Sustainable Ambition Forum - 08.30.22
Back in May, I had the opportunity to hear Shane Battier speak. He’s a basketball player who played for Duke in college and won two NBA championships with the Miami Heat. His talk was thought-provoking.
While there were many inspirational points to take away, one that stuck with me was “next play.”
At Duke, Battier played for legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski. This was one of the coach’s core mantras: next play. Battier shared how out on the basketball court after a play had gone south or gone well the focus always became the next play. You can’t do anything about the past. One’s focus needs to shift to what’s next.
One thing I advocate with Sustainable Ambition is to always be in action on exploring a curiosity. This isn’t to be busy for busy sake. This is to help you plan for transitions that you don’t see coming. It’s to help you continually learn about yourself and understand what might be next for you. It’s to remain on a growth curve and continue to build your identity capital. It’s to help you take control of your personal narrative and start to shape it with intention.
I was recently with a client who made this very point. She shared how she’s learned her lesson to never again wait and stay in a role in which she had lost interest and was no longer on a growth curve. She didn’t realize she could be proactive and change her situation. Yet at some point, she got into action. She followed her curiosity, which led her to take an executive course at Harvard, and she started to speak up and seek out a new role. In doing so, it’s led her to landing a cool, new position that she is pumped about. She’s regenerated her ambition, and she’s learned that she’s never going to settle in again. She knows now that she’s in choice and in control of her own fate. She now will say—next play.
What’s your next play? What curiosity is pulling at your attention? What might be a new work adventure you want to explore? What might be your next career arc?
Let’s go! Next play.
Kathy Oneto
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
FREE Workshop
On Thursday, September 8, I’m doing a free virtual workshop about:
Creating your Back-to-Work Stretch+Sustain Plan.
What would closing the year with a bang look like for you? And what plan do you want to put in place to make it sustainable?
The session will be 12-1 PT / 3-4 ET.
You can learn more and register here. I hope to see you!
The Round-Up
Focus on your personal development. Don’t just focus on what you need to develop professionally for your current role. Expand your horizons and invest in personal growth. Doing so can keep you motivated and help you uncover what might be next.
Be ready if your industry is shifting. Where to focus to remain relevant and not be caught off guard. Be proactive with planning your next move.
Your personal brand travels with you. From our friends at The Verse, learn how to build your personal brand and get your personal brand checklist.
To get your next job, know your co-workers. This is important research that shows that it is no longer loose connections that help you find your next job; rather, it is those you build connections with at work. (I want to note that this may not be the case if you want to make a more significant career switch, in which case loose connections still matter.) During this time of hybrid work, it’s important that we take responsibility for investing in building productive working relationships. Your career depends on it.
Be prepared when interviewing for what’s next. This is a great round-up to prepare you for how to answer all those pesky interview questions.
“Pivot: The Only Move that Matters is Your Next One” by Jenny Blake. My friend, Jenny Blake, wrote the seminal book on pivoting. It’s a great resource if you’re in the middle of a career shift and want to know how to determine your next play.
Lean into not knowing and trusting the process. Another reason I advocate always to be investing in exploring your curiosities is that it helps with living with uncertainty. More action and exploration gives you more data points to help inform what’s next. From uncertainty comes your next possibility. That is what’s discussed in this podcast episode with a couple (one an academic, the other an entrepreneur) who have written a book on the topic, “The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown.” I loved what they had to say. Give it a listen!
Keeping it alive. It’s never too late, and persistence and consistency matter. According to research by Albert-László Barabási as written about in his book, “The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success,” age does not rule us irrelevant (as Arthur Brooks, author of “Strength to Strength,” may want us to believe). If you have persistence and are consistent with your work, you can still succeed. For inspiration, listen in to Robert Plant with Alison Krauss at Glastonbury 2022.
A visualization of next play. Art that keeps going and going and going.
Join me for conversations with experts, authors, and friends
on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.
These two Sustainable Ambition Quick Tip episodes build on each other. What do you do when you suddenly find yourself in the messy middle of a career transition?
Episode 67: SA Quick Tip! On Don’t Know? Get Into Action
In this episode, I offer an antidote to not knowing what you want to do. When you don’t know, get into action.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
Episode 70: On Why You Need to Always Be Thinking about Your Next Play
How can we avoid being caught off guard when our life and work algorithm shifts, leaving us standing in the messy middle of a career transition not knowing what’s next? In this episode, I share the Sustainable Ambition Mindset to help us avoid the angst by being proactive and consistently exploring and investing in our next play.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, and more.
My Little Book of Curiosity!
Want to foster your curiosity to inform what you might want to explore next?
That’s exactly why I created “My Little Book of Curiosity.” It’s for anyone wondering what might be next for their life or career or for those who want to stay on a growth and learning curve and remain engaged and ambitious from decade to decade. Meaning—it helps you think about your next play!
With prompts to help you explore your curiosities, the book guides you to then find patterns, looking for the common themes, as well as the details, that offer clues to what’s calling your attention and where to put your focus next.
What I was trying to do with the book is turn what often can be an angst-ridden process that feels like hard work trying to “figure it out” into play and wonder, lightening the experience towards one of exploration and discovery. The book provides the structure to make the time to listen to what’s inside—what you want for yourself—and what’s calling you next.
Sound fun? Sound illuminating? Start exploring your next play!
Learn more here!
4 Questions for Finding Your Next Play:
What personal narrative do you want to start to shape?
What curiosity is pulling at your attention?
What identity capital do you want to invest in now?
What do you want to learn next?
Find Your Guide:
Find the perfect guide to match your journey.
“Imperfect action beats perfect inaction every time.”
— Harry S. Truman
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SUSTAINABLE AMBITION™ IS ABOUT CRAFTING A FULFILLING CAREER TO SUPPORT YOUR LIFE FROM DECADE TO DECADE.
It is centered around articulating your personal definition of success and achieving that without burnout while honoring your personal aspirations and ambitions as they ebb and flow over time. The end game—more fulfillment and ease in your professional and personal life, while still being ambitious.
We offer 1:1 Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, or Career Strategy Coaching, as well as VIP Leadership Brand Sessions and Workshops on a range of Sustainable Ambition topics. We also provide tips and inspiration, advice on career management over the decades, guides on key Sustainable Ambition topics of interest, and coverage of tools and inspiration.