It all starts with yet another 19-year-old who is studying hospitality management, cooking, music, sociology, or something along those lines. After all, these are often called dead-end degrees as they can lead to dead-end jobs, and they are called so for a good reason. Many people who study these subjects end up not going far enough in life and earn very little, certainly not enough to live a comfortable life. This means that they may be making a poor decision that will limit their lives and therefore their happiness.
And for every Gordon Ramsay or successful business owner, there are a thousand people who will not achieve anything of substance in their lives, suggesting that perhaps they should have made better choices from the start.
This following point may sound obvious, but I know many people who aren’t following it, and even more who don’t take this point to its logical extreme. So, I believe it is worth repeating, even if it is for myself, as I too need to regularly remind myself that this is exactly how the world works and this is how we should think if we want to be successful and happy, and we achieve these positive results by thinking about our careers.
For example, I once asked a sociology graduate what kind of jobs they were expecting to have once they graduated. This person replied that one girl who finished their course became a model, a guy became a car salesman, and there was a famous musical band that came out of this course. This person told me that they were aiming to work in HR, making me wonder why they did not choose this course in the first place. Later, however, they changed their degree to tourism, went through a bunch of completely random jobs, and ultimately became a pilot.
Interestingly, one of my first jobs was also in hospitality, and I worked in reception for a hotel and later a hostel. There, one day, a newly graduated hospitality manager asked my manager in front of me if they could also work as a receptionist. This manager looked at their CV and asked, “How many languages do you speak?” This person straightened up and proudly said, “Four!” To this, my manager started to laugh, pointed at me, and said, “He speaks eight languages.”
I’m not telling this story to put someone down while uplifting myself, as truly happy people aren’t egotists but rather altruists, which is beside the point. However, the reason I am really saying this is because I long ago learned not to major in minors and not to make a job out of your hobbies, as these usually make bad jobs.
Of course, if you work doing something you love, you will never work a single day in your life. But it is equally possible to destroy your hobby by taking all the fun out of it, especially if it doesn’t earn you enough money to live a comfortable life.
In this way, I love playing chess, and I’d say I’m rather good at it, but I never made a career out of chess. Similarly, I never tried making a career out of a thousand other things I like to do, such as cooking. Instead, I left my hobbies for the time I’m not working, focusing my professional growth on subjects that are expected to make more money.
And so, the reason I am really telling that hospitality story is because I was able to get a much better job not by getting promoted but by jumping over the ranks. There was an easy way to cheat this system, not by getting a degree and working in that one company for several years, eventually getting a promotion. Instead, I could just start my own company, work in some corporate profession, and accumulate more experience and knowledge that would essentially guarantee that eventually, I would be overqualified. People would then have virtually no choice but to give me any job of my choosing. Of course, at that time, we will really see if I still want that job or whether I am just playing it safe because I am afraid of dreaming higher.
Furthermore, with the advent of AI and other technologies, the nature of the job market has progressed so much that tomorrow you will have jobs you never heard existed before. However, in order to make it in this constantly changing world, we are obliged to keep looking further than we can even imagine, striving not for a specific position but a certain lifestyle, and then trying to figure out how we can achieve it.
After all, we only live once, so we might as well try to make the best decisions so we don’t have any further regrets and make something out of this life that we will enjoy living. In this way, being smart may have nothing to do with actually being the smartest but instead just dreaming big and not shying away from continuously looking to take one’s life to the next level.
We should always be striving to grow and keep on growing regardless of how little or far we have already come. So even if we are already a CEO of a top 500 company, we should be thinking, “What’s next?” and “What is the next level?” The growth should be continuous and non-stop, as only in growth is there life, as when we stop growing, we start preparing to die, both personally and professionally, due to the already mentioned evolution of the markets.
Therefore, we should always strive to grow in leaps, shooting for the stars so we can land on the moon, by aiming for 10x growth increments. For example, if we are currently earning $1,000, we should aim to make $10,000 next, and then $100,000, and so on. In my experience, looking beyond 10x your income (or other goals in life) can be unrealistic and may lead to paralysis due to the perceived impossibility of the task. Aiming for anything less can feel like playing it safe, stifling growth, and may lead to settling in a position of relative instability. Instead, aiming for 10x growth seems to be just right, as it pushes you to think beyond your current situation, driving personal and professional growth, which ultimately leads to greater happiness.
Lastly, I don’t believe that our society and parents make the best role models, as they did their best, regardless of how much or little it was, and so eventually, we shouldn’t outgrow them and look to take our lives into our own hands. This is worth mentioning because too many people decide on their careers as if they were a reflection of their parents’ achievements. For example, one person said, “I am already doing so much more than my parents did,” which is honestly irrelevant, as in the modern world, their achievements were still a very meager reflection of what they could actually achieve.
In this way, we need to continue learning, and Optimal Happiness is definitely a great resource you can consider, as our students are overachievers and certainly some of the happiest people in the world. In this way, happiness is definitely a competitive advantage, as on average, happier people earn more money, achieve more, have better relationships, are more productive, risk-taking, proactive, and virtually perform better in all other parts of life than their negative counterparts.
It is for this reason that companies are suggested to hire based on personal credentials but also happiness, and learning with Optimal Happiness can help you reach incredible next levels that many people have been dreaming about all their lives.
To learn more, continue reading this blog or check out our happiness programs.
Stay happy.
