I came across a story the other day that made me think
My neighbor a block away waters his garden at 5:30 AM every day.
"Why so early?”
“Water doesn’t evaporate as fast. Plants actually get to drink it."
He’s been gardening for thirty years.
His yard looks like a magazine cover.
“Gardening taught me that timing matters more than effort.”
“Most people work hard at the wrong time and wonder why nothing grows.”
That last line hit me. Timing is truly everything.
In a more holistic sense, you can think through your long term plans with this view. But even if your daily life, it's worth considering whether the timing of your habits and activities is serving you:
What if that workout would be more effective after work than in teh morning?
What if you woke up 30 minutes earlier to finish that business plan?
What if the next piece of content you posted was at 7 PM instead of 7 AM?
Your timing will never be perfect. But oftentimes we blame our effort for the fault of our timing.
And this week, instead of doing that, ask yourself how you can start watering your garden a little earlier.
the amazing view from the 39th floor of the MetLife building, where I spent last Friday sending emails
Welcome to First Things First, Reader. I created this newsletter as the reminder I needed to reflect on how far I've come, as well as prepare for the journey ahead.
Today I'll share with you:
Why AI may be what gives, not takes away, your next job
The shocking number of companies that no longer require a college degree
Why you've got nothing to prove
I’m so glad you’re here. Let's get started.
But first, let me tell you about Adobe Express
Want to know the secret to how I’ve grown my professional community, For The Firsts?
To fill these events and grow as quickly as we have been, I need to post content consistently across my social media channels, custom graphics for the event page, and printed materials for the meetups themselves.
Which is why I’ve partnered with Adobe Express. I use Adobe Express every day to create everything I need quickly and easily for my events and other content. One specific feature I love is the Resize feature, which allows me to keep all my designs (even if they’re different sizes!) in one place.
with Resize, I can keep all of these different designs in the same place!
Whether it’s an IG Story, name badges, merch mock-ups, or anything else, I can make it quickly from what I’ve already designed without starting from scratch.
This includes everything you see at our events as well. The signs, your name tag, the stickers, all made in a few minutes with Adobe Express. You can even print directly from Express, and for the name tags, they’ve got a Bulk Create feature that I used to instantly make hundreds of them for one of our events.
Check out the video below to learn more about how Adobe Express can help you create better content for work, your business, and more! And I hope to see you soon at the next For the First event on September 22nd.
Sponsored by Adobe Express, the Create Anything app by Adobe
Okay, now let's talk about one of the craziest news stories I saw this week
No, not that one. I'm talking about how OpenAI recently announced that it'll be creating a job portal to compete with LinkedIn.
I have thoughts.
First of all, their biggest investor is Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, so this is kind of a strange move, but we won't focus too much on that. What's most interesting to me about this is that the Open AI Jobs Platform will have two goals: job search and employee development.
The job search angle is well-tread, and I'm interested to see how they plan to innovate there. But as far as development goes, they plan to offer certifications in AI fluency among other skills, which is HUGE. Today, if you want to demonstrate your skills in AI that typically requires either enrolling in a costly, years-long master's program or getting an online certificate of questionable quality.
But a valid, credentialed, AI course from the dominant AI tool being used over a billion questions a day would be very legit. And it's something I'd be watching as you think about how to "AI-proof" your career.
Is college essential to getting hired? Today, not so much.
In a recent LinkedIn survey, only 4 in 10 professionals said that a university degree is essential to getting ahead.
This is related to a new trend, called "skills-first hiring", where companies are looking more at what candidates can actually do vs where they went to college. This is set to open up more opportunities across a ton of sectors, including real estate, financial services, and healthcare. And LinkedIn estimates that a skills-first hiring approach would open up the talent pools in the U.S. by nearly 16x.
Employers are finding that relying on a university pedigree, or even GPA, isn't a good enough way of measuring whether or not someone will be successful in their role, especially as the skills needed to succeed at work are rapidly changing.
Now this isn't applicable across all industries. If you want to be an advanced AI researcher or work at McKinsey, you'll probably still need that degree.
But this is hopeful news to see, as college costs continue to rise, that getting that degree is not the barrier to upward mobility that it has been in the past.
Make sure you aren't making the same mistake I did
I'm primarily motivated by achivement.
In high school I couldn't just be class president. I needed to be prom king and team captain as well. And in college, good grades didn't cut it - I had to stack on leadership positions in three different student organzations as well.
I've always been someone who's gravitated toward the next shiny object in my career and life, and if i'm being honest I don't think that's always been a bad thing.
But a few years ago, when I was at a crossroads in my own career, choosing whether to continue working as a consultant, or pursue a different career path, It forced me to realize that I was primaily chasing things in my life to impress and satisfy other people. And that, in order to have the life and career that was right for me, I needed to stop keeping score.
Because when you're playing a different game, you'll need a new scoreboard. Or you'll have to realize that no one was keeping score in the first place.
Career Wrapped: We already know you listened to a lot of Drake this year. Instead of a Spotify Wrapped, why not create a "Career Wrapped" for this year instead?
LinkedIn Search Secrets: Most people have no idea how to take full advantage of LinkedIn to find jobs or people to network with in their industry. Here's your guide.
One Pager: This promotion template got me promoted twice in two years. This will help you summarize your skills and drive your yearly review conversations at work!
I've spent the last few years creating and collecting the best resources to help you level up in your life and career. Check out my most popular ones above, or view the full list here.
It really means the world to me that you show up to explore these topics with me each week, so thank you for reading. If something above resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone else who might need it too.
If you have any feedback, you can always reply or email me at me@colinrocker.com
And remember that you’re not behind, because you're a "first". Which means you were never made to follow.
