I Still Don't Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

I've certainly said this before. In so many ways, I'm quite jealous of my wife. From a young age, she knew what she wanted to be, professionally, in her life (a nurse). She pursued that career and became one of the best. She's succeeded everywhere she's been, and she's been routinely promoted due to her exceptional skills.

I've not had a similar experience.

When I was very young (and I don't mean young like, "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be the third-baseman for the Yankees."), I mean younger than I am now -- but old enough to be aware of what a career is, I wanted to be a sabermetrician.

Interestingly, today, that wouldn't be met with as much skepticism as it was back then. Now, with films like Moneyball, and the public awareness of pioneers like Bill James, it's a viable career (albeit, still a difficult one to break into). But, in the 1980s, no one knew what I was talking about.

While I was in ninth grade, I participated in an independent study project, in which I decided I was going to write a book, similar to James' seminal "Baseball Abstract" works. In my research, I reached out to James (but he refused to take my calls). I did, however, make a great connection with Craig Wright, who became a pretty influential force for a year.

As an aside, I should mention, throughout this time, my *dream* was to work in sports; in many ways, working as a statistician for the Elias Sports Bureau was my perfect setting. It combined my fascination with statistics and sports into one nice little box.

But, in one discussion with Craig Wright, my entire career trajectory changed. I asked him what courses I needed to focus on, so I could do what he was going as a career. I assumed he'd say Statistics or some mathematics course (or, even an accounting course). Instead, without hesitation, he said, "English." When I questioned him (to ensure he understood what I was asking) he responded, "If you cannot effectively communicate your findings, it's as good as never having done them." Wow.

I marched out of the library (where I'd phoned him) and headed to the Journalism teacher's office, and signed up to be a sports reporter for the high school paper. I continued with that vision throughout college, eventually taking over as editor-in-chief (despite the fact that I never wanted to do anything but write about sports). And then, on my "exit interview" from college, my faculty advisor outlined what I could expect, salary-wise, from my career. And I decided I wanted more.

I don't begrudge anyone who's followed their dream -- a good friend of mine definitely took the long road; working for small weekly and daily papers, before finally becoming a major player in the sports journalism world. For me, I didn't have that patience.

And, so I ended up in magazine journalism. I worked in several industries for my first publishing company: woodworking, plastics formulation and finally, janitorial product distribution. I devoted myself to the magazines, ultimately becoming the youngest editor-in-chief the company had (although, subsequently, younger editors have certainly been in place). I was a "shining, rising star."

Ultimately, power went to the head of my editorial director (who had actually been a friend at one time) and in a capricious move, we had a parting of the ways (in related news, the magazine, which I'd helped dramatically increase advertising revenue through a new approach, had folded less than two years later). I headed into NYC where I took the lead role of a start-up magazine on the commercial shallow-draft maritime industry and helped it become profitable.

Again, hungry for more, I left that role and took over the lead editor role of a magazine about lighting design, helping that magazine turn a profit for the first time in several years. Sadly, 9/11 then happened, and our discussions about reducing staff became a more pressing matter. Rather than eliminating lower-level editorial staff; the decision was made to cut from the top, and I was gone.

At this point, I decided print journalism wasn't really for me any longer. I'd done a great deal -- accomplished a lot, and succeeded at every level. I headed to graduate school to become an English teacher, but realized my heart wasn't in it (and, unlike the previous industries, where I could still be extremely successful without *loving* the industry, I felt it was imperative to be passionate about teaching).

I started with a company in their marketing department and then found a growing need for internal communications and operational efficiency in the company. I put together a comprehensive job description and pitched the role *and* myself to the higher-ups at the company, ultimately being named to the role, and eventually winning an award for my communications strategy and plans.

Much like the last job I recently held, this was a new position. It was a role that was totally unfamiliar to most of the company, which didn't recognize how important the role should be (and how successful companies use this role). Consequently, more of my day was spent evangelizing and justifying my existence, as compared to actually *doing* the vital work. This is a taxing existence.

Part of it was a hesitation for "something new" (but, of course, we all know how that story ends ... companies that don't want to change, well, end up closed, eventually ... especially in today's economy which is more fluid than ever before ... hell, Google doesn't even have a 5-year plan. I remember reading that they don't plan more than 3-6 months, in fact.

The other difficulty was a lack of planning -- this type of role requires access to executives (my first week, the CFO idly said, "perhaps you should be in our executive meetings" ... two years later, I was still awaiting an invite). It also requires one of two approaches:

1. The freedom to do what I think is necessary and support of the higher-ups to accomplish those goals.
2. Definitive tasks as established by the executives (in other words, nothing as vague as "change the culture" - far more specified tasks.

I did learn quite a bit about myself and my abilities. The CEO certainly considered me a valued counselor; not only in matters of communications, but in matters of business importance as well. I regret that I didn't have as much opportunity as I thought I had, because I think we could have done great, great things there; but again, the lack of a cohesive plan (and the fickleness of our economy) didn't provide that.

Where does that leave me? I have time, now, to analyze things (and I'm certainly no closer). Do I move to Canada (where my wife's family lives) and think "Oh, they'll be ecstatic to hire me, because I'll come with NY credibility" (sometimes, life needs a drastic reboot -- I did this when I left high school and headed to college, and I never looked back).

The one negative (that is still prevalent today) is the tendency of companies to not look at "what *can* you do" but rather at "what *have* you done." Worse still, this isn't even a reflection of skills, necessarily; but rather, the industry where you've worked. I've had more than a few companies/recruiters consider me to not be a valid candidate *solely* based on the companies I've worked for (even though my responsibilities were exact matches for the positions for which they were recruiting). Again -- companies that aren't willing to look at potential and change and doing things slightly differently than they've done in the past, aren't really sticking around as much.

I'm still optimistic though; and I'm still well aware that it only takes *one* yes; one progressive company that sees my skills, traits and abilities and says, "Please do for us what you've done your entire career." I'm ready.