Sidetracks
February 10, 2006
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Sometimes you might like to believe your career is a straight-line
proposition. You start here, put in hours of work and you will eventually
end up over there, at your goal. In the distant past, this might have
been true, but today your career is filled with dead ends, mistaken shortcuts,
detours and uncompleted roads that can leave you feeling trapped. Despite
these fear-inducing possibilities, though, I think that these detours,
these aberrations, these deviations from the norm are actually the underpinnings
of a great career. Chance and happenstance might feel frightening when
you are in their midst, but they can often bring you the greatest rewards.
20 years ago today
Looking back on my own freelance consulting career got me thinking about
the important role that chance plays in our lives. While we shouldn’t
rely on chance to provide all the answers, we all have moments when chance
seems to push us in the right direction even before we know where we want
to go.
Back in 1986, I moved to Los Angeles with my wife, our marriage only 7
days old by the time we arrived in a 24 foot moving truck packed by the
wedding party. In a large way, chance led me to Los Angeles as my wife
wanted to work in television and I had no objections, so off we went.
Although I had a degree in theater, I already knew I would be working
in some high-tech job. The opportunities were better, as was the pay.
After a month of searching with no results I came across an advertisement,
oddly enough in the Administration section, for a computer savvy person
to work for a small entertainment-related online service. Remember, this
was almost a decade before the Internet was part of the language, outside
of universities. It was here I got my first taste of “Hollywood”,
visiting star’s homes, working events at the famous Whiskey-a-Go-Go
and training various pop musicians how to use our systems.
To take this job, I had turned down an offer to work with a stable software
retail company that had stores all over America at the time. It certainly
would have been a safer choice, but for any number of reasons, chance
won out and led me down a path that enhanced my life in ways I could not
have imagined.
The truth is, my career has been filled with such occurrences and almost
every time I allowed myself to take the road less traveled it has been
a positive experience. Sure, there have been odd moments, the unfulfilled
promises, the failed startup company, but overall, the benefits that chance
has brought to my career have far outweighed the problems.
Take a chance
This is why I urge all of you to take a chance whenever you can. If you
are choosing between a stable corporate position and the wild world of
freelancing, give freelancing a try. I believe you can always find a stable
position if you want one, but chance only enters the picture at infrequent
moments. Why not take the plunge? If you are already in a corporation
and a new position opens, at least think about taking the job that scares
you a little. You shouldn’t be paralyzed with fear, but the job
that makes your knees shake and your palms sweat might just be the better
choice. Fear tells us we are stepping outside of our comfort zone and
that is where you always want to be. It is at the edges of fear that we
grow the most.
Reaching out for more, challenging ourselves to go farther than we think
we can, is how we achieve great things in our lives and our careers. You
don’t want to miss the opportunities that chance provides. It is
here your career is made, broken or stalled. If you decide early on in
your career to only take the safe routes, stick to the main highways,
avoid the small towns, you may find yourself wondering, in later years,
how you got to your final, possibly dreary, destination. Too often, we
can end up at a place that is so different from what we wanted, what we
dreamed about, that it stuns us. I don’t want any of you to look
back on your careers and wonder what it was all about. I want you to seize
the opportunities that chance provides and make decisions instead of letting
life push you from job to job, company to company.
Right this moment, and every day from now on, be aware of how chance effects
your life. Be aware of the good things that stumble into your path time
and time again. Then, make a conscious effort to exploit these opportunities
and let them lead you into new thoughts, new jobs and a new, challenging,
high-tech career.
Question of the Week: How do you react when chance places
an opportunity in your path? Do you seize it or run away? Do you have
some recent examples of missed opportunities? Post your answers on the
Career-Op forums at http://forums.friendsintech.com/
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