New ground rules for starting your career

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a common question adults ask kids.  An astronaut! A doctor! A lawyer! As a kid, I never knew what I wanted to be. 

I admired those who had an unyielding vision of what they wanted out of life.  I simply wanted to please my parents; so I asked: “What do you want me to be when I grow up?”  As immigrants, they valued the safe, stable careers with solid incomes; they had visions of medical school; and if that bar was too high, then perhaps a pharmacist!  So their hopes became my adopted hopes.   

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Then high school hit. I started building my own independent identity: driver’s license, self-identity and deciding which friends I wanted to spend my time with. I started to question that medical career; it didn’t interest me. The thought of being around sick people, or 8+ years of additional education were not appealing.  After enrolling in college, a revelation: moving away, dorm rooms-- the first big gulp adult freedom! Deciding my major, my schedule and coursework! It was a breath of fresh air!  

I immersed myself in the college-life bubble, fully embracing all that a small college town offered (safety, security, room to explore, try new things).  And then, university spit me out to the harsh realities of the real world (#adulting): job hunting, endless bills, and navigating an adult world that was very different than college-life.  Gone were the cohesive campus life with defined clubs and extracurriculars to fill up my time. I had to fend for myself: what did I want to do with my life?  

“I had to fend for myself: what did I want to do with my life?”

So the below list is my AMA (ask-me-anything) common Q&A, rule-book answers common questions including:

• How did you decide on your career? 

• How did you know that’s what you wanted to be?

• How did you get your start working with ecommerce, retail and/or technology [or insert your relevant subject matter here]? 

• What are some things you wish you had known when you first started your career?

• What would you tell your younger self about embarking on a newly minted career? 

Since I can’t go back and help my younger self, I definitely want to help those out there who are just beginning, might be feeling lost, overwhelmed or just plain, don’t-know-where-to-begin but also feel like becoming a successful [insert your dream job here] is like a really faraway goal (spoiler alert: building a rewarding and successful career takes a lifetime and is never over!). 

If you don’t know where to start -- here are some foundational learnings for just getting started or if you want to learn more:

1) A career is something you build

Rome wasn’t built in a day.  What does that mean? It means, if you want to go from 0 to 100; the odds that you’ll do it overnight, or say in 1 year, 2 years, or even 3 or 4 years might be a tad too ambitious (depends what your goal is, of course).  Always, aim for the stars! But when you start diving in and asking those people you admire-- how long did it take, tell me how you got started, and really diving into their learnings and failures. What you’ll likely find: it takes longer to achieve something really big!  I know, in today’s social-media overloaded world, it looks like everyone just hit a homerun right away! But don’t be so superficial. The failed ones, you never hear about. So when you look around and see only success, it’s because the ones that failed died quietly (and most likely, don’t want to brag about their failures).  So don’t be afraid, to build something great, and memorable like the Pyramids of Egypt! Remember: there’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears (read: sacrifice) that went into making something bigger than you are.

2) A career is not a straight or direct path

A career is something you direct, lead and steer.  Sometimes there are ups (promotions, raises!); and sometimes there are downs (layoffs, not job droughts).  Someone who has only struck homeruns is either (1) not talking about their failures and learnings in public (i.e. pushing it under the run) or; (2) had a lot of help in the background and is not owning up to the fact that they were given a leg up.  Expand your mind. Read biographies, do a deep dive on those success stories, especially reading between the lines. Even Steve Jobs (who people uphold as flipping the established norms on its back) had failure.  I recommend reading up on Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and her honest depiction of her ups and downs.  Throughout your life, you will experience things that you want to lean into and things that you decide aren’t a good fit for you. From these experiences and learnings, you should use them to shape as you define your next job.  

3) A successful career means you never stop learning, refining and pivoting. 

Imagine working from the time you’re 22 years old until 65 years old; that’s a staggering 43 years of work under your belt!  Hello to four decades of a career; literally a lifetime. The industry can literally evolve and change a thousand times over during that lifetime!  What does this mean for a successful career? Never, ever stop learning, growing and pivoting. Pay attention to the changing industry trends (read up on articles, talk to your peers, talk to people across similar industries.  As the software changes, as the best practices evolve, as the demand ebbs and flows -- make sure you’re on the greener pastures side (always)! You don’t want to be left holding the back, and *gasp* in a completely outdated role, job and/or skill set!  That would cause you to have dreaded job drought where you’ll have to either (1) be bitter that your role was made moot, and fume about the changing industry and times; or (2) you can pick up you face, and learn new skills that are actually relevant for the here and now -- and apply for a new job or role (and yes, you may have to start at the bottom if it’s a major career change).   Don’t be left starting at the bottom rung. For example, one retail company I worked for made a majority of their revenue from their box-and-mortar retail stores. However, ecommerce was taking off; but they refused to invest and follow the consumer. Several years later - they declared bankruptcy! Don’t be like them (stuck in their old ways) and missing the ecommerce boat. Always make sure that you’re going above and beyond.  If your work has a new software, program, way of working -- make sure you fully embrace it! Don’t be left in the dust. If there’s one thing being in my 30s has taught me, it’s that the more I learn, the more I realize the less I know. And this has been very humbling and has caused me to ask more questions and stay curious as I get older! I love learning new things and guessing what the next “hot thing” is. Do the same for your career.  Make sure you’re paying attention to the next hot thing.  

Share more experience, questions, comments and/or stories of your own: email me (I love hearing from you!).