Vijay Mandeep: My Only Career Plan is to Learn and Help Others Learn!
If you had asked me what my only career plan was 5 years back I would have plainly said: “I don’t know, maybe a successful marketer”. It took me 5 whole years to get to where I am now and to know what it takes to be successful and satiated. But then I realize that “I didn’t actually have a career plan.”
I still remember the first day at my first job — Pretty clueless of what I was going to do. I was handed a huge load of learning material that had nothing to do with what I had studied back in college and was asked to create a launch strategy for a new product line. I was hesitant about reading up those materials and content pieces. I was forced to read up and I continued to do so. But soon it would all make sense as to what I would be doing there on. Days passed and something happened. I was no longer forced but I kept reading and learning new things that didn’t have to do anything with my job. Soon I started to feel the rush of gaining knowledge. I found myself learning much more than just the things I needed to know.
Like most marketers, I too faced the heat of corporate life — KPIs, deadlines, endless strategies, etc. But my constant need for learning something new helped me in minimizing the impact and was able to fulfill my responsibilities. In no time I decided that I’ll make a career plan for myself that will not only benefit me but will also benefit the people around me.
Today I’m a Senior Growth Marketer and I know how hard it is for marketers to make time out of the cut-throat corporate world to upskill and learn. My two cents for all the marketers would be “never cease to learn”. Consider learning as a race you pause and someone will soon surpass you. You got to be ahead of your game always to stay on top. Today you have platforms that offer you to take free courses, you can also attend local meetups to share your knowledge and gain diversified experience. Podcasts are a great way to learn directly from subject matter experts. Personally, I consume a lot of podcasts and make notes out of it that not only help me in my current role but also in sharing the learnings to my peers for enhancing their knowledge bank.
My current favorite self-learning destination is Zest.is
Honestly, I used to visit growthhackers.com to feed on my daily content needs and read new articles. But a few months back I stumbled upon Zest.is. At first, I was skeptical about using it but man it got me glued. What sets Zest apart is their content recommendation engine that ensures your quality of learning. Zest is a community of self-learners who share common interests and content that zests them away.
Do you still have questions about the quality? Trust me I’m a contributor too, and I know they are really particular about the quality of content. Any content that doesn’t meet their terms won’t make it to their listing. As a consistent and self-learner, I’m assured that Zest provides the highest quality content to its subscribers.
Planning to check out Zest.is? They’ve recently launched “Zest Enlight” which is the Pro version and is now in BETA. Unfortunately the free forever closed beta offer has ended. But don’t you worry! You can still get your 3 months of zest free if you join before June 11, 2019. Join the closed beta using this link!
