Work precedes opportunity

A simple idea worth remembering: the type of work you do should reflect the opportunities you want to attract.

If you want to work at a top design agency, put the focus on your visual skills, how you present, and how you sell a design. If you’re aiming for a product role, put more weight on your thinking, your process, and how you collaborate with others.

Instead of applying to thousands of roles with your fingers crossed, you’ll go a lot further by creating, benchmarking against the people and teams you admire, and refining your craft so when the opportunity shows up (and it will), you’re ready for it. A side project is usually the best test run.

It sounds simple, but the reality is years of work without obvious returns, countless hours refining, and a lot of putting yourself out there.

The bottom line:

You don’t get to do great work because of an opportunity. You get the opportunity because of the years you’ve already spent doing great work.