Sometimes I feel so stupid
But it offers new perspectives
I’m finishing my PhD—yes, really—this year. And I have no clear idea of what’s next. And I got stuck thinking about it. Then I realised, last week, I helped 3 people with similar issues, with contain the hidden solution for me.
A designer I know got a job offer at a new cool AI startup and asked me: ‘Should I switch?’ ‘Well, I don’t know’, I replied. So I started asking some questions about his career priorities. Turned out it was to maximise learning and the potential to start something on the side. After finding his purpose, his conclusion came easily: asking for on-the-job learning in the new gig, with 32 hours per week for some potential of side hustling. The hiring party was okay with that!
An entrepreneur in Dubai wondered how to take her sole-trading to the next level by bringing somebody on board. She found one good candidate for this. ‘Which structure should this new partnership be in?’, she asked, and listed options: start a company together, a franchise, do revenue share, or adopt a cofounder? Again, I simply asked: what do you want with this new move? She doesn’t want to work alone anymore and wants to grow the business. Clear. So instead of obsessing over the legal structure, I suggested just starting with hiring that candidate freelance, ‘act like it’s a payroll’, and figuring out together what the right workform.
A B2B entrepreneur asked me how I run my Substack and my LinkedIn. If he should double down on either platform, ‘which platform is best?’ Again, after listing some cons and pros of each, it still didn’t seem I resolved his problem. ‘Why do you want to do this in the first place. Do you have too few leads?’ ‘No’, he replied, ‘not at all. But I’m worried it dries up in a few months.’ He then told me it never did. So this was an anxiety-fueled exploration. The true problem that we then surfaced is that he didn’t feel that all his clients were ICPs. He only relied on inbound. Doing Substack or LinkedIn posts will only increase inbound. If you want to be picky, do outbound, we concluded.
Three examples of focusing on the desired outcome over debating options moved people forward. And now, I’m staring at my own problem, where I was asking myself: what should be my next step? Instead, right now, I switched: what aspects of my life, i.e. dimensions, do I want to optimise for? Is it freedom, is it academic challenge, is it closeness to mountains? Something I have some time to ponder over.
The funny thing is, often such reframes are much easier achieved with an external party there. They don’t have the burden of the details of your life. Such a reflexive partner can be a lifesaver for making impactful decisions. And I felt so stupid for that realisation, because my entire freaking job is reframing other people’s problems. I just realised why sometimes an outside perspective is helpful. As a mentor.