IWillTeachYouToBeRich - "I don't know what my dream job is"

Reader,

Every week I get tons of emails from readers telling me how they feel about their careers. And I want to tell you about two different students who wrote to me.

Student #1:

First is Jessica, who earned $75,000 as an Account Manager for a company selling paper. Her job is fine, her pay was fine, but at the end of the day, she didn’t care about her work. Nothing she did really mattered.

Even though she considered herself pretty smart, she just felt unmotivated and bored. And when I talked to her, she used words like "sluggish" and "distracted." Deep down, she had this sinking feeling she wasn’t doing the work she was meant to do.

Does she leave a stable job where she was being paid basically enough? And where would she go anyway? She didn't know what her dream job actually was. She felt stuck. 

Now, let’s take a look at Student #2:

Melanie earned over $100,000. Like Jessica, Melanie also had a job that was fine. But Melanie had a few key differences compared to Jessica.

Melanie was not happy at her job, either. It was okay, but she woke up every day with this general feeling of malaise, this...ugh. And after a few months of this, she started to hate it.

Here's where Jessica and Melanie start to really differ…

Melanie decided she never wanted to look back on her life and wonder, “What if?” Melanie didn't know what her dream job was either, but she was confident that if she took a new job and totally failed, she could always go back to work at her current company or something similar.

Taking a new job was a risk, yes, but a small one. With a massive potential upside.

So Melanie went through our Find Your Dream Job system (more on this later), scored a great job that made her excited to go to work, and negotiated a $30,000 salary increase. 

Six years later, Melanie did it again. Except this time she bumped up her pay by $40,000 and she got to work remotely.

Interestingly, I find the more Dream Job students earn, the less they talk about money. Instead, high earners typically talk about having purpose, feeling challenged, and knowing that they are developing skills. That’s exactly what Melanie told me.

So what’s the difference between Jessica and Melanie? 

Jessica did all the right things that she was supposed to do. She studied hard, she took the job she could get and she was so grateful that she even had any job.

Meanwhile, in the world of Top Talent, Melanie got massive pay raises, she continued working on challenging projects, and she even negotiated a flexible schedule. Totally different from Jessica.

First, the basics:

• She stopped listening to bad career advice. No "follow your passion" or "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." (Much like "cut back on lattes", trite advice like this may sound smart, but it's average advice for average people. And it's not even remotely helpful.)

• She didn't jump right onto job boards or update her resume. That's what most people do. And if you ask them why, they just stare at you and robotically say, “my resume needs to be updated,” or they’ll say, “maybe I need to go back to graduate school.” They’re literally willing to spend $150,000 instead of learning how the job search process actually works.
  
  (One of my readers told me, “I want to switch careers, but I don’t know what industry. I probably need to learn some new skills. The only thing is I already have so much student loan debt.” I want to shake them by the shoulders and yell, “YOU DON'T NEED ANOTHER DEGREE AND YOU DON'T NEED A MAGICAL RESUME!")

Second, and this is key — Melanie didn't wait around to figure out what her dream job was.

She took action. That's what Top Talent does.

Top Talent doesn’t wait for a dream job to fall from the sky. They don’t tell themselves, “I don’t know what I want; I guess I’ll wait. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Maybe I’ll know it when I see it. I’ll figure it out eventually.”

Of course not! 

Top Talent doesn't guess or wait around to "figure it out." Top Talent follows a system to figure out what their dream job is.

They certainly don't apply through some random job website and then wait for a company to get back to them. No!

So many people delegate their careers to recruiters, to job boards, to an algorithm. And if they don’t get any results, they shrug. Top Talent knows that they need to be deliberate, and take the responsibility of landing their dream job.

Here’s the truth that a lot of career coaches won’t tell you: 

Most people are already good enough for their dream job.

In fact, most people land their dream jobs despite being far from the best candidate on paper.

Of course, skills are important. A good resume with surgical precision for the target role and the company can be very helpful.

But Top Talent knows that they need a different approach. They need to get proactive. They need to spend as much (or more) time thinking about what other people want as they spend thinking about what they want. And they learn how to start using competence triggers to signal they are Top Talent.

Competence triggers are very subtle signals, like certain phrases, body language and practices that signal to someone, “Wow, this is Top Talent. I need this person working for me.”

For example, in my Find Your Dream Job program, I teach the one thing that so many people forget to do when they’re building a relationship with VIPs and experts. It’s so obvious, but get this competence trigger right, and you’ll get the inside scoop at any company or even become first in line to get an interview.

So shift out of a REACTIVE approach to your career:

• "I don't know what my dream job is"
• "I guess it's good enough"
• "I'll figure it out...someday"

And start being PROACTIVE:

• "I'm grateful for my current job and I want a better job, a dream job"
• "I'm going to follow the same system that Top Talent uses instead of just delegating my future to an algorithm"
• "I'm going to take small steps every day"

That's when you'll be ready to finally find your dream job.

P.S. Get started now: If you want to learn more about the game being played around you — including my full Dream Job System — be sure to attend the live workshop I'm hosting on Monday, July 12. 

It's free, but one night only and you do need to register: 

EVENT: "How to find your Dream Job" workshop

DATE: Monday, July 12. One night only.

TIME: 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific (see your time zone)

COST: Free, but do need to register

Can't wait to share it all with you!