Career Fear and How to Beat It

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today I'm delighted to be speaking to Somi Arian. She is a multi-award winning filmmaker, author, tech philosopher, entrepreneur and a LinkedIn Top Voice in the UK. Her documentary The Millennial Disruption has won three international awards. In 2015, she founded Smart Cookie Media where together with her team, they create and distribute highly effective digital content for companies and individuals wishing to build their brand. With a background in philosophy of science and technology and a decade of experience in film and TV, Somi applies her interdisciplinary approach to understanding the impact of technology on consumer behavior and the future of work.

By the way, Somi, you are a rockstar and I'm so glad that you were able to find time for us. Today we're going to talk about her book, which I enjoy thoroughly: Career Fear (and how to beat it). Thank you again for making the time for us.

Somi Arian: Thank you for having me. Actually, did you know that speaking of rockstar, I used to be in a death metal band for four years. One of the things that I talk about in my book about the future of work, the value of having that kind of diversity of backgrounds, and really the flexibility of being able to go from one thing to another, having a multi-disciplinary approach.

Anita Brick: Yeah, I totally agree. Going to business school, but prior to that, having a liberal education made me think differently. But we'll talk.

The first question came from an MBA student and she said: “You talk about future proofing one's career. With so many changes and so much uncertainty, that seems impossible to me. Where can a person start?”

Somi Arian: Maybe future proofing is not exactly the best term. The better term is future robust. I feel like what I've done with my career, you know, I've made it future robust. Nothing is completely fail proof. Remember, we live in a world of probability. Ultimately, nothing is 100% certain. For example, you know, who would foresee something like Covid-19 happening a year ago at this time, right?

But if you develop the four skills, the four human skills that I talked about in the book, in addition to having a range of multi-disciplinary skills. You know, if you're an MBA, obviously you have some very valuable technical skills. And then you combine that with the human skills. Those human skills are emotional intelligence, contextual creativity, mindfulness, and critical thinking.

Now I put in the book I talk about mindfulness as being, you know, the foundation of it. And when I talk about mindfulness, I'm not talking about some kind of sit there 20 minutes a day and meditate. That not what I'm talking about. For me, mindfulness is about full participation with or in whatever is happening in the world, with your surrounding, and being completely present in your surroundings.

When you are completely present, you will see opportunities. Mindfulness allows you to see the opportunities. Contextual creativity allows you to creatively find solutions. Emotional intelligence allows you to communicate with people in a way that robots can't. You remember that this is one area where robots have a long way to go before they can replace humans. And critical thinking is incredibly important in a world where we are living alongside algorithms, algorithms that are developed and trained on data that is often biased. It's not perfect, so we definitely need to engage our critical thinking to make sure that we don't accept everything that these algorithms are putting in front of us.

It's tougher than ever for our generation. We need to work really hard.

Anita Brick: Foundationally. An alum said. “Hi Somi, I know in my heart that having a purpose is key to my advancing and thriving, yet I can't find mine. People think about purpose as being grand and really big and change the world. And maybe it is. Sometimes there's so much pressure. How do you hunt out or rediscover or identify qualities that are part of the purpose?” I know for me it took a long time. I don't know if it did for you. What are some things that we can give this alum to help him get started?

Somi Arian: You know, this is one thing that I remember from my childhood. When I used to sit in front of the mirror and look at myself in the mirror and think, oh wow, what is this? Why do I have fingers? Why do I have one of those veins in my eyes? Who am I? Why am I here? For me, my purpose started as in terms of being able to understand who am I? What is this world about? I think when people look for purpose, we are putting the horse behind that. What is that thing that they say?

Anita Brick: They’re putting the cart before the horse. They’re flipping it around. So knowing yourself is really a starting point. Okay.

Somi Arian: There is no point in looking for a purpose until you know yourself. So you start by saying, who am I? What is this life? What is this world?

I remember, you know, for a very long time I didn't have that sense of peace. I felt like I hadn't found that answer. Then there was a moment I was in my probably early 20s, where I felt like, I know now who I am and why I'm here. Then I understood about things like probability and, you know, statistics. The possibility of me being born at this time in place, and to be able to retrospect and introspect and have these thoughts and think about who I am and the fact that I'm here, that itself gave me purpose and meaning, because suddenly I felt I was here to create an experience. If I'm part of a bigger whole, just like the cells in my body are part of a bigger whole, and they just popped in and out of existence in a very probabilistic manner. In that probabilistic manner, I happened to be here at this point in time. And what is my job? My job is to create an amazing experience. I take that responsibility to create a beautiful experience of my life.

So that's on a philosophical level. But then on a day to day level, how do I translate that? And I was like, okay, what are the challenges and the problems that we have? So when I was writing the book, the biggest challenge that came to my attention was the fact that the majority of jobs that were being affected were those of women. As somebody who was grown up, who grew up in Iran in a very difficult environment, so many women are facing challenges. Governments are not dealing with them. The corporations are not fast enough in dealing with them. And you can't wait. You know, you can't wait for problems to be solved. So I'm going to take matters into my own hands, and I'm going to do my thing, my best within my power to help as many women as possible to create a better life experience.

And one of the things that was really important to me from a very early age, because I grew up in poverty, we had no money. The first thing you need to do is to get yourself to a place of sustainability, you know, to a place of security, and then from there you can fly. Sometimes I see people, for example, young people on Instagram, you know, they're comparing themselves to the likes of Kylie Jenner and thinking, oh, like, oh, she's built an amazing business. Or comparing themselves to this and that influencer and thinking that they haven't achieved much. But actually, when you look at where they are right now, they are so far from having even a level of security. They're still living hand-to-mouth. So the first thing is to actually get yourself to a place of security, get yourself to a place where your life is sustainable from then. Then you can build on top of that. You know, I couldn't have started building this think tank for women in business and technology and all of the things I've done if I was still struggling.

Anita Brick: Clearly that is the case. How do you create, and maybe it's multiple definitions over time, what success means? Because the way the brain works, and you talk about this in the book too, is that we need these milestones. We need these goals and milestones that are measurable in some way in order to advance and go from survival, security to more, you know, really thriving.

Somi Arian: Flourishing, yeah.

Anita Brick: What are a couple of things that you would advise someone to include as they start thinking about success? Knowing it clearly could change over time.

Somi Arian: Exactly. Think about success. It lives on two axes. The horizontal one is concerned with impact, and the vertical one is concerned with financial security. When people are talking about success, they often mean three things. Financial then it’s recognition, and then it's impact. So most of the time when people you know, when they think about success, they think about money and recognition as the actual goal. Whereas when you think about money and recognition as a goal, you may be able to create a big impact. But that sense of satisfaction and peace that you get, that is where the true feeling of success lies. That is not going to be there.

Anita Brick: To pause for a second here. And I agree with you. If you have the impact, the recognition and money are usually part and parcel to that. We're still talking kind of in philosophical terms. To make things a little bit more concrete here and to make it accessible, I mean, you and I could probably talk philosophy for days, be that's my personal orientation as well. If you tell someone, we'll go out and create impact and they'll look at you and roll their eyes. So how do you carve out a place where you can have impact when everything seems so out of control?

Somi Arian: Exactly. So when you start thinking about impact, think about it. You have a series of inner circles. Center of it it’s It's you, then it's your family, then it's your neighborhood, your city, your country, your planet, your universe. So you have all of these levels of impact that you can think about. The first thing is to focus on the you part. That's the true success. When you get to a point that you can look after yourself. To achieve that, it's about having the willingness to put in the work, even if it means sometimes that you have to start working, doing some things for free so that you can learn. Do you just find people that are really passionate, that are already a few steps ahead of you, and help them out. Push yourself and really play as a team player, like be patient and work hard.

That's how it happened for me. You know how many free projects I've done as a filmmaker? One of my biggest clients right now is, well, my biggest client is Steinway & Sons Pianos, which is like the most expensive pianos in the world. I created about 7 or 8 very, very beautiful films for all the kind of heritage brass in London for free. I took out a startup loan when I started my company. Not only I did the work, but also I paid my crew out of my own pocket and I created that. And one of those brands was Steinway. Over time, I built a reputation. You know, somebody might take a camera and go out and say, let me do something for free. But you go to the level of bringing in a crew to do something really beautiful, you know, to build your profile, because I didn't have a portfolio, so I had to build everything from scratch.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. Is this what you mean by bringing a disproportionate amount of value to your community? That was a question that a student asked, well what advice would you have to bring that without burning out? Because I know people who will work in venture capital or work at startups, and they do it for free. They'll give up. And because they're burned out and they have nothing left to give. How do you balance that?

Somi Arian: Yeah, you have to be very smart about it because you have a very limited energy and capacity. So you have to be very careful about where you put your energy. And so, for example, one of the things I did, I created a documentary called The Millennial Disruption. I went in and interviewed the heads of marketing and CEOs of large corporations.Nobody knew me, you know, I reached out to hundreds of them. About 40 of them responded, I interviewed all of them. Out of that, I use about 12 or so. Gary Vaynerchuk was on that, you know, and I had to go all the way to New York, you know, pay for my crew and everything to go to New York for two days for a 25 minute interview with Gary.

But I knew that that would make a big difference. Then you've got to be very smart about how you go about really making sure that your content or your work, whatever it is that you're doing, is seen by the right people. You don't want to be spending–

Anita Brick: But this sounds like fantasy to me. And I know you have an amazing story of overcoming adversity in all kinds of ways, but it seems a little like fantasy to me, because–

Somi Arian: How do you see fantasy?

Anita Brick: Well, it feels like fantasy because you have the money for the crew and you did all of these things. But some people aren't as bold and they're not as courageous as you. How do you start at a base level to take a step forward, to build both the courage and maybe the confidence? I think you are in a class by yourself, and I just don't think everybody is as able, maybe, as you. Where could someone who maybe needs a little remedial help with this? Where can they start?

Somi Arian: So when you say you had the money, let me explain. This morning when we speak, I'm 38 years old. I came to the UK in 2005. I was 23 with no money. I paid every penny I had to the university. I have no backing from my parents. I actually helped them. So I came here with one suitcase. So I came here with absolutely no money. It's just about being able to get yourself to the next level and then work very hard there. I work 15, 16 hours a day. Yes, you are right. You know, it's not the usual. It's absolutely not fantasy. It is absolutely doable. And look, English is not my first language. I came here with nothing and I managed to make this.

The next best thing from there is to find people like me who are already working for 15, 16 hours a day. And for some reason they have the energy and they don't burn out, and they manage to continue. Find people like that and help them out and build something. So there's two levels here in the book I talk about there's scalable and non scalable. Non-scalable businesses and areas you know when you look at the career landscape there's non-scalable stuff. Essentially there are things that you can do that you're exchanging your time for money and it is non scalable. And that's where you need to be really, really good and find people that you can help.

What I'm trying to build, which is much, much harder, is a scalable business because I'm trying to build a platform. I'm taking the risk because I already built the non-scalable and I was like, okay, I feel comfortable enough that I can take the risk. So I'm taking a calculated risk. Also, I'm a little bit crazy and I'm, you know, I'm the kind of person that is not afraid of, you know, failing.

But I was coming to the UK, I had a very good job in a European embassy. And before that in United Nations, in Tehran, I was getting paid really well. I left all of that and came here to go to university and paid every penny I had. Every night I was sitting in my bed crying, thinking, how am I going to pay for my life? I couldn't get help from anybody. I couldn't get a loan because I was an overseas student. But you know, I'm crazy. I took that risk. If you want to build something that is scalable, you have to know the chances of winning is very, very, very slim.

Look, I've gone into this knowing that my chances are like one in millions. You know, if not billions of making it a success. I'm doing it because I love it. I enjoy the ride. I'm not worried about not winning. I always say like, I'm like an Olympic athlete. I'm training for the game of my life. It's just a matter of how passionate you are. Do you want to have that kind of thing, that sort of thing. You have to have a very, very thick skin, and you just have to be ready to keep falling. Just yesterday I had a grant application that we had put a lot of effort into. It didn't go through. I didn't get it. Failed. Right. Move on. Go to the next thing.

Anita Brick: You really are extraordinary and yet we can do things to put ourselves both in a mindset and give ourselves experiments so we don't have to fail massively. You can fail a little bit and the next time a little bit more. But you talk about and you talked about it at the beginning and talk about it in the book a lot is what you call contextual creativity. This happens to a student who says: “I'm good at finding things in different disciplines and work to connect the dots. What criteria do you suggest to know what to keep? What ideas, information, concepts to keep, and what to toss? Because I can't do all of it.”

Somi Arian: Yeah, that is one of the absolute hardest things to do. There's so many ideas. Ultimately, I have a very limited energy. So when we talk about contextual creativity, look, there's no way to know 100%. That's where we go back to critical thinking. In the bigger picture of things for what I'm doing, even when I'm listening to say, The Economist or whatever, you know, I'm not looking at everything. I skip things, I know where I'm going. I'm building a platform for women in business technology. That's my goal. And I only look at things that are relevant to that. So it's about training your mind to have a peripheral vision of everything else, but focusing laser focus on the things that are really important to you.

Anita Brick: Goes back to knowing yourself, so that if you know yourself, you know what your priority is and you use that as a compass.

Somi Arian: Exactly, exactly. And I'm so brutal with that. I'm thinking about, constantly thinking, weighing the probability, weighing the weight of which one is going to be helpful towards my goal. If this meeting, if this walk, so I'm going to go for a walk with somebody, is that going to somehow help? I know it sounds brutal. People talk about work-life balance and I talk about work-life blend, you know, because for me, my work is my life.

It's all about knowing yourself. I wouldn't be happy any other way. So you've got to know what makes you happy. Everything comes back to knowing yourself. Because if you don't know yourself, you're going to be at the mercy of social media and this and that algorithm that's going to pull you in different directions.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. So do you have time for a couple more questions?

Somi Arian: Sure, sure.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. So an alum asked this question. She said: “I find the reality of the world today less than motivating and actually pretty discouraging. What advice would you have for me to help me keep a firm grasp of the reality of daily living while actively seeking the good?” And it kind of goes back to what you were just saying.

Somi Arian: At the beginning of this pandemic, I wrote an article about Covid-19 and the future of business, economy, and democracy. It took me a week to write. It is 4500 words. It's on my LinkedIn profile and I cried after I wrote that article. I went for a walk, I cried, and I was feeling exactly how you were feeling. I was feeling so overwhelmed with the reality of the world. I was worried about the state of the world, and I still am very much worried about it.

But what I did then I came back to my center, you know, and I realized that where there is a lot of challenges, there's a lot of opportunities. So think about challenges as a blessing. Otherwise life would be so boring. Imagine like you go to a film, to see a film, and you're sitting there and everything is going perfectly fine for this character. That would be such a boring, you know, movie, right? So what you want to see is this character being constantly challenged and fat and being thrown this way and that way, and getting back up like that's what life is.

So challenges are lovely. And I've gotten to a point that I'm like, bring it on. Like I don't have enough. Give me some more challenges. Yes! You know, because that's great. It's all about changing our perspective. I'm actually currently reading a book, which is amazing, I highly recommend. It's called How Emotions Are Made. Emotions are not there and we perceive them. Emotions are made. We make our own emotions. If you think of your emotions in that terms, you are building your own emotions and therefore you are creating your own reality. I always say you co-create your reality with the world. You look at what the world has given you.

Where I grew up, it was a terrible situation. It was during the war. My parents were very, very, not very nice, you know, and I had a lot of difficulty as a child. So what did I do? I was like, okay, I'm going to make that the fuel of my life. I'm not going to accept whatever life is throwing at me. I'm just going to fight with it and like, bring it on. Let's wrestle. Even the fights you have to think of it in a game. That life is a game. You know, people focus too much on the end result and that's why they become stressed. Because remember, it's a game. Life is a game ultimately. So you want to make this life as fun as possible.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. And to bring us home. I love the multi-disciplinary mind that you have. It is amazing and challenges as fuel for some people it's hard to take. People who take them on do incredible things like you were doing.

Let's go concrete here. What are three things that you would advise someone who maybe is in the middle of career fear and in need of some practical actions, and maybe a little bit of encouragement? What are three things you would advise them to do beginning right now?

Somi Arian: I would say the first thing to do is just stop whatever it is you're doing. Because the main reason why this fear happens– think about, I give this example in the book. I'm like, you know, you're sitting in the back of a car, so you feel like you're not in the driver's seat. This car is going at 180mph. When you look outside the window, you don't see anything. Nothing is moving. You are moving. Right. But the view feels unclear. You don't see things. So what you need to do is you need to somehow, you know, whoever is in that driver's seat, you need to get that car to stop. So the main reason why that fear happens is because you feel you're out of control, because you're not in the driver's seat and because it's going too fast. So we are living in a very fast paced life, right?

When you stop and you go inside yourself, that's the next step, and dig inside and see what are you really trying to achieve, what will really make you happy and what then you will find there is that actually you are looking for happiness from the outside. You know you're looking for a job to make you happy or a person to make you happy. Actually, happiness doesn't come from any outside factor. It comes from inside you to the outside. When you find that ability to find that happiness from inside and then make that flow of happiness from inside, and you find your flow with the universe and with life and with things just start to fall in place for you. So stop, find you know your happiness inside.

And then once you've done that, then the fear goes away. You mentioned earlier you said you're just very courageous. That's because I went through that process of going inside, finding that nothing outside me is going to make me happy. But actually happiness is going to go from inside me to the outside. Once I figured that out, the next step was like, I'm not afraid of anything. Bring it on. I'm then able to take courageous actions, courageous actions, but smart actions within reason. You're always weighing things. You're always thinking about probability, statistics and understanding. Where would I put my energy that's going to give me the best result so that I can then think about it like a rock climber. Where are you going to hook your fingers next that will allow you to then put your feet here so that you can then go one step higher. It's exactly like a rock climber. Nothing is smooth.

Anita Brick: I love that. You are incredibly encouraging and bold and courageous and a wonderful example of what each of us can be at least a little bit. Another step forward. Thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for writing the book. There are some wonderful things on the site. It is somiarian.com. And the book is Career Fear. You live the truth of it. Thank you for that and thank you for sharing all of this with us today.

Somi Arian: Thank you. I hope it will help some people. That will make my life worth living.

Anita Brick: I am sure that it will be helping people who listen to this. And thanks again for making the time.

Somi Arian: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.