “Happy Sexy Millionaire” and I must say I am thoroughly enjoying it; I am finding it refreshing, original and stands against a lot of what is considered conventional wisdom when it comes to happiness and fulfilment.

One section really stood out for me about the fact that a lot of us are looking for the “shortcuts” because we live in a world full of instant gratification. Shortcuts are so appealing because so much of what we get today (though very little of it meaningful at all), we get with such little effort, persistence and perseverance.

The truth is… there are no shortcuts.

And that’s it really…

Anything worth having is worth working at and waiting for.

So stop wasting time on the supposed “shortcuts” because they distract you from the long-cut work you should be doing… you end up changing from shortcut to shortcut every 3 to 6 months and then 10 years down the line you realise you are always just at the stat of something new, and not well on your way be something truly fulfilling.

So… what to do now..?

• Reach out to your network (or extended network) and try to reach someone who does what you want to do and ask them what you need to do to get you started.
• Ask for low-cost ways to get an introduction to the subject
• Ask what books you can read
• Ask about how to get involved so you can start learning and gaining exposure
• Ask for what courses you could take

And then… do it and stick to it.

The problem is that there is just so much choice… how do I know that this thing is going to be THE thing that ends up becoming this great thing that will make me happy?

Well… the truth is… you don’t.

However if you work at it and make sure to build up your career capital (Transferrable skills, Connections, Qualifications and your Reputation) then you may not have to start all over again if you decide that the path you originally chose is not exactly the right one for you.

Here is an example of how things worked out for me to help illustrate the points I have made.

My career story so far:

I chose to study Engineering because I was good at Maths & the Sciences and my Dad was an Engineer. (Nature / Nurture)

I became and Engineer because that’s all I thought I could do with my degree.

I had always wanted to help others, problem solve and lead others and didn’t feel like project Engineering was the right fit for me.

2 years in, I wasn’t performing in Projects and had been on and off a Personal Improvement Plan (Failure); but my Line Manager saw something in me that he liked and tried to find something that might be more suitable. He gave me the opportunity to go on shift to manage a team of reactive maintenance technicians (So using the Engineering skills I had gained over the previous 3 years along with the environment to learn Leadership Skills). I didn’t know this at the time but the role I had was only meant to exist for the next 12 months so neither he nor I had much to lose if I didn’t perform in that role (Luck + Timing).

This was to be the last placement on my Engineering grad scheme and the year I started reading books on Leadership, Business, Continuous Improvement, Failure and Mindset. As I couldn’t sign off my grad scheme in the role I was in, they failed me (Failure) but said I could apply internally to take a promotion to being a Shift Manager leading a team of factory operators.

It was around this time (at the age of 24) that I started reading books on Leadership, Mindset, Failure and Continuous Improvement as I learnt so much that I could apply to my life to be better at work and improve my quality of life (Better mindset, better sleep, lower stress etc)

I became an Operations Shift Manager at the age of 25 and thought that I was well on my way to being fast-tracked through the business to becoming a GM before my 32nd birthday.

Fast forward 3 years and I was still in that job, I lived in a part of the country I hated, I had spent 6 months in therapy to try and get my life back together after a string of awful relationships (therapy was the single best thing I ever did for myself) and my boss had just told me that he wanted to put me on a PIP for underperformance but failed to clearly articulate why. (Failure).

Oh and in the meantime I decided that Manufacturing wasn’t where I wanted to be so I “invested” over £20K of my savings in trying to start a property investment company which ultimately failed because I only wanted it for the money and not because I had much of an interest (or skills) in property investing as a career. (Failure)

I quit that job with no other work to go to and spent 6 months as an agency worker in a factory that made industrial printer heads. It took me 4 weeks from setting foot in the door to becoming their best performing operator and I was bored and unfulfilled. Taking this time away to work in a boring job allowed me to lick my wounds, mend my pride and create a plan of action for the following 2 years to get from where I was to landing my dream job.

(I did however meet the woman who is now my Fiancé 3 months prior to quitting my job so a definite win there).

I applied for multiple roles in Continuous Improvement because I had an feeling that that’s what I really wanted to do and would leverage all of my previous skills in to one neat role that was pretty much made just for me…

But it didn’t happen, I got some interviews but no one offered me a job.

I decided not to give up and to buy books on continuous improvement theories and to take an entry level course in Lean / Six Sigma as this was often a minimum requirement for the kind of jobs I wanted (Perseverance and hard work)

I managed to get another job on shift as a contractor for another large food company but it meant that I was working away from my partner and back to doing night shifts which wasn’t fun. However I met someone there who saw me working hard so he took me under his wing and taught me more in those 6 months than I had learnt from any line manager I had previously had (Luck & Hard work).

Those 6 months enabled me to save enough money to then spend the following 4 months travelling around Europe and another 2 months on a private game reserve in South Africa learning to be a wildlife nature guide with my soon to be fiancé (I planned the proposal while we were on our trip and proposed shortly after we got back).

Half way through our trip I got a call from a recruiter telling me she had just the job for me (I know they all say that but this time it was true!). They wanted someone with some CI experience and a lot of experience managing factory teams to be their head of operational excellence, reporting to the site manager. They were right, the job was right for me.

The interview was the easiest I had ever had and was more a conversation about what I had been doing over the 6 months I was travelling. I even asked if he wanted to ask about my CV at all and he said he trusted me and could clearly see from the little time we did spend talking about work that I knew what I was talking about. He said he would be happy to offer me the job based on that 30 minute conversation.

At the age of 30 I finally got the job I had actually wanted for over a decade and all it took was all of the things that Steven listed above.

Although luck and timing can influence the position you find yourself in, if you aren’t ready to take advantage of luck or timing then those things are meaningless. There are also ways to create your own luck by being involved, being curious, working hard and asking for advice from others. People will see this as your motivation to grow and learn which is incredibly valuable.

In addition, when you do fail, don’t use it as confirmation of your inadequacy but instead think of it as an opportunity to learn and grow from it. Sometimes you aren’t in the right place at the right time and you aren’t the right fit for the environment (something I felt in the 2 years before I left Mars).

Don’t be afraid to take a step back to re-evaluate your position and create a plan for the future. Spending 6 months in that boring job where overall I was just covering my expenses was a great, low stress way to take stock and had literally zero impact on my career prospects.

Lastly I am so grateful to have taken 6 months off to travel with my partner as it really put my life in to perspective and is definitely something we will be doing again. You can do a lot in 6 months when you aren’t working but how much do you really achieve, grow, learn and experience when you spend 6 months in your current life routine? That 6 month break taught me a lot about what I truly value in life and again had no negative impact whatsoever on my career (in fact I would say it had a positive impact because when I did get another job I had seemingly boundless energy to give to the work and to others thanks to the extended break).

So to become the person I am today and to be ready to take on this role that I had wanted for a long time I had to:

• Work hard for about a decade (University included)
• Fail repeatedly at many things and many jobs along the way (but each failure taught me something about myself)
• Get a stroke of luck every now and again (but was ready to take advantage of it)
• Be at the right place at the right time (again was ready to take advantage of that)
• Benefit from both nature and nurture
• Be persistent and never stop learning (So far I have read over 110 books spanning 1 month, 12 days, 2 hours and 14 minutes of total reading time)

The great thing about there not being any shortcuts is that you learn so much more along the way and you can improve not just on one aspect of your life but many things. There is no easy way around this… but if you work hard, keep learning and stay humble, you are likely to end up falling on your feet in the end.

As always I hope you enjoyed this and got some value from it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I want to put out content that helps people.