Benjamin Todd

Then, use your career capital to... 3.

Deploy.

Use your career capital to effectively help others.

Do this by focusing on the most urgent social problems, rather than those you stumble into.

Those that are big in scale, neglected, and solvable.

To make the largest contribution to solving those problems, think broadly.

Consider earning to give, research, communications, community building, organisation building, and government and policy careers.

as well as the direct helping careers that first come to mind, and focus on the paths that have the best personal fit.

Although many efforts to help others fail, the best can be enormously effective, so be ambitious.

And don't forget you can have a big impact in any job.

While doing the above, keep adapting your plan to find the best personal fit.

Think like a scientist testing a hypothesis.

Make your best guess, clarify your key uncertainties, then investigate those uncertainties.

Have some ideas about the best longer-term vision, but then put a lot of attention to finding the best next step, both working backwards and forwards.

Eliminate any jobs that do significant direct harm, even if it seems like they might let you have a greater impact.

If you keep learning more and improving your skills with each step, you can build a better and better career over time.

Seek community to be more successful.

By working together, in our lifetimes, we can prevent the next pandemic and mitigate the risks of AI.

We can end extreme global poverty and factory farming.

And we can do this while having interesting, fulfilling lives too.