A great career is not meant to be easy

Sophia Matveeva
3 min readJan 24, 2023
Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash

Hello smart person!

If you are reading this, you are determined to have a great career. I know my ambitious high achieving audience :)

But what does a great career mean to you and how are you going to get it?

This is something I’ve often thought about myself and discussed with my students. The fact is, unless you have a vision of where you want to go, and a plan to get there, you will not use your energy wisely.

The first step is to be honest about what you really want, and then consider whether you are truly willing to do what it takes to get it.

For example, if your aim is to join the C Suite of a leading company, getting there is not going to be easy.

At the Bloomberg Leadership summit last year, I heard Luke Ellis, the CEO of MAN Group, a hedge fund with $64 billion under management, talk about his role. He said:

“it’s not meant to be easy to get this job, and it’s not supposed to be easy to keep it.”

I find this comforting.

Reaching our most ambitious goals is like climbing your own Everest. It is possible, but it requires training, perseverance, a map and a guide. Unless you have these four components, you won’t get even half-way up the mountain, just as you won’t in your career ambitions.

Nobody can climb this mountain for you. It is your own quest, but on Sunday 5 February, you are going to get a map and a guide. I am going to teach a workshop on How to plan your year like a Digital Leader to help you make 2023 your best year yet.

We will dig into your ambitions and assess the steps to get there. I will show you the external factors affecting the marketplace, so you know what tech trends to watch out for. You’ll also see how we self-sabotage our own best laid plans, and find ways to escape this trap.

At the end of our workshop, you will be able to make an ambitious, but realistic plan to reach your career goals in 2023. You will feel energised and confident, because you will genuinely know what you need to do to make your vision come to life.

I have deliberately timed this workshop for February, after January’s “new year, new you” madness passes. You don’t need a new you. You are perfectly wonderful as you are.

You just need a map and a guide. That’s far less dramatic and more achievable.

To make sure that everyone benefits from our discussions, this event is open to upper mid to senior business leaders. If you would like to join, just apply here (it takes 1 minute).

Here are the details:

Plan your year like a Digital Leader (online workshop)

5 February 2023, 11 am — 1:30 pm EST / 4–6:30 pm GMT

We will cover:

1. The framework to go from traditional business manager to Digital Leader

2. Which digital trends matter most now

3. Specific action steps to take in Q1, Q2 and the rest of the year to keep moving forward

4. The most common reason why people give up and how to prevent it

Cost: $50

Apply here to join other smart professionals building great careers in the Digital Age.

If you’re not sure whether your profile meets the criteria, then please apply. If there are enough applications from people earlier on in their career journey, we will plan another workshop specifically for this audience.

Speak soon,

Sophia

--

--

Sophia Matveeva

CEO & Founder of Tech for Non-Techies. Podcast host. Board Member, University of Chicago Alumni Chicago Booth MBA. techfornontechies.co