Office Hours with Arthur Brooks - The 4 Types of Careers, and How to Find Yours

Starting point is 00:00:00 What type of career do you have? The assumption of a lot of business schools and a lot of universities and the whole education system, for that matter, is that we all have this kind of linear trajectory to our careers. Change when you can do better. And you're going to do that until, well, the end. That's kind of how it works. That assumption is wrong. A lot of people burn out on their linear careers because they're actually not lineers.

Starting point is 00:00:25 What they should be doing is thinking about what's my next career going to be. There's all the stuff out there about work-life balance. I've even mentioned it here. I don't like work-life balance. I like work-life integration, where your job makes your life happier and your life makes your job happier because your job is part of your life.

Starting point is 00:00:40 A lot of what we find in the research is that if you cultivate outside of work happiness, it bleeds into your work itself. Hi, friends. Welcome back, the office hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. I'm a behavioral scientist dedicated to lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love.

Starting point is 00:01:04 using science and ideas. I want you in the movement of happiness to have more of it in your life and to bring it more to the lives of other people. And that's why I do this show. That's why I do my writing. And that's why I'm so glad that you're with me. If you like this show, if this is not your first episode or if it is, please do share this. I want people to be exposed to these ideas because this is a toolkit. This is what I do is to make it possible for people to understand the science of happiness and how they can change their own habits and become happiness teacher. themselves. I teach happiness at Harvard University and I write about it in the Atlantic and a column I write every week called How to Build Life. It comes out every Thursday morning. It's about 1,200 words

Starting point is 00:01:44 on a new topic on the science of happiness. So if you like this show, do subscribe to that as well. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of my new book, which is right behind me, this handsome yellow book right here, the happiness files, insights on life and work, just 33 essays, a lot like what you see in this show. Today, I have a very special topic. And that's how to manage your career. I want to do three things in particular. How, you know, what kind of career do you have? You might not know.

Starting point is 00:02:15 I'm not talking about what substantively you do all day or what industry you're in. I'm talking about the four kinds of careers based on four different areas of human psychology. Hmm. This is going to be useful to you, I dare say. The second is how to change jobs when it's appropriate and how to know when it's time to go. The third is what can you do to give yourself the highest likelihood of being happy in a new job? So these are the three things I want to talk about. What is your career type? How do you change jobs? And how do you make a job as happy as it can possibly be? That's really what

Starting point is 00:02:51 I'm all about today. Now, if you like the show, once again, please do like and subscribe and give us any questions or comments that you've got anywhere where you're watching this. Send us an email at office hours at arthur brooks.com or or just put it in the comment section below and we'll respond ordinarily and we certainly will read all of that and once again please do suggest this show tell your friends especially if you enjoy it okay let's get started what type of career do you have now this is a question that was asked by psychologists at the university of southern california in the 1990s who's a team led by a psychologist by the name of michael driver i think this research is really, really super cool. Why? Because I love research that's counterintuitive. And let me give

Starting point is 00:03:35 an example of what I mean by this. I teach at a fancy business school, really, really nice, high-quality business school. And we do so many things right. I love teaching there. But there's one thing that we don't always get right, which is this assumption that our students have one kind of career trajectory. We don't all assume they're going to go into one industry. They're not going to go into, you know, some into manufacturing and some into consulting and some into financial services. We don't make any assumptions about that. But we often make the mistake of assuming that our students are going to have this shape to their careers. They're going to come out of business school. They're going to take a job. And then they're only going to change jobs when they

Starting point is 00:04:15 get a better job in terms of position or power or prestige or wealth. That's where they're going to change. And so it's kind of a stair step approach up. Or you might think of as a linear career. Michael Driver and his colleagues in the 1990s and then later, this has been developed more. And again, once all this stuff goes into the show notes, so you can look at these papers if you want, I really recommend it. They're great. The assumption of a lot of business schools

Starting point is 00:04:40 and a lot of universities and the whole education system, for that matter, is that we all have this kind of linear trajectory to our careers. Change when you can do better. And you're going to do that until, well, the end. That's kind of how it works. That assumption is wrong,

Starting point is 00:04:56 according to Michael Driver. On the contrary, there's, four different distinct career types based on your psychology and everybody who's a professional and one in some way, shape, or form fits into one of these four career types. So I'm going to tell you what the other three are and then I want you to think a little bit about what's your natural career type and a bunch of you watching this are going to feel kind of seen for the first time I dare say. Because I told you about that linear career type, that's actually one of them and there are people like that. But maybe you think that's, that's how everybody thought I was,

Starting point is 00:05:32 or that's how I always thought I was, but I never liked that. I never felt, I felt confined to always do better, always do more, always make more, run faster. Here's the other three career types. One career type is kind of similar to that linear career type, but it doesn't go up as fast and it doesn't have as much change. It's called the expert career type. The expert career type is one that that goes up a little bit, kind of cost a living, and it almost never changes. So the linear career type I talked about before, you can be changing jobs every three, four, five, six years. Really, really, really common, but only when something better comes along. And the expert career type, you almost never change because it's the one job and career that you have that rewards you a little bit more each year

Starting point is 00:06:21 and a big part of your compensation is security and dependability. So a lot of government jobs are these expert career types, people who like this. A lot of people in academia, which is a sector I've been in for a long time, they like this expert career path. My dad was on the expert career path. He had the same job for literally decades. And he got probably a cost of living advance, maybe two and a half, three percent raise. He could count on it.

Starting point is 00:06:46 He wasn't trying to make sure that all of his waking hours were dedicated to his work on the contrary, he's paying attention to his family, and he had hobbies. He was a really, really skilled woodworker. He's a good carpenter. And this job was one part of his life. But he wanted to make sure he always had it. So he had good work life integration and balance, but he also had great security. That's what people who are on the expert path, what they look like. Now, a lot of you don't have that, but a lot of your parents and grandparents did. And I really respected a lot of people who do. I don't have it, right? But that's only the second career. type. And again, this is based on individual psychology. This is not based on the job, is based on the

Starting point is 00:07:27 person who seeks out these things. And one of the problems is when you're in the wrong career type with respect to your psychology, then you get really uncomfortable. I'm not quite there yet. The third is called the transitory career type. The transitory career type is the career type where you're kind of jumping between things all the time. You'll change jobs every one and a half to three years and sometimes you make more and sometimes you make less, but that's really not the point. These are the people who say, I don't live to work. I work to live. These are people who have, their life is really outside of work. And work is kind of a necessary evil. And again, I'm not casting aspersions. I'm not saying there's something wrong with you if that's how you see things.

Starting point is 00:08:10 That's just the life that you want. But the career that you'd see from that wouldn't be like my dad who taught at a university, same university for decade after decade. This would be somebody who, moves around a lot. You know, I was, I was, you know, driving a moving van at a Tucson for a while. And then, you know, I met a girl in Bangor, Maine, so I moved there as a barista for two years. That didn't work out. So I went to San Diego and always wanted to live in San Diego. It's such a beautiful place. And I got a job in a surf shop. And that was kind of cool, but you get my point, right? I mean, parents often worry that their kids have this transitory career path, but that's because they don't understand their children's priorities in life. You decide whether or not if that's a good priority, a bad priority.

Starting point is 00:08:49 I strongly suspect that most of you watching this don't have that career path, but it does exist. That's the third one. But now the fourth one. This is the one I want you to be paying attention to because this fourth one is really super common, but most people who have it don't know they have it. This is called the spiral career path. The spiral career path ordinarily is a bunch of smaller careers stitched together in the mind of the person.

Starting point is 00:09:16 And it has rhyme and reason according to that person, but maybe not to. outward people, to people on the outside. This is usually characterized by job and career changes every seven to 12 years. This is something we often see. There's a lot of women who have this career path and it'll be, you know, after school, working in something for seven years and then stepping back a little bit because of family life and working part-time, perhaps, and then going back into the workforce, but in something totally different that it always been really interested in. And then seven or 12 years later, going into an entirely different direction. And You look at it from the outside to like, this has no rhyme or reason, but you talk to the person and she says, or he says, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Everything I did, I learned from what I had done before and everything I did in my career was enriched by my past experiences. I can see it. Spirals are really interesting. Those are the big career changers. And a lot of people who are pushed by school onto the linear career path, more, more, more, more, more, more, change every three or four years because this is a better opportunity. It's a better opportunity in your field. You're not going to change field, but you are going to change jobs

Starting point is 00:10:23 because somebody appreciates you more there. They feel kind of out of sorts, and they don't love it that much, but they'll do it. They don't quite understand why they're burning out. A lot of people burn out on their linear careers because they're actually not lineers. They're spirals.

Starting point is 00:10:37 What they should be doing is thinking about what's my next career going to be. Now, this was really interesting research for me because I'm a true spiral. I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life when I was nine years old, I wanted to be a professional classical musician. It's all I wanted to do. I literally wanted to be the world's greatest French horn player. And that's all it was paying attention

Starting point is 00:10:58 to all the way through school. I wound up dropping out of college when I was 19. I was completely unmotivated to be a college student. I just wanted to be a professional French horn player. So I went pro when I was 19. And through my 20s, that's what I was paying attention to. But in my late 20s, I started to get really restive. To begin with, I wasn't the world's greatest French horn player. It was a good French horn player making a living, but I wasn't living up to what I wanted to be. And I also had done the same thing over and over and over again, having played chamber music for a while. And I played in a symphony orchestra in Barcelona for a while. And I was teaching at a conservatory. And I thought, I'm going to kind of do the same thing over and over again. And I want

Starting point is 00:11:35 to try some new things. So I went to college in my late 20s. I went to college through distance learning, as a matter of fact, because I didn't really have any money. But also I didn't have any time. I had a whole time job. And so I found a good place to study. And I did that. And I did that. And And when I did that, I found I was super interested in all of these other things. I had no idea. I took a statistics class. Cool. I took calculus.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Interesting. But really lit me up was behavioral economics. I mean, just doing economics, I felt like I had this power to understand human behavior. But with a kind of a psychological twist, which is what I do now, right? But I didn't know. It was so interesting. And by about two years into my college education, I'm like, yeah, man, I got to make a change. I got to make a change.

Starting point is 00:12:15 So I was still working as a French horn player and I got my master's degree at night in economics. And then I'm like, I'm still hungry. And so I quit music. That was hard to do. I quit music when I was 31. It had been a long career. I made my living full time doing that for 12 years.

Starting point is 00:12:32 But I had to do that so I could get my PhD. And I went and got my PhD in public policy studying applied microeconomics and mathematical modeling with an emphasis on human behavior. And then I became an academic starting to do the kind of stuff that I do now, and that was the first turn of the spiral. Now, I should have known that there was going to be more turns to the spiral, but I didn't

Starting point is 00:12:53 know about this model. And sure enough, by the end of the decade, I wanted to do a new thing. And I left and I went to become the president of a think tank in Washington, D.C. I was a chief executive with a huge nonprofit organization. And I did that for 10 and a half years. And then the spiral turned again. And I quit. I walked away.

Starting point is 00:13:10 I'm really good at walking away from stuff, it turns out, which might seem imprudent. And it certainly seemed really imprudent to my parents after some of these spiral turns. And I did what I do now, which is I went to Harvard and I introduced a class in the science of happiness. And I started doing all this stuff in media about bringing the science of happiness to you, which is the fourth turn of the spiral. But I've had these four incredibly different careers. People are like, wow, that's weird, man. French horn player, a happiness professor. How does it work?

Starting point is 00:13:35 And it's like, spiral career, baby. But you've got to know how to do it and you have to have a confidence to do it. that's what I want to talk about because a lot of you are spirals. And right now I'm talking about this. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not so easy, is it? Well, it turns out there's a lot of research that can help you spiral better. And even if you're not a spiral, if you're a transitory or an expert or even a linear,

Starting point is 00:14:01 you're going to switch jobs a lot and you need to know how to do it well to give the highest likelihood of being successful and happy over the process of doing it. So that's what I really want to talk to. and then we'll come back to your spiraling. And I want you to be thinking about that along the way because you deserve to have a career of your own design. Your creativity should be made manifest in what you do with your life because your life is a startup.

Starting point is 00:14:27 You're an entrepreneur. You incorporated. You're the founder. And you can do whatever you want with it so that you can have the love and happiness that should be your destiny. And you can bring the love and happiness that other people deserve and need to

Starting point is 00:14:40 over the course of your life. but you're not going to do it very happily or well if you're not in the right career path, if you don't know which of these things that you actually are. Okay. So when you are on almost any one of these career paths, you're going to change jobs. Almost everybody does. Our graduate students, depending on the data that you believe, are going to have four different careers, whether they're spirals or not.

Starting point is 00:15:10 they'll be in sort of different industries, and probably nine to 11 really different jobs, even if they're all in the same career, in the same, you know, area, professional area. And so that means they're going to be moving between employers. And then the question becomes, how do you do that well and how do you do that happily and how do you do that successfully? And there's a lot of research that can actually help that. Now, that for some people is super scary. There's two types of people that find changing jobs incredibly scary.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Number one is people who are risk-averse, naturally-referced, naturally-react. risk averse. These are people who have a fear that change is actually going to hurt them, because fear of the unknown is something that's particularly scary to them. And there's a whole lot of neuroscience about that, but people who fear a lot of change. There's a lot of amygdala activity in the limbic system of the brain, et cetera, et cetera. You know who you are if you're a really risk-averse person. Probably not very many of you watching this, are this, because you're probably pretty entrepreneurial and risk isn't your problem. On the contrary. But maybe some of you are. And that's a normal thing. There's a distribution of people who hate risk and don't hate risk.

Starting point is 00:16:13 And I've talked at different times about how to get better at taking big risks, how to have a little danger in your life. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do a show about the importance of embracing danger. I've done research on that. It's kind of cool. The second type of person who struggles with job changes are people who are high in conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is one of the five big personality traits. Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These are the five, the five big personality characteristics. And the way that you remember this is ocean, openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. That's how you remember. That's how I remember it in the very beginning as well. And people who are really, really conscientious, they don't walk away from

Starting point is 00:16:58 stuff because they have a commitment to it. So my dad, one of the reasons that he was on the expert career path, besides wanting to have a reliable career where there was security and predictability, and work-life balance is because he was an incredibly conscientious individual. And, you know, he felt that he had committed his career to a particular employer and they had committed his career to him. And that was the deal. That was the implicit bargain. Most of you, if you're under 40, you're like, what? Are you kidding me? That's insane. Right. But that's old school. That's kind of the way that people were a lot back in the day. My dad was born in 1936. So there you go. So most people don't think that particular way, but conscientious people, nonetheless, they do have more of a struggle

Starting point is 00:17:40 leaving their jobs. So they stay put, right? But that can be a problem, right? So it can be scary to move, but unhappy to stay. And by the way, that's actually getting harder. Interesting statistic today. In 2024, 51% of people said that they were looking for a new job. This is, yeah, this actually comes from the Wall Street Journal. Fifty one percent of Americans reported they were looking for a new job. That's really, really high, right? Actually, it's way down. During the coronavirus epidemic, some estimate said that 90% of people of professionals in the American economy were on the market. That's insane. But that's actually a function of the fact that a lot of people were not enjoying their jobs when they were, you know, having Zoom meetings all day long, which is

Starting point is 00:18:27 pretty bad. I mean, even if it was convenient, it certainly didn't make you love your job more, which is one of the reasons that people were so keen to leave their jobs. So in other words, 51% is high but is going down. And one of the reasons that that percentage of people that are looking for jobs is going down these days is because the job market is getting harder. You know, as I'm recording this, we have this weird situation in the American economy that economists can't quite figure out, as a matter of fact, where there's very few layoffs, but very little hiring.

Starting point is 00:18:54 So the job market is sort of constipated, sort of stuck is what we find. And that's one of the reasons that people are having really, really, really, a lot of trouble when they're coming out of college finding jobs because nobody's leaving, but nobody's hiring and nobody's laying off at the same time. And so kind of nothing's moving. So the result of that is that people are a lot more conservative than they've been in the past. So it's hard. I get it. But even if you can find a job, the big fear that people have is if I change jobs, maybe it's worse. Like let's say that you have a job that you're done with. If you're a spiral, how do you know when it's time to change?

Starting point is 00:19:32 The answer is you're not interested anymore. If you stay in a job where your interest is waning, you're going to burn out. Burnout is about interest is what it comes down to. So that's how you know. If you're at the end of the 7 to 12 year cycle, fellow spirals, you'd be like, you know, I used to love it, but no, not so much. Why? Because I'm bored and you hate being bored.

Starting point is 00:19:53 You're a curious person. Spirals are always really curious people. But you worry, if I actually go into something new, am I going to be happier? I was terrified of this when I left music. I was burned out and I was ready to go. But, you know, I'm going to go to get my Ph.D. And I was 31, 32, 33 years old and then become, I don't know, an economist. I don't know what I'm doing.

Starting point is 00:20:15 I literally didn't know how to do anything except play the horn. And so this might be the biggest mistake in my life. And a lot of people said that. A lot of my musician friends said, you're walking into a hole, man. I mean, you don't know how to do this and you're not going to like it. And what are you, some sort of a square anyway. and it was super scary. I might not be happier. It got a little bit easier later, but when I was the chief executive of a nonprofit, you know, people around me, when I was walking, I was voluntarily walking away

Starting point is 00:20:40 from this cool corner office job. People said, you're making the biggest mistake you'll ever make. I was walking into this, what I'm doing now. It is so great. I'm so happy that I did it. And part of the reason I had the confidence to do that is because I had experience in job changing at that particular point. Okay. Now, back to the question. When you change jobs, let alone careers, will you be happier? Now, I have data on this, and this is data that you can actually use. Job changers, people who are changing jobs, there's a reason that they're doing that, obviously. The average rating on a one to seven scale, and this is how social scientists always measure, this is called a Lycurt scale.

Starting point is 00:21:19 And the reason that you measure things on a one to seven scale is got a midpoint, because it's got that number in the middle, which has nice mathematical properties. job changers on average rate their old job in satisfaction, whereas one is the least satisfied and seven is the most satisfied, as a 4.5. That's the average. Your results may vary. Maybe you're like, it's a one. But if your job is a seven, you're probably not on the market, right?

Starting point is 00:21:45 So the average is 4.5. Now, you want to know what the satisfaction is and the new job on average. And we know what that is. The satisfaction jumps after switching. and the two months after switching to about six. That's called the honeymoon effect, 4.5 to 6. So probably when you change jobs, you're going to be like, this is way better, this is way better at the beginning.

Starting point is 00:22:09 The problem is that it goes up for a few months and then it starts to go back down again. And what you find is that you get this bump over the first three or four months, and then it starts to decline. And at the end of the first year, you find that generally speaking, it's down to about 5.5 at the end of the first year.

Starting point is 00:22:24 You might call that the one-year itch for, jobs, new jobs, the end of 12 months. The problem is not that you like it less than your old job, because 5.5 at the end of 12 months is still higher than 4.5, which is what you left. The problem is higher, and then it fell. It fell a little bit. And that falling is lousy. It's feeling, it feels like negative progress. And a lot of people really suffer from that, which is the reason that you hear people often say at the end of 12 months, I think I might have made a mistake, because it's falling, and I know it's going to keep falling, and then I'm going to like it less than the one that I left, and maybe I shouldn't have left that job.

Starting point is 00:23:00 Some people actually bail and go back. That's almost always a mistake, as it turns out. More on that in a second. Now, how can you actually see things turn around again after that? Because now people in new jobs break up into two groups. Half of the people keep going down, and half of the people start back up again after about a year. I know which group you want to be in. And here's how they differ. The groups that keep going back down and go back down to about 4.5,

Starting point is 00:23:30 which is the job they left before or even lower, these are people, according to the research. And this is a really interesting study from the Journal of Organizational Behavior from 23. It's a pretty new study that are self-centered about their orientation, about their career orientation. Now, I'm not saying that you're self-centered or a narcissistic or a selfish person, but you think about your career with respect to you only, right? People who have the the self-orientation, self-centered orientation in their career, they tend to max out in the early months and then start going back down and by the end of a year a little bit better than the old job, but it keeps going back down and pretty soon after about 18 or 24 months they want to

Starting point is 00:24:09 change again. And they do have a lot of job turn. The people who start back up again after a year and they tend to spend a lot longer in their careers. And so they can have a seven to 12 year run as a really happy spiral are called organization-centered people. They have an organization-centered orientation. In other words, they think more about themselves as a member of a team. And that's why it's so critically important for you, when you're going from one job to another, to be thinking about the team you're joining. Do I like this team that I'm joining as opposed to, is this job going to be good for me? If it's a good team, it's going to be good for you is the whole point. But be thinking about the organization. I'm going to be proud of this. Am I going to be happy with these people?

Starting point is 00:24:49 Am I going to learn and grow a lot in this job so that I can create more value for this company? do I think that these managers are going to do a good job with the whole company that I'm part of? Or is it just kind of about me is what it comes down to. Look for the organizational centered job and try to align your incentives in that particular way. And you'll have a much higher likelihood of not hopping between things. And you're more likely to get a full turn of the spiral, even if you are a spiral in this new career, seven to 12 years. That's what will give you the most satisfaction and the most longevity in the career. Now, next question. Will a change per se bring happiness or does happiness in life make it more likely that you'll get satisfaction in your job? You see what I'm saying here, right? I mean, there's all the stuff out there about work-life balance. I've even mentioned it here. I don't like work-life balance. I like work-life integration where your job makes your life happier and your life makes your job happier because your job is part of your life. That's the way it's really supposed to work. That doesn't mean it's boundaryless. It doesn't mean you

Starting point is 00:25:53 you should be checking emails at 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. No, no, no, you shouldn't be doing that. You should be with your family and with your friends and reading the brothers Karamazov or something in those off hours to be sure. But they should fortify and strengthen each other in very beautiful ways. But the question then still is, if I'm happier outside of work will it make my job change easier and better? Or is it just that the job change is going to make me happier? And the answer is both. The answer is both. You should have to have. to be more satisfied with your job, look for more life satisfaction outside your job. One of the biggest predictors of liking your job is liking your life.

Starting point is 00:26:33 And I guess it kind of makes sense, right? Because happy people are happy in all different parts of their lives. But it's really interesting because, you know, there are people that I find who say, my home life is blissful and my work is drudgery. But it's pretty rare. And people in the same jobs, you'll find they're doing the same job, you know, like Mary and Paul or sitting in cubicles next to each other. and they're doing data entry.

Starting point is 00:26:55 And Paul's like, this is the worst. I want to jump out the window. And Mary's like, this is a really, really good job. I like the people around me. And I'm working for a company. I think it's pretty good. And it's not always really interesting. Sometimes it's boring.

Starting point is 00:27:06 But all in all, I'm really grateful to have this job. Why do they have these different orientations? And it has to do a lot more with the fact that Mary is more likely to have a happier life outside of work. And Paul is likely to have an unhappier life outside of work. And they might be saying to yourself, this is because Paul is a naturally unhappy person. You've heard me saying this show that half a half a lot of you, of your happiness is genetic. You have a genetic proclivity. Your parents and grandparents gave you

Starting point is 00:27:29 half of your baseline happiness. Literally your mother made you unhappy. Sorry. But it's not all that. A lot of what we find in the research is that if you cultivate outside of work happiness, it bleeds into your work itself. And this is a really important thing to keep in mind. Because for you to have a happier career, you need really good leisure hygiene. You need to take it really seriously. Here's the pattern that I see in my work. The people who work hard and are really exhausted and go home and don't do something generative and creative, but rather just scroll Instagram, these are the people who are unhappier about their non-work lives

Starting point is 00:28:12 and they burn out more on their work as a result. You need to, as Stephen Covey said in the famous seven habits of highly effective people, sharpen the saw. And that means that when you're not at work, you're reading, you're learning, you're loving, you're spending time doing things that are incredibly generative, you're developing your spirituality, you're doing serious things that don't happen to pay you and your hours outside work. And again, I'm going to do a whole episode on leisure because structuring your leisure is so interesting and it can be so scientifically robust as well.

Starting point is 00:28:47 But suffice it to say that if you're serious about your life outside work, work, your work is going to seem a lot happier and your job change is going to work better. Okay. Now, there's the third question. Does it matter why you change for the likelihood that your change is going to be successful and happy? And the answer is yes. So there's two reasons to change your job.

Starting point is 00:29:08 We'll call them push and pull. Now, pull is you want to do something else and so you quit. Push is your boss says, I think it's time for you to move on. For example, those are the two impetus. And you know perfectly that when you're not in control, it's going to be harder. Now, I know a lot of people who've said, my boss said that this wasn't a good fit and I had to go to work someplace else. And I was really, really upset.

Starting point is 00:29:34 It was really, really mad. But by about two months into my new job, I realized that my boss was right. And I told her that. And that's great when that happens. But in general, it's more or less what you'd expect that when it's a push motivation that you don't control the timing and that's really uncomfortable. looking very inconvenient for your life and really, it can be really hard on your family. When you don't feel like you have a sense of self-control, that is cognitively a high load on you.

Starting point is 00:30:00 Then you worry about unemployment and you're worried you're going to have to take something you don't like, it doesn't pay enough, et cetera. And frankly, it's just really crummy for your self-esteem. When your job goes away, even if it's not personal, it feels really, really personal. And for all those reasons, the push motivation is much harder than the pull motivation. That's an important thing to keep in mind because I'm going to give you four things I want you to think about. And that's one of the things that I want you to be thinking about as you're contemplating a job change. Now, let's go back to the four career types.

Starting point is 00:30:29 If you are feeling burnout, it probably means that you're a spiral and that your spiral is turning. Kind of what it comes down to. And the reason is because the spiral turns when interest wanes. Pay attention to that. You're not going to suddenly be like, well, grind more. work harder, you know, reignite the passion, which people talk about all the time. Fellow spirals, you're probably not going to. You're probably going to want to go look for a new thing. And thank God for the free enterprise system where we have options. I mean, not everybody

Starting point is 00:31:02 has options all the time. And some people are way more privileged about that than others. Don't get me wrong. Some people can't do that. They can't do it. But a lot of you can. And what it takes is the imagination and the fortitude and the courage to say, I think the spirals turn in. and how do I know? Because my gut is telling me, I'm feeling a little dead inside. It's fine for me to go. Maybe I need to go study first. Maybe I need to move. But all that feeds into the fact that you're probably a spiral as opposed to the linear that the economy and the education establishment told you all along. You might not be that. So when it's time to change, and incidentally, maybe you're on a three or four year cycle is a linear and it's time to change.

Starting point is 00:31:47 maybe you're an expert and not of your own volition, your career went away. You know, whatever happens, something you had layoffs or you're a transitory. And, you know, you met the love of your life across the country, which is why you'd change your job. What should you be thinking about with a job change? Here are four rules that govern the best possible job changes. Okay, here's the four things that you can do you should be thinking about to give the highest likelihood of a very successful, very happy job change.

Starting point is 00:32:17 number one. Number one, manage your expectations. Spirals in particular are optimists. And I love that. But optimism is not the same thing as hope. Optimism is a probability of prediction. It's, I think things are going to be good, right? I predict things are going to be good. Hope is not that, by the way. Hope means something good can be done and I can do it. That's what hope is. Hope is active. That's the reason that hope is a theological virtue. In the New Testament, Paul talks about, you know, St. Paul talks about faith, hope, and charity, right? He talks about these are the three things, these three theological virtues. He doesn't talk about faith optimism and love. You know, he talks about faith, hope, and love, faith, hope, and charity. So there's a natural tendency,

Starting point is 00:33:06 if you're a spiral to be always looking into the future and say, that's going to be great, it's going to be so great, it's going to be so great. And it's going to be great some of the time. And it's going to be great, but be realistic about the fact that, you know, you're going to move from a 4.5 to a 6, and if you're organization-centric, then you can actually, you'll go down a little bit as the honeymoon is over, but you can start back up again. But it's not as if you're going to go, it's going to be the permanent seven, because the money's so good and it's so interesting, you're going to love it forever. It's a job. It's a normal thing to not have it be perfect in a perfect part of your life. So keep that in mind. Manage your expectations.

Starting point is 00:33:42 Remember what things were like in the past. And don't, pretend that it's going to be Shangri-La, this perfection. That's just a grown-up thing to do. And I struggle with that. But the more that I do that, the better off I am. Second, look for your happiness first outside your job, right? I mean, this is in general something that's important because, you know, your job is going to change, but you're always going to come home to you. And so, therefore, coming home to you, the you that's at home, that's not at work, that circumstance, ecosystem should be optimized as much as you possibly can. Always work on that first because then then no matter what you're doing, whether it's the first part of the spiral, the end part of the

Starting point is 00:34:24 spiral, whether you're burning out or fresh in your job wherever you are, whether you're in the honeymoon or not, it's going to be better than it would have been otherwise. You're going to get an extra point or two in that Likert scale if you're working seriously about your non-work life. Look for happiness outside work. Don't look for your life happiness in your work exclusively. On the contrary, look for your work satisfaction in your non-work life by setting it up and taking care of your happiness hygiene. Third, this is a hard one. Jump before you're pushed. Most people know.

Starting point is 00:35:02 I mean, sometimes there's out of the blue layoffs in your company. Or, you know, you get a new boss and the boss is a jerk and they come around and they're like, you out, out, out, out. But most of the time when people talk about having gotten rift or, you know, losing their job for any reason. In retrospect, there were a lot of signs and they were hoping for the best. Hope for the best, I guess. I guess that's maybe optimism of how I better how I should put it based on how I define that a minute ago. But most people know and pay attention to that because once again, if it's on the pole side, you're in charge. If it's on the push side, you're not. And push is a lot harder on you than pull. I recommend that when things are getting really, really dicey, if you can,

Starting point is 00:35:45 start looking at your options. That's just a prudent thing to do with respect to the likelihood of having a happy transition is what it comes down to. You can't always do it. I got it. But you can more than you think. And by keeping your eyes open and playing heads up ball, that's just prudential judgment, which is not a theological virtue. It's a cardinal virtue if you're following the philosophy that I'm laying down here. And last but not least is don't be afraid. Change is great. Change is good. Now, again, if you are a risk-averse person or excessively conscientious, I guess there's no such thing as excessively conscientious, really, really conscientious. Like my dear old dad, we can make you really

Starting point is 00:36:26 reluctant and even fearful of job changes. But don't be afraid because change is super healthy. Change is super good. I'm talking to my students all the time. Yeah, it's okay to quit your job. It's fine to quit your job. Don't quit your job every six months because it's going to be on your resume that you're a job hopper and that's bad for you. Plus, you'll never be able to dig in. I got it. I mean, this is all within the boundaries of what makes sense. But, you know, especially if you're a spiral, walk away. Walk away. I said this in a lecture last year. And one of my smart, savvy Harvard Business School students, wonderful, they're great. She puts up her hand and said, Professor, in the last unit, you were talking about family dynamics and you talked about how you can,

Starting point is 00:37:09 how you can have a higher likelihood of having a marriage that lasts for a lifetime. I said, yep. He said, in this unit, you're talking about careers and you're encouraging us to walk away when we lose interest. Why don't you talk to us about building a career that lasts a lifetime, but, you know, having a marriage that you change every seven to 12 years? I said, that is a smart question. And there's an answer to that. There's an answer to that because the spiral marriage pattern doesn't lead to ultimate happiness for the very reason that a lifelong partner, the person on whom you will be laying your eyes as you take your dying breath, is most associated with happiness.

Starting point is 00:37:53 And it doesn't work out for everybody. I'll do an episode. I'm going to do a bunch of episodes coming up on love and happiness and staying in love, etc. That's a really interesting topic. And not everybody can have that. But if you can, that's really worth dedicating yourself to and is very different than the pattern that you experience in the workplace. In no small part, because the relationships that you have in the workplace can be wonderful. They can be satisfying. They can be great. But your colleagues at work are not most likely going to be the people that are around your bedside when you're taking

Starting point is 00:38:25 your dying breath. This is a different kind of relationship. There are what Aristotle calls friendships of transaction. Useful friends. Deal friends. Your ultimate real friend, if you're blessed to have it, is your lifelong partner. And that's why it's a different species of problem. So that's worth keeping in mind. And again, every case is different and there's aspiration.

Starting point is 00:38:51 And sometimes it works out. But these are the patterns that we need to look at so that we can design our lives as optimally as we possibly can. Now, what I'm going to talk about in a future episode is when you're getting ready to change jobs, what should you be looking for? I mean, what should you be looking for to know that the next opportunity is the right opportunity? But I'm going to leave that for a future episode. Let me sum up. I've talked here about the four career types.

Starting point is 00:39:19 And I've said that most of you were told that you're line and that you should be really motivated and ambitious to go up that line. but you might not be a linear. You're probably not the expert career pattern, which is your father, mother, grandparents. You might be, but that's that steady state kind of career. You're probably not a transitory. You wouldn't be watching this podcast in the first place, but that's okay too if you are,

Starting point is 00:39:43 which is kind of up and down and here and there and back and forth and changing a lot. Most likely, if you're not that linear, which people told you were, it's because you're a spiral where you're creating on the canvas of your life, a painting that is a series of seven to 12 year scenarios, professional scenarios. Sometimes you make more, sometimes you make less. Sometimes you do this, sometimes that. Changing. It's an adventure.

Starting point is 00:40:07 It's a new dawn once a decade or so. And that's a very, very beautiful thing. And if you are, you need to be, you need to be pretty comfortable with what major changes are all about. And I've given you a whole bunch of ideas on how to do that, how to manage your expectations, how to see your career with respect to organization as opposed to self, how to make sure that you are focusing on the happiness of your life and not just the happiness of your job. And then, you know, last but not least, if you can, making sure that it's about pull and not push. And then I gave you these rules. Before rules, once again, manage your expectations. Look for happiness outside of work first, jump before you're pushed and fear not. All right. A couple of questions. We got some good ones this week.

Starting point is 00:40:54 I got this one. I got to name this person by email, and this came in at OfficeHours at Arthurworks.com. This is from Zeus bear. Thank you, Zeus bear. Cool name. Zeus bear. My kids are grown now, and although I've never worked in my main job since being as a child, was as a caregiver to other people, now that my kids are growing up, people keep saying I need to use my education and talents and go to work. I have a lot of ideas, but I'm afraid, do I don't know where to start. 53 years old. What should I do? Well, there's one piece of information that I don't know, which is do you need money? Right? Because, you know, from what you've told me here,

Starting point is 00:41:34 you might actually be relatively financially independent in the context of your family. You might be married to somebody who is earning as much money as your family needs, for example, because you've been doing caregiving to children who've now moved out. If you need money for that, at least some money, one of the things that I recommend is actually figuring out a way to work with people that you know providing something that they need and where they trust you because they know you. This is a really good introduction into the workforce. Do you have somebody who has a retail establishment and say, hey, can I give your hand? This is a really good way to do it. You know, one of my kids as a first job went and worked for the father of a dear friend

Starting point is 00:42:16 of mine who had a farm and lived in the farmer's basement and learned how to become a farm hand. And it's just based on these relationships. And it was a good sense. start. There's a really, really good start to his career. Learned a lot of job skills and was with people who knew him. It wasn't this transactional relationship. It was, you know, a little bit based on friendship. And that's a good introduction of the workforce. If you don't need money, I really recommend volunteering because there's tons of people, Zeus, Bear, and they need you. They need your talents. They need your energy. And at 53, you got, you got, you're loaded for Bear. Zeus Bear, sorry. And figuring out how to volunteer in your community can be a real joy.

Starting point is 00:42:54 Who knows? That might be vocationally something you've been looking for for a big part of your life. Those are great questions. Keep them coming, my friends. Thank you so much for participating in the show. If you've got comments, leave the comments below, whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening on Spotify or Apple. We do read the comments and they really give us a lot of ideas. And we appreciate it because we want to make the show better and better as weeks go on. Give us suggestions for people you'd like for me to talk to as guests, because I like doing that too. Those are some of the really fun conversations and some of the most successful shows that we do. had so far. Like and subscribe. Pound the subscribe button so it comes to you automatically and the algorithm gods actually start smiling on us and we get more traffic and this gets in front of people

Starting point is 00:43:35 who haven't heard of us before, which is really great. Follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on whatever your social media platform of choice is and you'll get all kinds of little short, you know, ditties and clips and things of not just this show, but a lot of other things that I'm doing in media. And in the meantime, order the happiness files, the handsome yellow book behind me right now, 33 essays, as well as reading my column of the Atlantic. Please pass these ideas onto other people because the world needs to be a happier place, and it starts with all of us becoming happiness teachers. I know you can do it.

Starting point is 00:44:04 Hope you enjoy it, and I'll see you next week.

Office Hours with Arthur Brooks - The 4 Types of Careers, and How to Find Yours

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.