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a good job is more about your boss and coworkers, than what you do

You are not your job. Your job is to find a better job.

With regard to the market value of skills: Good + Good + Good > Excellent. It is more valuable to stack skills than to be exceptional in one thing. Diminishing returns on investing additional time. You can get good in two new things faster than moving an excellent skill forward to the next level. The more skills you have the more parameters you're aware of. You may develop and have many peers who are excellent in an in demand skill. Each of them see the same set of parameters from that field to answer business questions. If you add another related skill that those peers don't have, you have an additional perspective that can see more parameters than those peers. Suddenly you can see around economic corners. Solve optimal solutions those peers couldn't see, because you have a broader set of tools. This is the argument for skill stacking.

Put the two together into one system. Your job is to find a better job. The purpose of where you currently work is to teach you a new skill. Once you are good on those skills, the next job is better if it teaches you a new skill and helps you get good in that too. You now have two Good + Good skills that help you land the next even better job. You pick the job that gives you Good + Good + Good. This is a ratchet that moves you up the market value ladder.

Another layer of that system I'll leave to you to think through is at each place you work add contacts to your social network. Plan to exit on good terms that keep doors open. Whether you personally like a person or not there's no reason to close the door. The world is large enough for everyone to succeed. Keep the network open and you can periodically catch up with them. Whenever you become aware of a job opening feed it out to your network. You want to build reciprocation where they reach out to you, too. Another ratchet to pull one another up the market value ladder.

Capping a long-term system are observations of the retired and the surprise arrival of early retirement wealth. You may have watched a family member retire and struggle with motivation and meaning afterward. It's not uncommon for founders of successful tech companies to experience a depression and crisis of meaning afterwards. That empty space is where the out of reach goal of 'someday' used to be. The secret of motivation is to have a system that always drops a new goal into that space as soon as you complete it. You can use the storytelling of 'Your job is to find a better job' to set up ideas and meaningful projects awaiting no matter your resources. The most fulfilled retired people I've met quit their work but continued working on hobbies and activities. Spending full time on outdoor sports, building household projects, picked up their musician career again. Had a personal business they shifted over to and never really stopped working. Only steered it to whatever they felt more fulfilling. They got a better job.

I got lucky in finding my career path, but what advice can you give to others who are struggling in starting career development? I have a few friends who still work retail/gig jobs and are finding it difficult to know which job path to invest in. Are there any courses or organizations that can help with this?

Its also important to sometimes let go of your preconceived notions about what is a good job.

If you like it and are happy enough to go to work in the morning that's good.

If it pays your bills and offers benefits and job security and a pension that's good.

Whats a good job for you can be radically different than for someone else.

When I was 10 years old I found an interest in editing video game montages/clips from YouTube. My mother constantly told me it was a waste of time and was distracting me from getting good grades, so she completely restricted my access to computers.

Today I signed a contract for a full-time job putting together video game trailers for some of the biggest titles in gaming.

As cliche as it may sound, never give up on your dreams in life. You were given free will for a reason, and being in a job that you enjoy will make the large portion of time you spend at work enjoyable.

Heres a better LPT: Live your life and don't be defined by what you do for work. If you look to your job for fulfillment you will be left empty. There are some very very rare exceptions to this.

Thank you for writing this out, I found it really helpful. This is the kind of perspective that's going to help me over the next 20 years, so much appreciated!

Problem is, the jobs I think I would enjoy wont pay my bills.

The first line of this LPT is pretty wrong, if you are like the majority of humans on earth, underprivileged.

Organize friends. We have to come together. Climate change is going to severely alter our society, let’s make sure that the workers are the ones who have control over their own lives. We have to work together if we’re going to survive what’s ahead.

If you don’t know what to do, follow the money. I never had career aspirations so I started moving into the highest paid unskilled jobs. I’ve been an underground mining operator for 18 years. I’ve been making over $100k a year the whole time. This year at 42 years old I’m about to start a mining engineering degree. Follow the money, most jobs are shit, you might as well be getting paid big money for your time. Life sux a lot less at $100 p/a.