September 18, 2026
Your Career Should Fit You
Scott wanted to be a surgeon, then a broadcaster, then found sales because he's impatient. On learning your own operating system and building a career that fits it.
Read Article →Career Advice / Career Planning and Goals
Your career will not go according to plan. You still need one.
Careers stall when decisions don’t happen. These articles are about direction: setting goals that mean something, keeping your options open, and making the call when the answer isn’t obvious.
Scott wanted to be a surgeon, then a broadcaster, then found sales because he's impatient. On learning your own operating system and building a career that fits it.
Read Article →Thirty-two NFL teams prepare like they're going to the Super Bowl, and thirty of them won't. Scott on why you prepare without a guarantee, and why the preparation is the point.
Read Article →Most people don't look for help until they're desperate. Scott on why the best time to read the book, find the mentor, or take the class is before your career is on fire.
Read Article →The five-year plan sounds responsible. Scott on why the best opportunities rarely fit the plan, and why direction plus open eyes beats a rigid map.
Read Article →A client kicked Scott out of his office. Sixteen years later that same company showed up on the worst day of an eviction. Scott on why grudges age worse than the facts behind them.
Read Article →People say they want an extraordinary career, then make decisions every day that protect an average one. Scott on why mediocrity is comfortable and how it arrives through hundreds of reasonable choices.
Read Article →Scott texted a client after layoffs hit their company. They were safe, for now. Scott on making the decision before someone else makes it for you.
Read Article →At 23, Scott picked NBC over four other offers and never looked back. Scott on why second-guessing decisions you can no longer change is a waste, and the game to play instead.
Read Article →Seventeen months ago Scott wrote that a forced career change can be a gift. After having his own role eliminated, he understands it differently. The first thing that arrives is the punch to the face.
Read Article →Your gut is the collection of every experience you have had and every mistake you have made. Scott on why more information will not always make the answer clearer.
Read Article →A summer in Barcelona runs $40,000 to $60,000. Scott on why a goal with a real number attached to it changes how you think about the work you are already doing.
Read Article →De Niro’s motto in Heat was about outrunning the cops. Scott reads it as a career principle: build a life where one bad boss, one layoff, or one company decision does not own your future.
Read Article →When a company starts doing weird things, it’s tempting to sit in the stands and second-guess every move. Scott on why that speculation is wasted energy, and where to put your focus so you land on your feet no matter what comes next.
Read Article →This meeting could have been an email. Scott on why time moves in one direction, what Elon Musk’s relentless no protects, and how the discipline to decline builds the career you claim you want.
Read Article →Scott spoke to a UW class about networking, brand, and telling your story, and one student asked him how to pick a lane among many ambitions. The answer revealed something he keeps coming back to: your career is a choose-your-own-adventure novel, and most people fail not because they pick the wrong chapter but because they stop turning pages.
Read Article →We have almost too much information now, and it is quietly eroding our ability to trust our own judgment. Most people already know what they need to do long before they do it, and endless research has just become a socially acceptable form of procrastination. Scott on why you have to stop staring at everyone else’s party from the sidewalk and walk into your own.
Read Article →Guest writer Mo Ibrahim on why the obsession with AI-proof and recession-proof careers is missing the point. Using Nassim Taleb's concept of antifragility, Mo argues some careers don't just survive chaos, they get stronger because of it. The future belongs less to the people trying to avoid uncertainty and more to those who learn to navigate it directly.
Read Article →Someone told Scott their goal document was nine pages and their manager said it still needed enhancing. No goal document should be nine pages. The bigger problem is what it says about the leader who asked for it.
Read Article →My high school basketball coach was a piece of work. He taught me a lesson I did not understand until decades later. Optionality. Set yourself up with enough options that you can make the decisions you actually want to make.
Read Article →No matter how hard you work, the decisions of others can dramatically impact your career. The goal isn't to avoid the canyon, it's to build a career that doesn't get wiped out by it.
Read Article →People make career decisions based on where they are right now, not where they think they should be. What matters most is understanding why you're picking what you're picking.
Read Article →Who you take advice from matters just as much as the advice itself. A haircut in Vancouver reminded me that who we let influence us shapes everything.
Read Article →Your gut isn't random, it's built from every experience you've had. Here's why your first instinct on a career decision is usually right, and how to stop talking yourself out of it.
Read Article →A goal has a schedule, a cost, and consequences. Without those three things, you don't have a goal, you have a wish. And wishes don't build anything worth having.
Read Article →The cost of staying the same is almost always greater than the cost of taking the risk. Stop waiting for the perfect setup. There's just a decision.
Read Article →Wanting more for yourself is not selfish. Gratitude and complacency are not the same thing, and your career belongs to you.
Read Article →Every app, news alert, and notification is competing for your attention. The moment you take that back, your focus returns.
Read Article →On the Paris Metro, if you get on the wrong train, you just get off and go the other way. In your career, we overcomplicate the exact same thing, and waste yea
Read Article →Forgive yourself for not knowing what only time could have taught you. We punish ourselves for not having wisdom that could only come from living through things
Read Article →Not every career decision deserves the same speed. Here's how to know when to sprint and when to slow down, and the costly mistake most ambitious people make.
Read Article →Life works like a camera, it doesn't capture everything at once. It chooses a subject and lets the background blur. Your energy and attention work the same way
Read Article →On my third day as a 23-year-old manager in Salinas, CA, my employee Mike asked if he could leave early every Friday to play in his band. What happened next was
Read Article →The meteorologist was wrong. The sports analyst cost you money. The online financial guru didn't know what he was talking about. We're obsessed with following e
Read Article →Week one of 2026 is in the books. January isn't a warm-up, it's the foundation. The habits you build and the patterns you notice right now quietly shape everyt
Read Article →Imagine an Uber picks you up and takes you to the airport. You get a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the world. All you have to do is pick a city. Two typ
Read Article →A friend texted Scott on January 6th asking about his New Year's resolutions. His answer: none. Resolutions turn growth into a performance instead of a practice
Read Article →For most people, January 5th is the first official day back at work. The alarm goes off at a time you haven't been used to. And then you sit in that first meeti
Read Article →What if you just relaxed and let things happen? Somewhere along the way, you picked up the belief that if you loosen your grip even a little, everything you've
Read Article →88% of resolutions are broken before the end of January. The problem isn't your goal, it's the missing purpose and accountability behind it.
Read Article →Most people are lost together, and that shared lostness feels like direction. Pioneers don't wait for consensus before they move.
Read Article →Sharing your goals with the wrong people gets you advice filtered through their fears and limitations. If you wouldn't trade lives with them, don't take their a
Read Article →A small café in Paris lets you write a letter to yourself and mail it back five years later. The real question isn't what you'd hope to read, it's whether you'
Read Article →Seventy-five winters. Seventy-five summers. That's what you get if you're lucky. Are you spending them chasing what you want, or what others expect?
Read Article →There is a moment in every big dream where you decide: do you leave an escape route, or do you commit completely? Burning the ships is not reckless. It's a decision to be all in.
Read Article →Thanksgiving is a great time to take note of who's at your table. The conversations you're having, or avoiding, say more about your trajectory than any resume.
Read Article →We grip the handle of closed doors long after the room has emptied. The energy you spend on what didn't work is energy you're stealing from what still could.
Read Article →Perfection is a fucking lie. It's a trap dressed up as a virtue. The pursuit of perfect has killed more good ideas and delayed more meaningful work than anything else.
Read Article →Scott usually avoids conversations with Uber drivers. But one conversation he couldn't get enough of reminded him: one decision can change the entire arc.
Read Article →Most people will never touch the limits of what they're capable of. They stop short when it gets hard. The limits are exactly where the good stuff lives.
Read Article →You are not short on time. You are short on presence. Stop counting months and years, start counting moments. That's where a full life actually lives.
Read Article →There isn't a single decision you get to make about your life and career that isn't somewhat of a gamble. Inaction is one of the riskiest bets of all. Are you b
Read Article →Every career decision is a gamble - yes, no, or delay. Learn why inaction is the riskiest bet and how to gamble on yourself for career success.
Read Article →The people who build real careers don't chase quick wins, they build optionality. Skills, financial stability, and strong relationships stack up over time into
Read Article →Anytime someone talks to Scott about decisions, he asks: is this a one-way or a two-way door? One-way doors are permanent. Two-way doors can be walked back. In
Read Article →The career game is changing faster than most people want to admit. The skills that kept you competitive five years ago won't keep you relevant today. AI, networ
Read Article →Scott doesn't care what your career goals are, just make sure you have a plan. Without direction, you'll chase shiny opportunities, run in place, and wonder wh
Read Article →Rose colored glasses let us believe something is different than what it really is. The question is whether you know when you have them on.
Read Article →Stop looking back, you're not going in that direction. Regrets and missed opportunities can't be renegotiated. What happens next is the only thing still in your control.
Read Article →Waiting for the perfect decision is how you get stuck. Scott Bond on why messy, imperfect action is the only thing that actually creates momentum.
Read Article →When Scott graduated in 2005 he agonized over five job offers as if it were life or death. Looking back, it wouldn't have mattered. We put too much weight on decisions that usually work themselves out.
Read Article →You don't grow from experience, you grow from reflecting on it. Without the pause, you're just collecting stories. Scott Bond on why reflection is the bridge between what happened and what you do next.
Read Article →You've heard "don't put all your eggs in one basket" about money. Scott Bond on why the same principle applies to how you think, and what happens when your mindset gets stuck in one lane.
Read Article →You've worked with a "Kenny Bania", the overly eager person with mediocre ideas who shows up at the worst time. Scott Bond on how to navigate people who are genuinely hard to like in a professional environment.
Read Article →Vague goals lead to vague results. Scott Bond on why most people feel stuck, not because they're failing, but because they never built a finish line in the first place.
Read Article →Scott Bond challenges you to write your own eulogy, not to be morbid, but to ask whether the life you're living today matches the legacy you want to leave behind.
Read Article →We are only limited by the structures we create. The cage most people live in wasn't built by anyone else, they built it themselves, one safe decision at a time.
Read Article →Career cushioning is what happens when professionals start quietly building a backup plan without making a big scene about it. It's not disloyalty, it's intelligence.
Read Article →At this point in my career, I have no energy for politics, empire building, or chasing titles. Here's what actually matters now, and what I'm no longer willing to tolerate.
Read Article →Ten years. A clean record. Millions generated. Gone over one incident. This is why blind loyalty to a company is dangerous, and why your loyalty should lie with yourself.
Read Article →Careers rarely follow a straight line. The power of keeping an open mind lies in recognizing that your path might not look like you planned, and that's where the magic happens.
Read Article →The people you surround yourself with shape your mindset, energy, and outcomes. Removing those who bring negativity isn't selfish, it's necessary.
Read Article →Tell me your story. Scott on the difference between a career story and a career history, and why owning your decisions matters more than a perfect resume.
Read Article →The first termination, the first layoffs, the first big screwup. Scott on why the sun still comes up after difficult moments, and why walking toward them beats avoiding them.
Read Article →Callaway and Good Good ran an ad everyone now regrets. Scott on how bad ideas survive rooms full of smart people, and the career skill of asking the obvious question.
Read Article →Fifty-plus trips to Vegas and a $38 room service sorbet. Scott on why your goals are allowed to be expensive, unreasonable, and slightly ridiculous.
Read Article →Most people celebrate freedom once a year without asking whether they feel free in their own life. Scott on why reflection is the bridge between what happened and what comes next, and why real growth starts with telling yourself the truth.
Read Article →Scott followed a stranger into a shady Dubai apartment and walked out with a story about risk. A reminder that the best career moves almost always feel like bad ideas at first.
Read Article →A smashed car window taught Scott a simple lesson: most problems deserve far less attention than we give them. The people who keep moving forward are not the ones who avoid setbacks. They are the ones who clean up the glass and get back to the road ahead.
Read Article →If a decision makes you nervous and excited at the same time, it is probably worth exploring. Scott on why the biggest career and business moves are supposed to feel uncomfortable, and how fear mixed with excitement is the signal you are standing at the edge of growth.
Read Article →Scott’s favorite Seinfeld episode is “The Pick,” where Jerry gets accused of something he never did and nobody cares about the truth because they already made up their minds. The same thing happens in your career. People only see fragments of your work and fill in the rest themselves. Scott on why visibility is not bragging, it is clarity, and why nobody can support a goal they do not know exists.
Read Article →A Medium told Scott yesterday to lean into what feels natural and stop fighting what's coming his way. He laughed, then she pointed out 25 clients isn't a side hustle, it's a business. Scott on three years of coaching, the people who've shown up since day one, and why the feeling of being stuck usually has less to do with talent and more to do with honesty.
Read Article →Annual raises are designed to reward stability, not ambition. If you want flexibility, leverage, and real choice in your future, you'll need more than incremental gains.
Read Article →Career. Family. Friends. Health. The Four Burner Theory says you can't run all four at once, and the most successful people turn two off entirely. Which ones a
Read Article →Before every Metallica show, AC/DC's 'It's a Long Way to the Top' fills the arena. It's a reminder of exactly how hard success actually is, and a warning that
Read Article →Some of the wealthiest, most intelligent people in business still make incredibly ridiculous decisions. Look no further than the NFL, billionaire owners runnin
Read Article →When I was rolling out goals in Dubai, I realized something: before you can lead people, you need to understand what they're actually carrying. Most people are just trying to survive.
Read Article →Most of us already know what we need to do. We are not confused. We are not short on ideas. The problem is we simply don't do it. Here's why clarity isn't enoug
Read Article →The fastest way to kill your career momentum is to play the comparison game. You scroll LinkedIn, see someone's highlight reel, and immediately your brain write
Read Article →Bold decisions rarely feel like the right decision when you're making them. The safer option always looks smarter in the moment. But safety is the trap that con
Read Article →People will come and go throughout your career. Scott Bond on why focusing on yourself isn't selfish, it's the only way to stay grounded through all of it.
Read Article →You're not stuck because your plan is broken. You're stuck because you're waiting for the fear to leave before you move. That moment will never come. What you need is nerve.
Read Article →We all carry beliefs we picked up along the way. Most of them are outdated, fear-based, and holding you back. The hard part is realizing they were never yours to begin with.
Read Article →The clock is ticking. Thirty-one days stand between now and the new year. How you spend them sets the tone for next year. Stop coasting, start now.
Read Article →Writing from Las Vegas on Thanksgiving. A casino floor is the best metaphor for your career I've ever found. You'll never win the jackpot if you never step foot inside.
Read Article →Saying yes too often leads to burnout, lost focus, and stagnation. The most strategic career move you can make is learning when to say no.
Read Article →In a span of 12 hours, three people texted me that they'd been laid off. The reminder is harsh but real: you lease your job. You don't own it.
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