Guy Kawasaki posted in his blog an interesting interview with Penelope Trunk about The Nine Biggest Myths of the Workplace. She recently has posted a similar article in her Yahoo! Finance blog – The Worst Career Advice Parents Can Offer, which caused a wave of irate comments from offended parents.

Her advises definitely have some radical nuance but obviously some parents consider them as heresy, especially the point that getting a graduate degree won’t help you in finding a good job and it is not worth spending time and money. On the other hand, her arguments are reasonable and deserve paying attention. Although controversial, I believe that her ideas will be recognized in the society sooner or later.

I personally have some reserves, especially if you look from the cultural perspective – in Bulgaria people have different feelings and traditions in family relations than in the U.S.A. and the advise to live with your parents until you find a good job will be treated differently. I left my parents’ home when I was 18 and I am building my life by myself ever since. I believe that this is a very important step in anyone’s life and I did the right thing. I advise my children to do the same and to take their lives in their own hands as soon as possible although as a parent I will miss them very much.

Anyway, the topic is about the career and the interview with Guy is better structured and she breaks other myths there. My personal bias is in favor of point 2 about the job-hopping. Here it is also considered a bad thing and a great disadvantage for the career, but Penelope’s arguments that this is one of the best ways to maintain passion and personal (and financial) growth in your career are absolutely valid and I can confirm this from my personal experience. If you are creative person and are looking for opportunities, to change the job is the only way to improve yourself if the current job doesn’t offer you such possibility.

Point 8 is a classic one – work more and you will succeed. I already wrote a post about this but Penelope’s arguments are also interesting. It is not so important how much you work, it is important to produce results and to show it to the others so they can see it. We are working for ourselves, aren’t we?