Our best ideas are within us (and how to find them)

A reflection on synthesis, courage, and why most career advice misses the point

When Timothy pitched the idea of running a skills synthesis workshop together, I was immediately on board.

As the founder of Casual Tech Meetup in Hong Kong, Timothy has been facilitating many events inspired by the books he read. He recently finished Company of One by Paul Jarvis, which championed the approach of building companies that are resilient and aligned with your values.

I knew that there would be demand for a workshop like this. There was a gap in the market. We don’t need one more workshop teaching hard skills, as there are already too many options out there.

But what we need is a space to reflect and synthesise, looking at the skills we already have and leveraging them to build a fulfilling career for ourselves. This can be applied to those who want to build a company or those who simply want more out of their careers.

Turning philosophy into action

I looked around the room as everyone set out their post-it notes in front of them.

Our brain naturally tries to extract patterns to explain how we landed on our own unique set of post-it notes. It started feeling overwhelming, how could I find a way that blended my contradicting skills to fit one single project? And equally important, how could I do it in a way that was aligned with my values and character traits?

But we weren’t stumped for long. The energy in the room shifted as we moved into engaging conversations around our hopes for ourselves and others.

The problem with most career guidance

I have a problem with traditional career advice. It typically defaults to suggesting that we need more skills.

It’s easy to encourage others to take a course, get certified and learn a new tool. But how often do we really apply the knowledge that we learnt, in a way that creates opportunities for ourselves?

Working through Tim’s framework was a reminder that the real work comes not in acquiring new skills, but in making sense of our experiences to chart a path forward. That’s where the challenge is, seeing how the many pieces of our personal and professional lives fit together to form a point of view that is recognisably ours.

The framework we covered

We went through a 3-step process in the workshop.

Warning, this is deceptively simple but as one participant said, it made our brains hurt! We were constrained by the number of post-its we could pick, and this constraint forces us to be selective about what we want to include.

1. Core character traits

We picked from 24 traits based on the VIA framework. The traits covered a wide range such as creativity, humour, leadership, kindness and even spirituality.

2. Career skills

These are skills we gained from our jobs or projects. These include hard skills such as coding and soft skills such as stakeholder management.

3. Values check

We listed out things that are important to our personal and professional lives. These could be specific aspects (such as understanding a specific role) or values.

The great reframe

The last challenge was to draw the MVP version of our project. Objections started coming in as some of us stared down our blank page. How do you combine post-it notes into a project? What if we are already using our skills at work?

That’s where the reframe comes in. Timothy’s advice was critical.

“Think fresh.”

It was an invitation to go beyond what we know traditionally, to put a spin on familiar topics and see where that takes us. We could think that we are doing what we can, but when challenged to take one step further, we could really surprise ourselves there.

What was most inspiring was the variety of projects that surfaced. Some individuals had a strong desire to serve and impact others. Someone running ground-up initiatives envisioned creating adult innovation playgrounds for experimentation. A marketing professional in the creative industry wanted to help artists find inspiration in their discarded materials. Someone passionate about diversity wanted to create a new DEI framework for Asia’s cultural context.

What’s the difference?

Compared to the experience of attending a course or reading a book on your own, the workshop laid a better foundation for people to take their projects and themselves seriously. We started an accountability programme as part of the follow-up in our Telegram group, only available to people who have attended our events before.

This idea, organically generated by event attendees, is an encouraging sign that we have indeed met people who are going beyond the traditional skill-based courses to find their edge in the competitive world today.

When I left the workshop, I thought about all the conversations I had in cafes and whatsapp groups when I was wondering if I was on the right path 2 years ago. I remembered the times I felt stuck despite having built a career, and trying desperately to find answers online and through books.

If only I knew that my edge was really hiding in plain sight, hidden between the lines of my CV and weekend projects. The only problem was, I wasn’t ready to see it back then.

And the question now is, how can I help more people realise their edge faster? I suspect the answer lies in small groups, post-its and honest conversations.

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Thank you Tim for being a great collaborator for this project! We loved trying out this new event format with you. We were surprised to find out that our event was trending on Luma without us knowing, so it’s a sign that you have to come back to run another workshop with us again! (Thank you Russell who pointed it out to us).

For those who are in a career transition or have completed a transition, we need your help! We are launching our SG60 campaign to collect non-linear career stories in hope that it can inspire one more person towards a path that brings them fulfilment. We do not need perfect stories with endings tied up in a bow, and welcome the messy middle that comes with being in-transition. We hope you will consider contributing your story here.