Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep116: How to make better career decisions

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Do you think it's a smart move buying over Twitter? Or do you think Elon Musk is like wasting a bunch of money buying a social media platform when he can build another one?

Starting point is 00:00:43 Elon Musk buys Twitter. So if you have been active in the business, technology and finance space, I am sure you would have heard that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has put out a bid and has successfully taken over Twitter and planning to make a bunch of interesting changes to one of the biggest social media platforms out there. So what does that mean to all of us? What can we expect? Is this decision unexpected

Starting point is 00:01:09 or it's something that has been in the making for some time? Let's talk about it. And the other part also is I want to also discuss and rather share with you what are some of the career lessons that you can learn from Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and how you can apply some of these interesting lessons into your own career when making unconventional career decisions.

Starting point is 00:01:31 So let's talk about it. According to BBC.com, Elon Musk strikes deal to buy Twitter for 44 billion USD. The board of Twitter has agreed to a $44 billion takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk. Mr Musk, who made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, said Twitter had tremendous potential that he would unlock. He also called for a series of changes, from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts. The firm initially rebuffed Mr Musk's bid,

Starting point is 00:02:01 but it will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal. Mr. Musk is the world's richest person according to Forbes magazine with an estimated net worth of $273 billion. And according to LinkedIn News, Twitter's bot has accepted Elon Musk's offer to buy the social media platform for $44 billion and take it private in what could be one of the biggest ever leveraged buyouts of a publicly listed company. It is a dramatic turn of events when the Tesla CEO unveiled his unsolicited bid a couple of days ago. The social media platform appeared certain to reject it and even adopting a poison pill defense to ward off a hostile takeover. But Twitter started to warm up to the offer after the billionaire disclosed

Starting point is 00:02:48 that he'd secured $46 billion in financing. What a big turnaround in just the past couple of days, in the past couple of weeks. So the buyout wasn't exactly unexpected, but I think initially created some resistance within Twitter's board on whether do they want to accept billionaire Elon Musk? And what kind of changes is Elon planning to do? How does that fit into Elon's bigger business goal? Does everything even make sense? So there was a bit of a back and forth.

Starting point is 00:03:22 And obviously on social media, it was fully ablaze whether the Twitter board is making the right decision, why are they not welcoming Elon, and yada, yada, yada. So as we all know, Elon Musk is an extremely active Twitter user who has millions of followers on the platform. And he is obviously extremely active, posting multiple tweets every single day. So it didn't exactly come as a surprise from the takeover, but having said that, the bigger question that I was thinking about is

Starting point is 00:03:53 how does Twitter fit into Elon Musk's overall business strategy? Now, one thing I feel is that whenever we look at a billionaire who is in the car space, the tech space, suddenly buying a social media platform, it feels kind of strange. And it's probably one of those things that, like, people don't really understand. And therefore, like I said, comes a bit of a surprise. But if we look at the history of what, like, Elon Musk has done, it's really a matter of challenging boundaries, making changes, and making unconventional changes at that. So I'd say that it's from his personality and his career journey,

Starting point is 00:04:33 or rather business journey so far, it wasn't particularly surprising, but probably a bit of a shocking news to everyone who did not expect such a huge move. Obviously, you know, $44 billion USD is a pretty huge financing, you know, there are obviously a lot of things going on. But think about it, right? Right now, we don't really watch TV anymore. We don't really listen to the radio.

Starting point is 00:04:57 We don't watch, we don't read, like, you know, newspapers and everything. So I'd say that Twitter is probably the closest that we can, you know, the closest that we can get to newspaper or like media in general. So I almost say that the fact that Elon Musk is buying Twitter, to me, it gives him a lot of leverage over news that we receive or news that, you know, that are being pushed to us, good or bad. I know there's a lot of conversation around transparency and, yeah,

Starting point is 00:05:28 like against censorship and all these other things. But I always say that the benefit, the biggest benefit I see is control of a news platform. Control of a news platform. And it might make sense in the overall business strategy given that Elon has multiple very interesting, obviously, business ventures. And this may be a great platform for him to spread the news from a marketing standpoint, branding standpoint, and also being able to

Starting point is 00:05:58 influence many areas of economics and finance, given that he's controlling one of the biggest social media news platforms, so to speak. So that could be one of the biggest motivations. But I will say, as I said earlier, in terms of career journey, business journey, Elon Musk has always been a person who makes very big bets, right or wrong, but very big bets, right? Everything kind of goes into that one or two businesses, and we're seeing the same with the Twitter takeover as well. So, what do you think?

Starting point is 00:06:33 Do you think it's a smart move, buying over Twitter? Or do you think Elon Musk is wasting a bunch of money buying a social media platform when he can build another one? Is it even worthwhile? What is he going to do with Twitter? How is that experience going to mean for us? That's a question to think about. And let me know what you think. How do you think Twitter is going to change with this takeover? Do you think that freedom of speech, transparency,

Starting point is 00:07:00 all these things are going to materialise or it's just great press right now with all the buyover and stuff. But anyway, Elon Musk aside, obviously he is one of the remarkable businessmen that a lot of people follow, which is great. But what I always enjoy is the lessons that we can learn, specifically the career lessons that we can learn

Starting point is 00:07:22 from Elon Musk and specifically from this buyover, from this takeover, what are some of the career lessons that we can learn from Elon Musk and specifically from this buyover, from this takeover, what are some of the career lessons that you can take on in your own career journey and to also be brave and make those unconventional decisions as well, even though people do not understand you. So if you are new here, hi, my name is Mei Ping. I'm a professional career coach and formerly a corporate leader in a Fortune 500 company. So a couple of lessons that I noted from this whole Elon Musk buys Twitter saga. Number one, as long as you are clear what your career direction and what your career path is, it doesn't matter if anybody else understands you, as long as you are very clear on it. So as I said earlier, a lot of people do not really understand this move and it came as a bit of a shock to everyone, but probably

Starting point is 00:08:15 in Elon Musk's mind, he is very clear on how this acquisition would make sense, how it fits into his entire business venture and how it can help his brands or his companies elevate in the future. Now, these may be a lot of information that other people may not be aware of, but it does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. And therefore, there is probably a thought process that he had gone through as well. So I want you to apply this same lesson in your own career. When you want to make an unconventional career decision, maybe choosing a career path that is very different from what you have studied or your friends, you may face a lot of resistance in terms of like,

Starting point is 00:08:56 hey, should you do it, should you not do it, and so forth. But the real question that you need to focus on is, why are you even making this career change? Like, why this one? Why not the other one? What is the future that you see for yourself? So if you can answer all these questions, it doesn't really matter whether your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your cousins, your friends, your bestie, your colleagues, and your bosses, like, if they do not understand it, it's fine because at the end of the day, it's your own career and you make your own career decisions, right? And you make the decisions, you live with the result and the impact of the decisions and you take responsibility.

Starting point is 00:09:32 So unconventional career paths does not necessarily mean that it's wrong, but it's probably a bad idea if you have no idea what you're doing and you're just following what other people are saying. So always think for yourself. The second lesson I think is also quite important is to keep a very close circle of people that you trust in terms of advice, in terms of perspectives, in terms of people who do understand your personality and how you work. Now, one thing I noticed is for this particular case of like Elon Musk buys Twitter, again, as I said, a lot of people think that this was

Starting point is 00:10:13 something that happened so quickly. It's just a matter of like two, three weeks and then like, boom, everything is done. Not necessarily so. A lot of times, these things, like, you know, take a long time to plan, right? So, just very similar to your career as well. You should have a career plan, right? But it doesn't mean that you should shout at the rooftop and tell the whole world what your plan is, because you may be embarrassed if it doesn't materialize. So, like, don't put, give yourself that sort of pressure, but you should have a, you know, a close group of, like, friends, you know, mentors, people that you trust, and people can give you, like, really solid advice on making important career decisions for you. So, do you have these people in your life? Because,

Starting point is 00:10:56 obviously, you know, if you're going to make, like, a big career decision, you're going to make a career change, or you are going to do, you know, make an unconventional choice in general, it's kind of scary. So a lot of times, we may need someone who can give a bit more perspective and help you to process a little bit of your thoughts so that you know that you're not making an impulsive decision, which is obviously going to be the worst. Now, the third career lesson that I think I learned from Elon Musk is you do not have to be an extrovert to be successful. Now, we were talking about career decisions and so forth, but I think this is the other lesson that I definitely have learned. As you can see, Elon Musk clearly is an introvert. You know, being an introvert myself,

Starting point is 00:11:51 pretty easy to identify other introverts. But Elon Musk is an introvert. If you watch a lot of Elon Musk's earlier interviews, he's a little bit awkward, like not in a bad way, but like a little bit awkward. So if you're an introvert, like you 100% understand what I'm saying, but it's just a little bit awkward. And I think, like, over time, you know, he has improved his public speaking skills by a lot, but I also appreciated that, you know, he's not exactly trying to be like someone else, trying to be a bit extremely loud, right, even though, you know, he's obviously making the news and, like, generating a lot of headlines, you know, by Twitter and a lot of other interesting projects and unconventional projects as well. So this, I think, is a very important lesson because,

Starting point is 00:12:31 you know, as an introvert, sometimes I feel like my clients and connections who are introverts always feel like they need to live by other people's judgment. And because they don't feel as comfortable, obviously, having a big group of friends or, like, sharing a lot more about their decisions and their career and their life in general, like, people tend to judge. But as you can see in this situation,

Starting point is 00:12:59 yes, everything happens so quickly. It could just be because, you know, Elon Musk is an introvert. He didn't feel the need to tell you guys, rather to tell all of us what's going on and when we got the information that we got the information. So preferring to do things quietly as long as it gets done is probably something that we can also learn from. Success doesn't necessarily mean that,

Starting point is 00:13:27 you know, introvert or extrovert, but it's about harnessing your strengths and then how does this career decision or this unconventional career path, like how much does it fit your personality? I think that is something worth thinking about. But the other part also is recognizing that like, yeah, sure, you can have like multiple opportunities,

Starting point is 00:13:49 but it's a matter of whether you can take advantage of them. So those are the three career lessons that I have learned from Elon Musk. And I think these are really great takeaways that you can take on from this latest news about Elon Musk buying Twitter. Let me know, what do you think about this buyout and takeover? Did it surprise you?

Starting point is 00:14:16 Or were you not surprised? What kind of changes are you expecting at Twitter? After this takeover, do you think the whole freedom of speech, we need more transparency thing is actually going to turn out? And also share with me what kind of career lessons or other lessons that you also learned from this episode. I'd really love to hear from you.

Starting point is 00:14:34 So let me know in the comments below and I'll see you in the next one. Cheers.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep116: How to make better career decisions

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