Was It The Right Decision?

Your career is a cornerstone of your life. Or you might be twenty years into your career and feeling fabulous about it. Or at a dead end, or like maybe you bet on entirely the wrong path. Or perhaps you’re just marking time until your new side hustle blossoms into something that might actually pay the bills. Wherever you are, how does it feel to you? Are you a little bored? A little frightened? Or does it all just depend on the day, and your mood, or your boss’s mood? Sometimes you feel like you are standing so tall and straight upon it. And at other times you feel its weight on you, and you double over, legs buckling. It can be difficult to bear. You want to be financially successful, to support yourself, your family, pay your debts. And yet you don’t want to sell out your soul. No matter what’s in your bank account, you don’t want to get to the end of your life and discover that you have been disconnected from your contribution to the world. A series of jobs that cuts you off from yourself is a psychological mess, and, from all we’re learning about the mind/body connection, a physiological mess as well. Careers are tricky though, aren’t they.

Where I End And They Begin

We tend to think that the happy, healthy people are those who achieve a balance between work and life. The healthy goal isn’t to be balanced, not really. In nature everything healthy is moving, and thus a healthy life is one that enables you to move, and to draw enough strength from that movement to allow you to keep moving. A healthy career is also in motion. It is a constant work in progress, always in a state of becoming. I’ve spent most of my own career studying this question. Beginning with my master’s thesis on the social and psychological issues of entrepreneurship, where we interviewed a hundred successful entrepreneurs and compared their choices with those of a hundred entrepreneurs whose businesses had failed. Then continuing with research projects at both Deloitte and Accenture, where we investigated how people had navigated their way up, around, and through these huge, labyrinthine organizations. And now on to our current Love + Work research project, where we are seeking to understand the nature of work through the lens of those who love it. Inevitably, I’ve looked at my own career to see what lessons, if any, can be drawn. After I graduated from university, why did I up and move from England to Lincoln, Nebraska? I could have gotten a job in London that would have kept me so much closer to home. Why the dramatic leap to a land I didn’t know, to a company that would pay me half as much as my other offers, to a job that I hadn’t studied for? Why, ten years into my Nebraska sojourn, did I start to write? How the heck did that happen? Did I know it would play out this way? If so, what was the secret sauce? And then I left Gallup to start my own company.

Ignorance Deprives People Of Freedom

Did I know this would work out? I had begun my company as a content and coaching firm, but somewhere along the way I decided that we needed to become a software company, powered by subscriptions. Did I know much about software? No, I knew very little. And why was I so sure that this was right, even in the face of strong resistance from within my own team? And how the heck was I to know how to lead a team of a hundred engineers and product developers? Be careful what you wish for. I didn’t need to stay on, but there was no question in my mind that I would. And that I would do so with passion. In all the standard ways of measuring such things, my career has worked out. Did I know what I was doing when I first jumped on that Greyhound bus from the airport to Lincoln, Nebraska, forty years ago? Many of these questions I can’t answer directly, other than to point to luck. But this isn’t humility. Those of us who’ve been blessed to have certain things in our lives play out the way we wanted them to know, on some deep level, that luck was on our side, and that, if things had slipped sideways even just a little, the outcomes could have been very different. Here are some of the most powerful. How do you know if you’ve started out right? A career is not a ladder, nor a lattice, nor a jungle gym. A career is a scavenger hunt for love.

A Hungry Heart

Imagine yourself graduating from college and standing at the edge of a forest. There are many openings into the forest. Which one should you take? The stay in school until you get a master’s degree opening? The break through the underbrush for a few years and see what you see opening? The go to medical school/law school/design school opening? Frankly, there’s no right answer to this question. So try not to worry about it too much. Walk into the forest. Any opening will do. What about getting experience elsewhere? I asked my dad. Shouldn’t I go to some of the biggest companies in Europe and ply my trade there for a while? It’s not about experience, Dad said. It’s about the quality of the experience. Do you think you’ll get something unique and distinct from heading over to Nebraska? Yes, I said. Was it the right decision? Could I have experienced greater success and satisfaction by staying closer to home? All I’ll know is what occurred on the journey that began with me climbing on a bus to Lincoln. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to start out right. Because there is no right start. Or rather, there are a multitude of right starts. Be generous with yourself. Don’t look for a sign to the perfect opening time.