The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

Daniel Pink's newest book is The Adventure of Johnny Bunko The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need.

Here is the book's message:

Many people work jobs that they don't like and are not well-suited for out of guilt, obligation, and not knowing what else to do. Many people ride the waves of what their job gives them instead of creating and designing their own destiny. People of 35+ years old were conditioned by their parents and culture to go to college, study something practical like accounting, and get a job. There was never any discussion about what you enjoyed or what you were good at. These people can be pretty miserable in mid-life. Through a magic chopstick genie, Johnny Bunko, the book's hero, is told 6 lessons that define the reality of life today.

Here are those six lessons:

1) There is no plan. All the planning and positioning we did with our parents years ago is irrelevant and you can make yourself sick if you are still living by it in an unintentional and unexamined way. There is no plan or map of the future. There is only opportunity for which you make good or bad decisions. The opportunities are not metered to you in a logical way. Logic is not necessarily your best tool in charting a course for the future.

"It is a fantasy to think that you can map out every step ahead of time and end up where you want. The world changes. Ten years from now, your job might be in India. Your industry might not even exist. And, you'll change, too. You might discover you have a hidden talent. If you try to stick to the plan even though you have realized that it is dumb, you will be miserable."

"Instead you need to make smart choices. You can make career decisions for two different types of reasons. You can do something for instrumental reasons, because you think it is going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it is worthwhile. Or, you can do something for fundamental reasons, because you think it's inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to... Instrumental reasons usually don't work. Things are too complicated, too unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen, so you end up stuck. The most successful people make decisions for fundamental reasons. They take a job or join a company because it will let them do interesting work in a cool place, even if they don't know exactly where it will lead. (They follow their heart.)"

2) Think Strengths, not weaknesses. Study the work of Martin Seligman (learned optimism) and Marcus Buckingham (strengths assessment) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (flow).

"The research shows that the key to success is to steer around your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. Successful people don't try too hard to improve what they're bad at. They capitalize on what they are good at. What you do well gives you energy and creates flow. Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full of involvement, and success in the process of the activity." (Edward Hallowell talks at length about this in Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness.)

3) It's not about you. Steer clear of people for whom everything is all about them. No one cares. Businesses are mission-driven and you are not the mission.

"It's not about you. It's about your customer, it's about your client. Use your strengths, yes, but you are here to serve, not to self-actualize. Your projects are about advancing the mission in service to the customers and clients."

You matter and you are uniquely talented and important, that is why they gave you the job.

"The most successful people improve their own lives by improving others' lives. They help their customer solve its problem. They give their client something it didn't know it was missing. That's where they focus their energy, talent, and brainpower. Outward - not inward."

"The most valuable people in any job bring out the best in others. They make their boss look good. They help their teammates succeed."

"Pull your head out of you ego, sit down, and get back to work."

4) Persistence trumps talent every time. (mindset/Carol Dweck - about the process, not the outcome. Can't be afraid to fail.)

"There are massive returns to doggedness. The people who achieve the most are often the ones who stick with it even when others don't. They use their heads but also use their hearts. They show up, they practice and practice and practice some more. That's why they do so well in whatever career they choose."

With persistent effort, performance is improved which encourages more persistence which improves performance which encourages even more persistence. Lack of persistence acts in the opposite direction.

"The world is littered with talented people who didn't persist, who didn't put in the hours, who gave up too early, who thought they could ride on talent alone. Meanwhile, people who have less talent pass them by."

"Intrinsic motivation is so important. Doing things not to get an external reward like money or a promotion (praise from a parent or parental surrogate), but because you simply like doing it. The more intrinsic motivation you have, the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more likely you are to succeed."

5) Make excellent mistakes.

"Too many people spend their time avoiding mistakes. They are so concerned about being wrong, about messing up, that they never try anything, which means they never do anything. Their focus is avoiding failure (again - mindset). But, that is actually a crummy way to achieve success. The most successful people make spectacular mistakes -- huge, honking screwups (this is Tom Peters' idea). Why? Because they are trying to do something big (BHAG - Peters). But each time they make a mistake, they get a little better and move a little closer to excellence" (Bob Waters and Tom Peters - In Search of Excellence).

What are good mistakes?

"Mistakes that come from having high aspirations, from trying to do something nobody else has done."

A bad mistake - playing it safe and comfortable. This leads no where. This is stagnation. If your are reflective about your process and your mistake, you will learn and improve. You will become perceptive and skilled.

"Bunko" means "to make a mistake from which the benefits of what you have learned exceed the costs of screwing up."

6) Leave an Imprint. Think everyday about your legacy. How will this place and these people be changed because of you and your work with them? There is incredible focusing and inspiring energy in considering this question. If you are intentional about trying to leave a good legacy, you can't be stagnant and afraid to take risks. You must be bold and reaching.

"Did it matter that I was here? Many people get to the end of their life and don't like the answer they have for this question...Think about the purpose of your work, your purpose. Your time here is not infinite and that you have limited time means don't wait to do something that matters...The truly successful people deploy themselves in the service of something larger than themselves. They leave their companies, the communities, there families a little better than before... This is what it means to be alive."