70. SA Quick Tip! On Why to Always Be Thinking about Your Next Play with Kathy Oneto

Overview

This Sustainable Ambition (SA) Quick Tip builds on the last Quick Tip in Episode 67: On Don’t Know? Get Into Action. Many of us often get caught off guard when our life and work algorithm shifts. How can we avoid being surprised, leaving us standing in the messy middle of a career transition not knowing what’s next? By being proactive and consistently exploring and investing in our next play. Thinking about what’s next as a practice can help us avoid feeling angst on the journey and being overly cautious along the way.

This concept is rooted in the Sustainable Ambition method, yet this episode was inspired by a talk I was able to hear back in May with Shane Battier, the basketball player who played for Duke in college and won two NBA championships with the Miami Heat. This core mantra of Duke’s former, legendary basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K), has relevance for all of us.

How are you exploring and investing in your next play?

Topics Covered

• Today’s Quick Tip: Why to Always Be Thinking about Your Next Play

• What inspired Kathy to talk about this topic now, while it’s a core concept of The Sustainable Ambition Method

• Kathy shares the Sustainable Ambition Mindset that can help you be consistently proactive in exploring and investing in your next play

• The mindset spells SAIL, which is tied to the analogy of a career being a long-distance journey that ebbs and flows. SAIL is also inspired by a poem Kathy loves by Lucille Clifton called blessing the boats.

  • S: Seeker

  • A: Adventurer

  • I: Investor

  • L: Learner

• Create lists and use these questions to help guide actions:

  • S: My Seeking List - What am I seeking now? Who am I becoming?

  • A: My Adventure List - What curiosity is pulling at my attention? What do I want to explore next? Where do I want to plant new seeds? What might be a new work adventure I want to explore? What might be my hypothesized next career arc? How can I test that? What’s my “test things out” list?

  • I: My Invest List - What is my invest list? What personal narrative do I want to start to shape? What identity capital do I want to invest in now? What optionality do I want to invest in?

  • L: My To Learn List - What do you want to learn next?

• Kathy closes asking:

  • What’s one insight you’re taking away from today?

  • What’s one action you’ll take in the next 24 hours to get into action? Is there a list you’ll create, or will you act on one action on that list?

Resources Mentioned

• I’d love to hear from you! Send me a voice note or a question that might be read and answered here on the podcast! Go to https://bit.ly/sapodcast-ask

• Poem: blessing the boats, by Lucille Clifton: https://poets.org/poem/blessing-boats

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70. SA Quick Tip! On Why to Always Be Thinking about Your Next Play with Kathy Oneto

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