I work at Google. I have worked in tech for the last 10 years in a variety of different marketing roles all in the Bay Area. I'm 31 years old and here's some of the most important lessons that I've learned throughout my career journey. And I feel like some of these might be like a little bit of a hot take, like not the normal ones you would hear, so bear with me.
Okay, the first lesson that I think is really important is that not everybody fits work into their life in the same way that you might. And recognizing those differences early is going to be beneficial to your mental state and the way that you view work. So to clarify that a little bit. Some people don't have a very fulfilling life outside of work. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Work just fits into people's lives differently. For some people, working is their passion and their life revolves around work and they might be really happy with that. Alternatively, work might be their core focus, but they don't actually have an exciting or fulfilling life outside of their job. Alternatively, a lot of people work to sustain their life outside of work and they compartmentalize work. They do their 9 to 5 and then they're able to really disconnect when they leave work. The way that work integrates itself into your lifestyle will drastically change how you view work and how you view work emergencies. So, to clarify, some people treat every little thing like it's an emergency, they're very reactive. And if you're able to recognize that they are projecting their own way of how work fits into their life when things like that happen, it can help you to rationalize and better understand what to take super seriously or what not to take personally. And on that note, nothing is personal and everything is a projection anyway.
Okay, number two. The things that matter to you about your salary and compensation package are not the same things that matter to somebody else. Base salary might be really important to somebody, equity might be really important to somebody else. You might really care about having certain types of health benefits or fertility benefits. There's all sorts of different components of a comp package that are very specific to what you value. And just taking the highest base salary offer does not necessarily mean that that is the best offer for you because you might value different things than somebody else.
Okay, third, and this might be like a little bit of a hot take, and I really don't mean this in a mean way. But you are probably going to like your job better if you pick a job that you're naturally good at. Imposter syndrome, especially for women, is like, at least for me, the biggest challenge that I consistently run up against in my career, even now after 10 years. And that's just, you know, par for the course. So for me, I'm really bad at math. I've always been bad at math. I'm not good at math. That's not what I like to do. It's never made sense for me to like integrate that in like a large capacity in what I do. Obviously marketing has some math, but it's different. So, for me, if I had to be in a role that involved a lot of math, not only would I have to do my job well, I'd also have to conquer way more imposter syndrome from the fact that I was doing something I was not intuitively good at. Like I've always been good at communication, I've always been good at writing, I've always understood advertising and perception. That came naturally to me. So hence marketing was easier for me and it's more pleasurable and I can disconnect better from work. So, you know, you're always going to be happier if you pick a job that you're naturally good at. Imposter syndrome, especially for women, is like, at least for me, the biggest challenge that I consistently run up against in my career, even now after 10 years. And that's just, you know, par for the course. So for me, I'm really bad at math. I've always been bad at math. I'm not good at math. That's not what I like to do. It's never made sense for me to like integrate that in like a large capacity in what I do. Obviously marketing has some math, but it's different. So, for me, if I had to be in a role that involved a lot of math, not only would I have to do my job well, I'd also have to conquer way more imposter syndrome from the fact that I was doing something I was not intuitively good at. Like I've always been good at communication, I've always been good at writing, I've always understood advertising and perception. That came naturally to me. So hence marketing was easier for me and it's more pleasurable and I can disconnect better from work.
So, you know, you're always going to be happier if you pick a job that you're naturally good at.
Last but not least, for this video and let me know if you want more of these. You should really consider your values when you think about your career. For me, my three core values were financial stability, autonomy and freedom, and uniqueness. So financial stability, that's a pretty clear one. I always knew I needed a stable paycheck. Doing freelance was not for me. Doing something where I didn't know how much income I was getting at what increments was not for me. Second, autonomy and freedom. It is so important for me to be able to own and create things and not have a micromanagement. This has been so important in how I choose roles because I never going to choose a manager that suppresses my own autonomy because I hate it there. Last but not least is uniqueness. I like to be in roles or at companies where I am doing something that I find is really interesting and maybe not a lot of people know how to do. So, you know, I work specifically in a go-to-market strategy, and that's pretty nuanced and it's fun for me because I love to travel. So that makes my role unique.
So once you figure out those things out for yourself, you can better align those values with what you do on a day-to-day and you will be a lot happier.
Sorry, this video ended up being so long. Um, but I feel like I have so many more of these. So let me know if you're interested.
