The short video excerpt is from an @Google Presents talk by Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”  He discusses the brain’s decision making systems and explains why our gut “intuitions” are often wrong. Although our impressions about suitable careers feel right to us, should we trust them?

I regularly work with young professionals who sense that they fell into the wrong career, but they don’t know why things aren’t panning out.

How did you go about choosing your career direction?  See what most people are saying . . .

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Ricardo Semler, author, Harvard lecturer and renowned CEO of Semco, a Brazilian company that broke all the rules on how to lead, manage and harness the natural talents of their associates (we call them employees everywhere else). His company is considered one of the coolest, most innovative companies in the world and is regularly visited by top CEOs to learn his secrets. Simply put, he transformed the concept of work and harnessed intrinsic motivation by creating a space for all to do what comes naturally. Interestingly, like Alex Lifeson in the prior blog post, he started out as a rock guitarist (as I did, too).  :)~

For an introduction, I recommend viewing the first six minutes of this video.

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The above 7 minute video is an intense career choice conversation with Alex Zivojinovich and his parents. This excerpt was taken from a 1973 documentary “Come On Children” filmed in Canada about disaffected youths living in the suburbs of Toronto at that time.

Alex struggled with a common career decision booby-trap that trips up most teens as they approach college, whether to follow your unique talents or listen to society’s advice and be an accountant. This footage of Alex was moving to me personally, it brought me back to that moment in my life.

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David McCullough Jr. gave an insightful and irreverently funny commencement speech at Wellesley High School this year (Spring 2012). Mid-career professionals will hear the wisdom in this speech, but high school and college students may not fully appreciate the gravity of what’s being said here. His “You Are Not Special” message calls into question all the assumptions that lead us to go to Wellesley (or any “top school”) in the first place.

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