Evan Thomsen Quotes

“Find the beauty and the stories that inspire you and those around you. They will add tremendous value to your work and everyone else’s.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“The path to the best possible career starts with the Who Model. Stop doing what you love, and start working with great people in a great environment, with a bit of time flexibility. Watch your productivity, creativity, and wellbeing soar.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“This book is the new model. It’s my philosophy on work. Everything I’ve learned to avoid and everything I try to do right each day. It was developed through error, experiment, and from the stories of many others. As a result, I have a career that serves my life, my values, my goals, and my family. One that I am prepared to change as I, the economy, and the world change. With this new model, you can get the same result. A career that serves your life, values, goals, and family.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Navigating your professional life isn’t just a game of numbers and résumés, but emotions.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Importantly, nothing in this book is an advocacy for one type of career, industry, set of knowledge, or field of study. The practical methods in this book are not like a map with the journey and destination laid out, but like a set of tools, helping you to be a better architect of your professional life.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“I like to ensure that I have music and art all around me. My personal favorite is old maps. What I love about old maps is that they are both beautiful and imperfect. These imperfections represent that some of the most talented in history were still very wrong (early cartography was very difficult). As the majority of my work is analysis and advisory, I find it a valuable reminder that my knowledge is limited. No matter how much data or insight I have, I can never fully “map out” any business. Yet, despite the incompleteness of these early cartographers, so much was learned of the world. So much done and accomplished. Therefore, these maps, or art pieces, serve as something to inspire both humility and achievement. This simple environmental factor helps my productivity and the overall quality of my work. Again, it’s like adding positive dice to my hand that are rolled each day.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“If you’re looking for someone or something to blame, you’ll never run out of options, as there are infinite errors, inefficiencies, biases, and accidents to account for. It comes down to what you choose to do, rather than what you can prove, and if you choose bitterness, you don’t choose to grow, adapt, learn, or improve.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Comfort is the world’s greatest producer of anxiety. Because it’s a lie.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Nothing beautiful or interesting was born with the hope that it would never change. Change is inevitable. The choice you have is whether you want to grow or decay.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Personal responsibility is a more valuable position than any political grievance.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“From WWII to 9/11, if you wanted to learn a professional skill, you had three options: university, library, or a mentor/on-the-job training. Simply being introduced to something, like accounting basics, for example, would require a serious investment in time, money, or both. The range of information you had access to was restricted as well. You were limited largely to your geographic environment and knowing which text was best wasn’t clear. Today – are you fucking kidding me? The 10 best accounting instructors in the world are on YouTube. You can learn this skill for free, at your own pace, while taking a bath.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“The boomer career model is based upon the known. Fixed variables, stability, and a long-term plan that can be followed with confidence and little variation over decades. The modern career model is based upon the unknown. Multiple variables, volatility, and a flexible plan that needs to be able to grow and adapt.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Fortune favors the bold, brave, and strong. If perfect and complete knowledge of a thing is your precondition for action, then the market will have already been filled and you’ll be behind the competition.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“You will not stay in the same job, let alone the same industry, for your working life. Don’t simply wait to adapt… plan on it. Prepare for it. The sooner you completely abandon the boomer career model, the better. For you, your career, and everyone you work with.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Premeditatio malorum is latin for premeditation of evils. Basically, if you’re wise, you should consider all the bad things that could happen. This is not an act of pessimism or negativity; it’s an act of preparation and confidence in your ability to face future challenges. Premeditatio malorum pushes you to new challenges out of necessity. Through challenges, strife, and obstacles – ones you may have avoided or never found had you stayed in your comfort zone – you grow. This builds job security and job options. When you have both job security and job options, you’re happier. Always.”
― Evan Thomsen

“A pandemic shutting down airports and crushing the travel and hospitality industry is a fact – were you prepared or not? You suddenly waking up and realizing that you hate your job is an opinion – were you prepared or not? The nature of the problem is different. The impact on you is not. In both cases, you need an exit strategy and options. You may say that one of these is worse than the other, or easier to deal with than the other. And that may be true. But you don’t want to be negatively impacted by EITHER for any longer than is absolutely necessary.”
― Evan Thomsen

“Assume your job will be gone in five years.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“If you stop learning the moment you fit a role, you are gambling with your future, and every day the odds get increasingly worse.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“Who would want to work with someone who characterizes the world as some zero sum, chronically unfair game, with injustice at every turn? How can this mindset possibly serve you, your friends, your family, or your colleagues? Is it good for your financial, professional, or mental health? Is it something to teach children? Do you want your neighbors, the world even, to engage in this manner every time something doesn’t turn out their way?”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want

“If you spend the next five years taking responsibility for the challenges or deficiencies in your career, rather than trying to change your employer, the economy, or some politician, you’ll win. You’ll learn more, gain more respect and trust, and stand out from your peers.”
― Evan Thomsen, Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want