Varun starts reading Job Moves

I just picked up the book 'Job Moves' by Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn, and Bob Moesta! I haven’t gotten far into it yet but my bells are already ringing. Listen to me appreciate how much I already love the message. Also hear me betray my mixed feelings about how people smarter and more famous than me have concurrently came to the same conclusions I have.

00:00 Introduction to the Push Pull Podcast
00:49 Exploring the Book 'Job Moves'
02:17 Defining Pushes and Pulls
05:11 The Four Categories of Job Changers
06:27 Progress Over Perfection
07:34 Understanding Past Motivations
09:22 Wrapping up

Transcript

Varun Rajan 0:06

Welcome to the Push Pull podcast. I'm Varun Rajan, and this is where we interview professionals about their career transitions and specifically the push and pull factors that inform those career transitions. I've got another solo episode for you today. as much as I love the conversations that I have with my guests and even distilling what I learned from those discussions, I also have thoughts that I wanna share with you unvarnished and not necessarily through the lens of the conversation that I'm having with. My guests. I want to continue sharing my thoughts with you as they come up with new things that I learn and what the journey is like for me, from my perspective as well. And so that's what I'm gonna be doing a little bit more of today. Short, sweet, and hopefully insightful still. I recently discovered this book, job Moves by, Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn, and Bob mea. Bob Nesta is also one of the authors behind the Jobs to Be Done framework, which if you're in product management, you might be familiar with it, is a very popular, uh, product management framework, innovation framework. And Job Moves is basically everything that this podcast is about. And. I have to say, I've been on a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster after discovering this book. because there is already a lot here that resonates with me and I haven't even gotten past the introduction in the first chapter yet. So as I dive into this, I'll likely share with you all the things that I'm learning, and if you're interested in the content of this podcast, I would highly recommend that you check this book out. And I think from the. 30 or so pages that I've read. It is highly, highly relevant to the things that we're talking about. What we do here is about job moves, it's about career transitions. It's about digging into individuals one by one, trying to understand what their career transitions are like. And it sounds like this group of people behind Job Moves really tried to do the exact same thing. Through years and thousands of interviews and heavy research, not only to help people in their career transitions, but also glean the big categories and themes that they were seeing with all of the people that they had interviewed. What's. Crazy is that in chapter two of this book, they talk about finding your pushes and pulls and they define it in pretty much the same way. Pushes are what propel you away from the job or situation that you are in, and pulls are what? Actually end up drawing you towards the thing that you go to next. And in some ways this is really awesome. They've interviewed and helped so many people and have abstracted a bunch of the common themes that they're putting together into this book and into this framework to help people figure out their career transitions and what they wanna do next To know that they did that much research in defining pushes and pulls for their clients and their readership. Really validates the thesis of what I'm trying to do here. So that is super exciting. On the other hand, on a more cynical note, it does have me wondering whether I have a single, original thought in my brain or anything unique to offer the world. but for the most part, I'm pretty stoked about this. and I'm really excited to dig more into this book. One of the things that I really appreciate and I think also aligns with what I've been trying to evangelize here is that oftentimes people make these career transitions by having this gut sense of what to do. here's a quote. In most cases. Whatever reason someone gives for switching actually has several other subconscious reasons behind it. Without a deeper understanding, it's hard to know what to optimize for. That's exactly what I've been saying, the other thing that I think is really important that. Has come up in my interviews in questions, about really trying to understand those push and pull factors and motivations is trade-offs. the audience for this, I think is somebody that's trying to be more thoughtful about their career transitions, and they're very clear here, even in the first. couple of chapters introduction, that there will be no perfect job for you. the priorities that you define, will have trade-offs baked into them and. They really emphasize how important it is to be explicit about those trade-offs, so you are not regretting the move that you make as soon as you make it. And it's totally true. There is no such thing as a perfect job or a perfect situation. There is just a series of trade-offs where the. Sacrifices that you are willing to make in one aspect of your life or another for the next job that you take are the things that you are actually willing to pursue and see through. otherwise it's very easy to end up in this. Constant loop of chasing the next thing for perfection instead of progress. Progress over perfection is also a theme that they emphasize very, very early on in this book. in the first chapter, they actually categorize. job changers or career switchers or whatever into one of four categories. people who are just looking to bounce and get out because their current situation is untenable for whatever reason. the second is people looking to get some sense of control because they want. More autonomy or more control over their time or the work that they're doing. Um, the third is to regain alignment. And what I think that they're talking to here is really about making sure that somebody is feeling respected in their work and valued, as well as doing work that aligns with their values, the fourth is for people who want to take the next step in their life or career. So whether they want to be promoted into doing the next thing and having management position or going back to school or if they are getting married or having children and making sure that they can take care of the next phase of their life. these are four different categories that they call quests. Uh, one of the things that I'm not totally sure that I'm sold on with this is that those four things are necessarily mutually exclusive. I'm not saying that. The book is arguing that they are mutually exclusive, but putting them as four distinct categories to me implies a little bit that they're mutually exclusive. they also emphasize that progress isn't linear if you are trying to make space to have better work life balance and spend more time with your family, and that is why you end up taking a pay cut to work at another company. I think we tend to see that not as progress because you're not moving up and ahead in these very discreetly measurable ways. But what they say in this book is that is progress. You get to define progress for yourself, and it is not always going to be the same thing. You are going to need different needs in different seasons of your life. Work life balance is not always going to be important to you. Investing wholeheartedly in your career and putting in 60 or 80 hour weeks into your career, sometimes it might be the right thing for you and sometimes it might not be the right thing for you. Life changes. Life is complicated. Uh, careers are lifelong journeys and they are a huge part of our lives. What I really appreciate about the early points that this book is trying to drive home is that every decision that you make is totally informed by the context of everything else that is important to you. So be explicit and thoughtful about what informed. Your transitions in the past before figuring out how to make the right decision going forward, which again, I know I'm saying this over and over again while I'm going through the 30 or so pages I've read of this book so far, but it is a hundred percent what I believe. Getting explicit about your motivations, especially your past motivations, helps you understand yourself better and helps you make better transitions in the future. Whether it means that you're gonna leave your job and find a new one, go back to school, or if it means that you're going to stick where you are and figure out how to move up in your career into a management position or into a higher level. take yourself seriously. For example, I know people who I. Prioritize work-life balance with every single job, every single position. That is what they prioritize the most. Because what happens outside of work is what is truly important to them, whether it's family or whether it's hobbies. people get meaning out of different things in their lives and careers are a means to an end. While I agree with that. To a large part Careers are what we spend the majority of our waking hours investing in. I think this book, I think the way that I approach career and the way that most of my peers approach career is to take it incredibly seriously and be incredibly thoughtful about it, and intentional. When making decisions for yourself and your career. I'm really excited to get through the rest of this. and don't worry, I will give you thoughts on more than just 20 to 30 pages at a time. Uh, I don't think that would be particularly interesting. I don't know, maybe it would be fun to do some kind of book club or something. But, um, if you have read this book. Please let me know. Reach out to me, Varun, V-A-R-U-N, at push pull podcast.com. comment on the YouTube video. If, uh, you're excited to check out this book, uh, or hear more about my thoughts about this book, about careers in general, um, leave me a like on this video. And please leave a review on your favorite podcast app depending on wherever you are listening to or watching this. until next time, we will probably be back to our regularly scheduled programming with some awesome interviews with some incredible guests. I'm super excited to introduce you guys. To some really incredible, thoughtful people, who care deeply about their careers, and have a ton of wisdom to share. super excited, for both things to share with you. Some really amazing profiles of people that I'm gonna be talking to, as well as my thoughts about careers and how to be intentional about them generally. Uh, uh, this has been so much fun to do and so, yeah, I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as I am. Thanks.