I'm a big believer in mental models espoused by the likes of the legendary Charlie Munger (Co-founder of Berkshire Hathaway) and others. I decided to summarise the various mental models that I've used successfully, both for my career, and for others.

As an early stage Venture Capitalist, I get a lot of people discussing career choices with me. Questions typically are as follows:

• I'm a mid-career executive. Should I consider starting up, or joining a startup or just move up the ladder in a different company?
• How important should the role of "compensation" be in the new opportunity?
• Should I be willing to move cities or even countries?
• I'm not getting a "Head of X" (CEO, CTO, CXO, etc.) but the opportunity is otherwise exciting.
• I'm in Function Y but want to try Z. How can I do that?
• I'm confused on what I want; heart says something and the mind says something else. What should I do ?

You get the idea. The list is long! So, how should you start?

#1. Know Thyself.

People spend too much time looking at the opportunity, title, role, compensation, etc. They don't spend enough time asking themselves what is it that they really want? No, wanting everything is not an option. Neither is wanting what the neighbour or the classmate has.

Be Yourself. Everyone Else is Already Taken. Oscar Wilde.

Start by writing up your motivators. Are you driven by money or power? Even if it is money, is it cash-flow or wealth creation (Different risk/reward/timeframe curves). Is it experience you are seeking, a title, social proof or work life balance?

Do you want to be King or do you want to be Rich?
- Noam Wasserman in Founder's Dilemmas

Once you have written down your motivators, apply the 5 Why's framework espoused by the founder of Toyota (The Motor Company). This was invented in the context of root cause analysis for the factory floor but I've found this model to be highly valuable in terms of understanding your motivators.

If you want to be rich, why so? If you want be a multi-millionaire, why is that? You want to buy a bigger house, car, etc. - why so? How much is "enough" for YOU and your family? Do the same for the other motives around power, title, work life balance, choice of place to live, etc. Trust me, answering each motive with 5 Why's may surprise you and your loved ones!

I loved the Hedgehog concept in Good to Great by Jim Collins. While it talks about companies, I've always applied it to people and career choices. Simon Kemp (@eskimon) has taken it a step further and came up with this beautiful infographic. I think its a great mental model to apply to career choices!

 

#2. Be a Learning Machine

I believe that the simplest and the best objective function to optimise career choices is LEARNING!

This is now becoming even more important as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics are beginning to have a profound impact on the jobs of the future. Now, not only do you have to compete with yourself, your peers but also machines! Its even more important now to maximise career choices based on where you will learn the most. A simple heuristic to use is -- will you be able to do your "new" job in your sleep for the first six to twelve months? If so, you haven't chosen well.

#3. Back Yourself

Steve Jobs's epic commencement speech at Stanford and his TED talk on how to live before you die are really relevant not just to life but also to making career choices.

Just as I was posting this, I saw this nice post from Chris Dixon on applying the Simulated Annealing mental model to Career Choices. It's similar to what Steve Jobs said - try a lot of things without worrying too much.

Experiment. Fail. Learn. Repeat.

The dots will all connect in some karmic way. You just don't know it yet.

About the Author -

(Amit Somani is a Managing Partner at Prime Venture Partners, an early stage Venture Capital firm based out of Bangalore, India. Prime VP invests in category creating, early stage companies founded by rock star teams. Prior, Amit has held leadership positions at Makemytrip, Google and IBM. He is also deeply engaged with the early stage startup ecosystem in India and actively volunteers with iSpirt, TiE and NASSCOM. He tweets at @amitsomani)

This article was originally published on Linkedin