The question I get asked nearly every day is “What career advice would you give your kids?” and answering it’s easy, because mine have just finished high school and this is the condensed version of what I told them:

1. you only need to find your direction, not your lifelong path
2. you’re going to have 14 jobs and 6 careers, not all of them connected to whatever you study or do straight out of school, so don’t worry if you get it wrong
3. you’re going to have create work for yourself and self manage your career
4. on top of great institutional and life long learning, the traits that will get you a job, promoted and well paid are the human ones, not the generic ones, so get good at the 3C’s communicating, collaborating and creating and then keep getting better at them
5. be open, respectful, mindful and purposeful
6. be the same person on the outside, that you are on the inside
7. like every other person, you know exactly the sum total of what you know and no more, but be open to knowing more and when you think you know it all – know you know nothing
8. be confident in yourself and your self-worth
9. have fun
10. take on the world

This fatherly advice was the start for a great chat between ABC Far North’s Kier Shorey and  we worked our way through the most difficult of topics, how do we prepare our kids for a future we know almost nothing about.

Love this topic, have a listen and then add to my top 10 with your own (7 minutes 57 seconds).