Lenny Rachitsky: evaluation

Transcript context

…I went into HR leadership. And Zach, who was a gifted product strategist, went on to lead product at Coinbase and BREX and most recently Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe, and he's still my client. And we've watched our journeys over the last decade, and we've both been honing our gifts. Life is more fun when you're in your gifts, and you have more inspiration and capacity to offer the world. So I just want to share that story because it's helpful to be honest with the people you care about when they seem energized and when they seem depleted because sometimes it's a wakeup call for people to really think about what is their spark and to protect it and to feed it. I love that story because I think most people when they hear this advice and this topic of, "Okay, I am feeling depleted, I'm feeling burnt out," I feel like most people jump to, "Okay, but I can't actually do anything about it. I have a job. I got responsibilities." What I'm getting from this is the most important step is jump to figure out what you actually should be doing. What gives you energy? What your gifts are. It feels like that's the biggest gap for people because once you know that, there are ways to do that. Talk to your manager. "It may not be possible today, but here's where I want to be going. Here's what I want to be spending time on." I love your point you made though about you actually have to be doing well for your manager to listen to you. You can't just be sucking and then like, "Oh, but I want to work on strategy." Yeah. Well, it's no one else's job to help you live in your gifts. And what I notice in big companies is people are often annoyed or frustrated with their management for not making their job more interesting. It's like, "No, your manager's job is to help you perform in the job you were hired to do. It's your job to navigate your career." So over the arc of your career, how do you match your gifts with the world's needs? And if the world right now is your company, how do you understand the needs enough so that you can apply your strengths to those needs?…

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