stop reading 99% of career advice out there

Let me share a story with you: A month or so before I graduated from college, I snagged an interview with an award-winning ad agency called Goodby Silverstein. They are the masterminds behind “Got Milk?” and have been named Ad Agency of the Year by Advertising Age numerous times. Needless to say, I was nervous. The entire week before my interview, I pored over countless career advice articles online. I answered the 100 most common interview questions out loud two times. I read advice that contradicted the last article I had read. I read about how to act, how to sit, how to shake hands, how to have a conversation, how to, how to, how to.

I should tell you now that I am a fantastic interviewee. I’ve won awards for public speaking and am very comfortable around people. I nail interviews. Why I was reading so much advice, I can’t be quite sure, because when I had the interview at Goodby, I was so far from authentic, I wouldn’t have hired me. And, they didn’t.

The advice froze me. It contradicted who I am and who I wanted to be hired as. I went into that interview as a patchworked version of all the crummy advice that people pass off as expert opinion. I was simultaneously five different people, based on the differing advice I read. I decided, right there, I was going to stop reading 99% of career advice.

I should say here that if you want status quo in your career, read advice. Chances are, if this blog is resonating with you, you don’t want status quo. You want brilliance and greatness and you will get it, if you ignore 99% of career advice.

Career advice doesn’t teach you to stand out. It teaches you to do what everyone else does, because everyone else is Googling what you’re Googling and taking that advice. Career advice is teaching you to be average, but you don’t want to be average. You want to be memorable. And, average people are not memorable.