Career Superpowers Quotes

“Ambition means wanting better for yourself and expecting more out of life and aligning your skills and work ethic to achieve it. Ambition means being proactive about what you do and how you are rewarded.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“The first step to being creative is to develop expertise in something. The more you know about a subject, the more likely you are to have some fundamental insight into that subject. Einstein didn’t invent the theory of relativity because he was a decent physicist. He developed it because he was an expert physicist who understood the field so well that facts, figures and fundamentals no longer required conscious thought. They became permanent denizens of parts of the brain that store rote knowledge, habits and routine. Freeing the conscious mind to work on refining and extending that knowledge. This is why expert musicians write great songs. And why expert physicians create new surgical techniques. It’s why expert chemists discover new medicines. It’s why technology companies hire great coders and law firms employ expert attorneys. Expertise guarantees results and maximizes the chance of brilliant insights. It's stacking the deck for creativity to occur.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“You are who you learn from. Choose wisely.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“Boring work is generally delegated by creative people (for obvious reasons) and flows downhill to people uncreative enough to do it out of duty or necessity. Be really afraid of boring work! It says something about you and your propensity to take whatever is given. It's a sign of your missing ambition.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“CEOs are trained to assess business strategy, it's time to take a page from their book and train yourself to manage your own personal career strategy.
A career that is left to manage itself will under-perform much like a company whose strategic direction is left to chance. And like a business there are some best practices to avoid. There is planning to be done, decisions to be made and evasive measures to execute in times of trouble.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“Google puts itself first. So does every other company on the planet. There is no requirement that you have to put yourself second. Indeed, why would you?”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“These days, managers are little more than peers with additional administrative responsibility. Sucking up to them is not a good use of your time.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“Mindlessly working to impress someone else will ensure your success is always dependent on that someone else.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“Working hard will allow you to be useful to successful people. Working smart will allow you to enter their ranks.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose

“What I am proposing is that we be honest with ourselves and instead of stretching to be the dumbest person at the level above you, choose instead to be the smartest person at the level below you. You’re guaranteed to get there and the effort is not large. Over ambition is a ticket to underachievement and in the case of the medical profession, it’s downright selfish.”
― James A. Whittaker, Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose