The hardest part of my career journey

Last month, I had the opportunity to speak at Techcabal’s Moonshot conference. On Day 2 of the event, I opened the “Entering Tech” stage with a masterclass on the lessons I’ve learned along my career in technology.

From teaching myself to code as a teenager, to becoming the Head of Technology of Techcabal’s parent company Big Cabal, to co-founding a cryptocurrency infrastructure startup. And now, to investing in and supporting other entrepreneurs building frontier technology for frontier markets.

Reflecting on my journey, I break it down into four parts.

1. Choosing the career
2. Building my skills
3. Building a network
4. Finding the “right” job

Over the past couple of years, as my career has evolved, I’ve reflected on how the most difficult part of the journey for me, is the first; actually deciding what the hell it is I want to do in the first place.

I remember being in my early 20s, doing a masters degree in Law but passionate about technology and deeply conflicted about what I would do; it was what I called a “quarter life crisis”. I spent months unsure about whether taking the plunge into a career in tech was right for me. But, once I decided, the fog cleared and the rest of the path became more certain.

It wasn’t that I immediately had a master plan of exactly how I would take the next steps in my journey, or even what exact job I would want. In fact, for all the jobs I’ve had in my career, I didn’t necessarily plan ahead for them (and when I did, I never got the job 😅). But, because I had a “north star” vision of what I wanted to do, it made it a lot easier to see clearly what was right and what wasn’t.

During my recent MBA at INSEAD, we spent the first few months with the career services focusing on deciding what it is you really want to do. At the time, it seemed a bit silly having to go through all these exercises to “discover your inner self”. In one exercise, we had to put together a slide of ten images that were personally significant, inspirational, or important to us. Here’s mine:

I included in these images people that inspire me (e.g. my late dad), moments that were significant to me (e.g. when I received a gift from a former employee at my startup), and aspects of life that were important to me (e.g. my passion for technology).

Nowadays, I find myself often going back to these core principles and values. I created a note in my Notes app called “North Star”, which I look at and add to everytime I learn from a new experience. For example, I've included things like my geographic focus, the profile of entrepreneurs I'm interested in and what sort of problems they are solving, what value I think I bring, and many more details that perhaps I will share in a later post.

With each offer or experience I get, I reflect on if it brings me closer or further away from this star, and it’s been incredibly helpful in helping me move through the noise. And with each step I take, I get closer to touching the star 🌟 .