On Sunday night, Lauren and I settled on the sofa with a glass of whisky and fired up the rip-roaring movie Top Gun: Maverick.

If you haven't seen it, the movie follows the comeback of hotshot pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

It’s filled with useful lessons for corporate professionals too.

Take Maverick’s “don’t think, just do” philosophy. That could be an entire career strategy in and of itself.

But it was a scene near the start of the movie that really pricked up my ears.

Maverick’s being grilled by his superior, Rear Admiral Chester “Hammer” Cain:

Cain: You have 30 years of service. Combat medals, citations and the only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years. Distinguished, distinguished, distinguished. Yet you can’t get a promotion, you won’t retire and despite your best efforts, you refuse to die. You should be at least a two star admiral by now, if not a senator. Yet here you are. A Captain. Why is that?

Maverick: It’s one of life’s mysteries sir.

Cain: This isn’t a joke. I asked you a question.

Maverick: I’m where I belong sir.

That’s quite the underrated answer.

I say underrated because conventional wisdom tends to favour titles, promotions and prestige. 

But there are other ways to approach a career.

One way is by asking yourself the question:

Are you where you belong?

It takes a kind of certainty to tell your clipboard-wielding superior you’re exactly where you should be as they shake their head and insist you’re falling short. 

It takes some nerve too, I guess.

But we all know when we’re not lost, even if the map says we are. 

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with chasing promotions and titles. Not if that’s where you belong.

Which means the question then becomes:

Who do you trust more at work? Other people’s measuring sticks or yourself?

If a question like that has you nodding along then you might like my new guide, How To Work Your Way. 

How To Work Your Way shows you how to turn down the volume on other people’s ideas of what your career should look like and turn the volume up on yours.

The guide is a collection of interviews I’ve published in this newsletter over the last 12 months with some of the world’s most original thinkers on how to build a career on your terms. 

And I don’t say “world’s most” lightly.

Paul Millerd's book The Pathless Path has become a cult classic and possibly even THE reference guide for non-traditional career paths.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is an ex-Googler and award-winning neuroscientist who writes about the invisible scripts running our careers in her New York Times Bestseller Tiny Experiments. 

I’ve interviewed both these legends for the guide. And that’s just scratching the surface.

I’m about to run a bunch of ads to plug How To Work Your Way and find some new subscribers in the process.

But before I do that, I'd like to offer you the chance to pick up the guide right here, right now, for free.

If you’d like more energy, freedom and fulfilment at work, How To Work Your Way is written with you in mind.

To grab a copy, just reply to this email with “Work My Way” and I’ll send it straight over.

To fulfilment,

Tom