Think Of Yourself As The Entrepreneur of Your Career

The Start-Up of You

If you are looking for an innovative way to look at your career, you should check out “The Start-Up of You“, written by Reid Hoffman, cofounder and chairman of LinkedIn, and Ben Casnocha.

The premise of the book is to take the insights from the start-up mentality of leading Silicon Valley companies and apply them to your career as noted in this excerpt from the book’s introduction:

“The key is to manage your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you. Why? Start-ups – and the entrepreneurs who run them – are nimble. They invest in themselves. They build their professional networks. They take intelligent risks. They make uncertainty and volatility work to their advantage. These are the very same skills professionals need to get ahead today.”

If you don’t have time to read the book, you can read the executive summary in the Slideshare presentation below.  This entertaining presentation is 190 pages long, but each page has a single useful snippet of advice or information so it is a very quick read.

The chapters in the book cover these topics:

1. All humans are entrepreneurs
2. Develop a competitive advantage
3. Plan to adapt
4. It takes a network
5. Pursue breakout opportunities
6. Take intellectual risks
7. Who you know is what you know

You can also find additional resources at the Start-Up of You website.