Plenty of friends who are still studying or fresh out of school have asked me about career planning and adding value to themselves — for instance, which skills are best to learn, and which are most useful for getting ahead at work, and so on. As a founder of the new generation, I would like to share with you some of what I have learned, drawing on my experience building TreeholeHK, about career planning and adding value to yourself.
Our time and energy are both limited, so if you want to live a fulfilling life, choosing carefully which skills you invest in really does make all the difference. Anyone who has seen You Are the Apple of My Eye may remember one scene in particular: Ke Jing-teng says to Shen Chia-yi, "Ten years from now, I won't even remember what sin, cos and tan are, and I'll still be living just fine."
Yes — the subjects we studied in secondary school are not much help at work. So when we are choosing which skills to invest in, we should weigh up how practical they are and whether they will deliver the returns we are after.
Three kinds of must-learn skills worth your time and money
1. Foundational abilities
Foundational abilities are the ones you draw on in everything you do — for example, thinking. Being able to think clearly and critically makes everything you do run more smoothly.
Thinking
The world is incredibly messy. Everyone has their own opinion about how things work. For example, some people will insist that a surgical mask can be reused after a bit of treatment, while others will tell you that is a mistake. So how exactly are we meant to tell which claims are true and which are false? Getting it right can actually be a matter of our own personal safety. Even bigger decisions — such as working out which industry has the better prospects, and planning your career accordingly — rest on this. Solid thinking skills let us make wiser decisions.
English
Learning English well can open your eyes to a wider world. Although there are not many chances to use English to communicate with others in daily life, once you reach a certain level you can read English books. A good many of the concepts behind start-ups and innovative business models come from books published overseas. So strong English skills can absolutely put you ahead of the curve, letting you turn these fresh, commercially valuable ideas into reality and reap the rewards of being a first mover. On top of that, much of the knowledge about psychology and meditation that I share with everyone here on TreeholeHK comes mostly from overseas research or materials — which I have worked through and digested myself, then add some personal perspective to, and share with all of you in language that is closer to the everyday reader in Hong Kong.
I would like to share something personal here. My own English used to be very poor, in fact — I did not finish reading my first English book until I was eighteen. Painful as the process of learning English was, the rewards once I stuck with it were enormous. Of course, none of us needs to reach Shakespearean levels of literary skill, but it is worth asking yourself: reading, writing, listening and speaking — do you have a basic command of all four? Can you read a book published in English overseas and grasp roughly what it means? Can you communicate well enough with foreigners to get the basics across? Once you reach a certain level, you will find that your command of English makes your world far bigger.
Communication
Some people think very clearly; they can quickly map out different plans in their heads, yet they often fail to convey their ideas to others effectively. One of the main reasons is that they have not started from what the other person knows and cares about. Take a concrete example: can you explain to someone how, exactly, human beings walk? If I were a person who did not understand walking, could you teach me how to walk using language I can grasp? I imagine this would tax your brain a little, because to you walking is the most natural thing in the world, and explaining it from the other person's perspective is harder than it sounds.
So thinking and communication are foundational abilities that need deliberate time and energy to learn.
2. Personal cultivation
People need to understand themselves in order to know what kind of life they truly long for. You have probably heard this before: many successful professionals, for all their high pay and senior posts, do not actually enjoy their own lives. That is because they have never understood what they really want; they are simply living their lives by a "good life" defined by Hong Kong society's prevailing values.
Having only foundational abilities is like being someone who has learned how to walk. You have the ability to move, but where should you go? Take a vivid example: Mrs Carrie Lam, the Chief Secretary for Administration who came first in her year every year — even those who are unwilling to admit it would, I believe, concede that she has a certain level of ability. But that does not mean she knows how to lead Hong Kong towards a better, more liveable society. Personal cultivation is the compass within your heart; only when you understand yourself well enough will you know what kind of life you want to live, and in which direction to move forward.
Meditation
Meditation is a process of observing yourself. Through it you can know what you are thinking at this very moment, what it is you truly want, and gain a grip on your own actions.
Psychology / positive psychology
From psychology / positive psychology you will come to understand frameworks for meaning. For example, psychologists research questions like: what exactly counts as a good life? Although these theories are not the last word, psychology offers a range of perspectives on the question. Some, for instance, will suggest you socialise more with others; some hold that you should seek out the meaning of life — there is no one absolute theory here. But in the course of learning, you will find that certain theories resonate with you in particular, and then you will slowly come to discover what it is you want.
Through the mental training that learning meditation and positive psychology provides, you can effectively build your resilience. Life rarely sails along smoothly; every stage brings its own challenges. We can lean on external resources, such as our social networks, to solve problems. But the most important thing is to steer your own state of mind, to face difficulties with courage, and to realise the things you want to do. The rewards of meditation and positive-psychology training are very great, but they need a comparatively larger amount of time to practise and change before they bear fruit. In the long run, these are self-growth skills that serve you for life, and well worth the investment.
3. Business skills
To get ahead in a commercial society, you have to be able to turn the vision in your heart into reality, and mastering professional skills is what helps you reach that goal.
Marketing
The first thing that can make you more valuable in the market is the ability to do marketing (Marketing). "Ideas are cheap, execution is king." Everyone can come up with all sorts of different ideas, but how to put them into practice, execute them, and turn them into a profitable project that keeps growing — that is the skill a commercial society needs. For example, when you want to start a business, whether you intend to sell handmade products or open classes and teach, the most important thing is to let your target audience know about the service or product you are selling. So knowing how to use different marketing tools to execute a project is enormously helpful, whether you want to start your own venture or make your mark within a company.
IT skills
Another skill is IT. IT skills are not just about "pushing code" or coding and programming; they are a way for today's young people to execute projects through disruptive innovation. Take advertising as an example. In years past the internet was not yet widespread, and there were comparatively few channels to reach your target customers, so to get the biggest effect you might have considered placing an ad on TVB. (Disclosure: TreeholeHK has never, and will never, consider placing an ad on TVB.) But running an advert on a media outlet of any real scale could easily cost five or six figures, and all the preparation involved, the constraints of contract terms, and so on, drastically reduce your flexibility. So if you can master IT and marketing skills, you only need to spend a small amount of money advertising online, then direct the traffic to the website you run, and test whether there is a positive response (in common parlance, whether there are conversions). This is also how a great many tiny companies get the chance to compete with large enterprises — the bigger a company is, to put it in concrete terms, the more it is like the Titanic: when they discover an iceberg ahead and want to turn, the ship is so big and heavy that they may well have already missed the best moment, and end up crashing head-on. By contrast, start-ups or small enterprises, being small in scale and highly flexible, can nimbly change strategy in an ever-changing commercial society and meet market needs more quickly.
When we are proficient in these skills and can put them to use, then beyond more easily finding a place for ourselves in a commercial society, they become an important tool for turning the ideas in our hearts into reality. That, then, is why I believe young people should learn business skills.
Foundational abilities, personal cultivation and business skills are in fact applicable everywhere. If you discover your strengths or weaknesses in the course of learning, you can make some fine adjustments accordingly. For example, if you enjoy sharing your ideas with others, you might well consider practising public speaking a little more (Public Speaking), which will be very helpful for your development.
The three pillars mentioned above were a great help during my time building this venture, and they have also let me live a fulfilling life. Many people may not deliberately set out to learn these skills, but once you encounter and take them up, your career planning will become more expansive, and you will be better able to build for yourself a positive, happy life.
TreeholeHK has recently teamed up with one of the heavyweight members of Corrupt the Youth — Mr Yim Chun-pong — to launch an online course on thinking and communication, teaching everyone how to think more effectively and communicate more clearly with others. Interested readers can browse the details and sign up.
If you have any questions about career planning or adding value to yourself, you are welcome to PM the TreeholeHK team on Facebook — we would be very glad to share our thoughts with you!
Comments
No comments yet — share your thoughts.