My Best Career Advice? Try Sexy Synthesis
The Psychology of Fulfilling Careers
Whilst on a recent first and last date, I was asked: “Do you think that everything that can be created has been created?”
Not into the date (for reasons that could be covered in an essay on toxic masculinity), I figured I might as well have a bit of fun. Taking a sip of happy hour red, I lifted my dress hem a few inches off the floor, and daintily stepped onto my soapbox.
Improvising with the utmost surety, I began: “I think that the foundations have been laid for us. The building blocks of creation are there, in the same way that the elements are the ingredients of anything we can create in the world. It’s up to us to combine them in new ways.”
Liking the track that I was on, I continued: “Beyond combining the foundations, the world needs translators. We need experts who can bring an idea alive for a subset of the population — giving it color and texture in their preferred language — in a way only their unique perspective can.”
“In short,” I concluded, “we need synthesizers and translators.” He looked at me sideways, ordered himself a stiffer drink, and began his apparently obligatory retort.
Admittedly, his question is one I’ve danced with often.
In a world of so many ideas, offerings, and gurus, it’s easy to be haunted by the fear that we can never create something truly novel and useful. When I see someone executing particularly well on something that I’d like to bring to the world, I tend to — in a strikingly unhelpful fashion — throw my hands up and huff, “well, so much for that plan.”
As someone who has approached my career with a dead-pan seriousness — oft-staking my happiness and fulfillment on its fruition — the fear of not creating something singular, superlative, and inimitable has possessed the vaults of my mind on more than one occasion. In today’s world, it’s all too easy to think: “It’s been done. Someone is doing it better. Why even bother?”
This fear tickles, in particular, the existentially-itchy among us who simultaneously jones for fierce authenticity and purposeful impact. These sublime yet oft-tormented individuals among us seek soul-fulfilling work, and suffer considerably in its absence.
In response to this nihilistic quandary, we’ve all been offered dopey career advice.
Take, for starters, “follow your passion,” a trite and oft-meaningless musing when you’re swirling around the bowl of a professional existential crisis. Passions are cultivated and can — especially early on in our lives — evade us. Hell, I didn’t know I liked antiques until two years ago and look at me now…
The marginally better but still infuriating, “follow your talent,” can prove equally counterproductive. It’s true that we all have inherent proclivities, but we may not become aware of those talents until later in life, and it can take even longer to accept and cultivate them (hello imposter syndrome).
In short, I find most career advice to be peacocking drivel.
But there is one nugget of career advice I’ve followed throughout my whole career…
The most truthful, poignant career counsel I’ve encountered during a headfirst rabbit hole dive into the interwebs was a quip from author Justine Musk, the now twice-over ex-wife of Elon Musk. She awakened my younger self — in a delightfully sassy way — to the concept of creating novel work through synthesis.
In her words, “When you become a master of two worlds (say, engineering and business), you can bring them together in a way that will introduce hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea sex and make idea babies that no one has seen before.”
“Introduce hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea sex and make idea babies that no one has seen before.” —Justine Musk
In this quip, Justine touches on the importance of synthesizers.
She nudges us to become a master of two worlds. We can all agree that most folks with self-actualizing careers have brought two disparate fields, skill-sets, or knowledge bases together to form something otherworldly. These people, in Justine’s words, have a lot of idea sex and make many idea babies.
Provocatively, it seems the more contradictory the two worlds, the more beautiful the idea babies. Think: Politics and comedy; Sports and social impact; Technology and socializing. These hot ideas came from different sides of the tracks, but nonetheless — in a West Side Story kind of way — merged together in an intimate moment to form world-changing, Jolie-Pitt level beautiful idea babies.
In these examples, the novelty wasn’t in the elemental components, but in the combination. Thanks to a creator’s self-possessed desire to dim the lights, set a mood, and facilitate the fertile act of idea sex, we now benefit from remarkably unusual innovations and insights. Cheers to the swinging synthesizers, wanton multi-potentialites, and promiscuous polymaths.
But synthesizers are only half the equation: We need translators too.
If synthesizers help us merge and zoom in on a topic, translators lend a topic its rarefied tint. Its compelling patina. Its “you’re speaking directly to my soul” vibe. The translator writes a poem, paints a painting, or creates a product that will feel fine to one person, but soul-rippling to another. By overlaying their idiosyncratic interpretation onto an idea or product, a translator makes a creation speak to some and sing to others.
Translators express an idea in a way that — to a subset of us — will strike us as hauntingly familiar and quakingly resonant. A good translator will make you wonder if they had been living within a cozy fold of your brain, just waiting for the moment to plant words in your mouth or an idea in your head that you could have sworn were already there.
One much-beloved translator was Martin Luther King. While he was not the first to pioneer the idea of civil rights, his manner of translating allowed it to land on previously-deaf ears. Other luminous translators include Albert Einstein (complex concepts, explained unfussily), Jane Goodall (complex truths, explained gently), Helen Keller (complex circumstances, explained without self-pity), and Henry Ford (complex products, explained accessibly).
But translators are not always nearly-unanimously adored. Some of the most effective translators tickle the hearts of some, yet trigger the hell out of others. From modern day examples like Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, the Kardashians, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Gwyneth Paltrow, to historical examples like Adolf Hitler, it’s clear that translators need not be loved by all to be effective. For better or worse, the translation can matter far more than the thing itself.
When we combine the power of synthesis with the appeal of translation, we get what I call sexy synthesis.
Sexy synthesis refers to the process of merging two disparate ideas or skillsets — an act that nearly any of us can do — and then gift-wrapping it in the sparkly paper and tinsel that only we can. Synthesis only carries us so far if we are not able and willing to shine it into the world thru the lens that is unquestionably ours: Our humor, style, demeanor, delivery modality (speaking, writing, singing, etc.), framework, and the like.
Let’s use Justine’s star-crossed lover as an example: Elon Musk brought together engineering and business (a not-uncommon synthesis), but achieved otherworldly success because he translated it through the lens of his unorthodox approach to disruption with a comically blunt flair, endearing (mostly) quirkiness, contagious passion, and alien-esque vision. This sexy synthesis is what has allowed him to innovate monumentally in a way that grabs attention and makes a booming impact.
This equation (or something like it) can offer us a bit of hope that it is indeed possible to create something new in the world — not because we are inventing the automobile or discovering gravity — but because of the irreplaceable, inimitable iridescence that only we can overlay on top.
So long as we are courageous enough to follow the inner translation that is uniquely, distinctly ours, we too can offer something of meaning, of value, of lasting importance. Perhaps all career inquiries should not start with an examination of external needs, but an internal reflection on the perspective that is indubitably ours.
To find this perspective that is indubitably yours, I will leave you with a few words from my favorite guy, late psychologist William James…
“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me’, and when you have found that attitude, follow it.” —William James