Australia and New Zealand
When I started my career at BCG 30 years ago, Aliza Knox taught me some of the principles that got me to where I am today. In Don't Quit Your Day Job, you'll learn them too. Her advice is priceless.
— Brad Banducci,CEO Woolworths Group
Don't Quit Your Day Job provides practical tips and advice for success in your career. Aliza Knox distils her vast experience as a global business leader and mentor to highlight the mindshifts you need to expand your career opportunities and build your success at any stage of your life.
— Dig Howitt,CEO and President, Cochlear Ltd
Good people are hard to find and keeping them is even harder. Don't Quit Your Day Job will show individuals how they can get the most from where they are, and give managers the tips and tools to keep their talent from moving on.
— Alison Deitz,Chief Executive Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright Australia
Your career can take you anywhere. This highly readable and relatable book by Aliza Knox, Don't Quit Your Day Job, is an inspiration for how to make your career and your life work for you.
— Alison Davis,Managing Partner, Blockchain Coinvestors
First published in 2022 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064
Office also in Melbourne
© Aliza Knox and Wendy Paris, 2022
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
ISBN: 978‐0‐730‐39659‐8
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.
Cover design by Wiley
Disclaimer
The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the authors and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.
Letter to the reader
If you have a job or are seeking one, this book is for you. While the conversation in the media or even at a dinner party might be about entrepreneurship or exploiting your ‘side hustle’ or ‘the great resignation’, the day‐to‐day reality is that most of us work for someone else, and, increasingly, in large organisations. We also work for decades, which may sound daunting (and exhausting), but as you'll see in this book, plenty of people find ways to make work rewarding, fulfilling and, dare I say, fun.
Across the globe, an increasing percentage of people work for large companies. In the UK alone, nearly half of the workers are employed by firms with 250 people or more. In the US, as of the 2014 Census data, nearly 40 per cent of workers were employed at either large companies (those with 2500 people or more),1 or very large ones (with 10 000 people or more).2 Close to another third of workers in the US were at mid‐sized companies (with 100 to 2500 employees).
As corporations and businesses continue to grow, so will opportunities within them. What you need to succeed are the six mindshifts laid out as chapters in this book. The mindshifts are outlined, then brought to life with relatable examples of people I've met along the way. All of these people are real, though some names, and occasionally some genders, have been changed — as they used to say on TV — ‘to protect the innocent’. Ways to put the mindshifts into practice are listed at the end of each chapter so you can adopt the ones that work for you.
***
If my life had worked out differently, I might have been a forester — planting trees, assessing timber plots — and writing about it all in a rough‐hewn log cabin surrounded by towering redwoods, with the occasional bear ambling by.
This wasn't actually a dream of mine as a child; growing up in the US, I had no specific vision of what my career would be. I worked odd jobs to earn and save money in high school, and one of these jobs involved taking aptitude and personality tests at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education. One test indicated that I'd be well‐suited to a life in forestry or the clergy.
Neither option, I confess, interested me remotely.
I wasn't really exposed to people working within large corporations, and I never particularly thought about corporate life either. I've now spent the past 40 years working for, and leading, businesses at some of the world's most interesting, innovative companies — including more than a decade heading the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for parts of Google, as well as for Twitter and Cloudflare. Before that, I served as the first female partner in Asia at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Over the years, I also had roles in the financial services sector, including at Visa, American Express and Charles Schwab.
I went to Brown University, where you didn't have to declare a major until your junior year, which was one reason I chose the school. After graduating with a degree in applied math and economics, I took a job in banking because it ticked two boxes on my wish list: a great training program, and the opportunity to move to New York City, which seemed like an exciting place to live.
While much of my career has been in sales and general management, these were not early interests. As a teen, I subscribed to Seventeen magazine (typical) and Psychology Today (oddball choice), thinking that maybe I'd become a psychologist. I had exactly one early experience in sales, creating an ad book with three friends in high school to fund our senior year activities. I had to go to dozens of merchants I didn't know and ask for money to advertise to the students and parents. It was my idea and I persisted with it. Looking back now, that is the real through‐line in my career — perseverance. Once I decide on something, I'm full steam ahead, driven to make it happen. Recently, my mom said that even in high school I was always tired because I was trying to cram in one more thing.
It's easy to feel like you should know exactly what you want to do in your career in order to be successful and happy, to have a specific vision and then execute it. But that hasn't been my path, or that of many of the people in this book. The fact is, you don't have to know what you want to do to rise and thrive, and even if you do know now, you may change your mind later. Today's rapid pace of change means that many of the most exciting fields and companies of the future probably don't exist now. Even if you love what you're doing, something else might arise that intrigues you (as the Internet did for me in my forties). Even though I didn't have a specific plan in mind (other than travel; I knew I wanted