“Man is without a doubt the most interesting fool there is.” ~ Mark Twain
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my conversation with Brian that involved the futility of living on a ledge. At the time, I thought the name of that ledge was the job that I currently have that pays my bills and makes the financing of all of my personal projects possible. That job had grown stale and boring to me. I felt like time was slipping away from me in a wasteful way and so I decided to look around, up and away from my current job and on to new pastures.
As it turned out, I was on a very different ledge. I was offered the opportunity to move on to a new company. I was all set to take it though the offer was not exactly what I had expected. The title of the job had changed, as had the compensation, and there was a sticky direct report situation to deal with that was created by potential future boss. I was asked to share the burden of cleaning up the mess left behind. I didn’t know what to do, so I paused and consulted. I am blessed with an incredible inner circle of loyal, honest, and exceedingly brilliant friends. I contacted a number of them with my conundrum.
The advice was split down the middle: some felt I should absolutely jump to the new role; others had a truly visceral action to my potential departure for this possibly greener pasture that wasn’t of my design. My friend, Susan, a career and personal branding guru, was an exceptionally shining voice. (Her book The Right Job, Right Now: The Complete Toolkit for Finding Your Perfect Career is literally my career bible.) She did something more than offer yes / no advice. She gave me a way to think about opportunities. She asked me to look at the job I wanted, not the options in front of me, and use that as my yardstick. Put another way, what mattered most was the life I imagined and wanted to live, not the opportunities created by others. I was looking in the wrong direction – outward instead of inward. The focus needs to be on the road I want to pave, not on the road that is laid out before me.
My friend, Lon, offered up sage advice as well. He’s had 34 years of Fortune 50 company experience. He has seen it all and then some. He cautioned against the sale pitch of the new job and asked me to truly see what was being masked. While I believe the new company had every wish of keeping my best intentions in mind, they are truthfully in a bind. They need me more than I need them, and I was not getting enough in return for my efforts.
The new job promised a review to change my title and salary in 6 months. Lon reminded me that promises are empty until fulfilled, no matter how earnestly they are initially crafted. People are fickle; they change their minds so all we can truly know are their current words and actions. Now is certain; later is all guesswork, no matter how educated those guesses may be. Lon helped me to see that the ledge I had really been on the well-paved and traveled road built by someone else. The courageous jump I’ve been looking for starts by using the fuel I have in my current job to get me to a new place of my own making.
I received loads of other phenomenal advice from friends and colleagues and I plan to reveal the nuggets of wisdom from each one, paying tribute to each friend, in my posts this week and next. They will be as helpful to you as they were to me. I call out Lon and Susan in this post because their advice hangs together so well, and reminded me so much of advice (and foreshadowing!) that I received 4 years ago from my then-boss and forever-mentor, Bob G. I’ve detailed it before in other posts, but it bears repeating: the difference of my generation to earlier generations is that we will bet on ourselves, not companies, to make our careers.
I didn’t believe Bob at the time. I had never thought of myself as an entrepreneur; I didn’t yet know that I wanted to be at the helm. I thought I needed others to design the structure of my career. I didn’t yet know my ability and desire to craft and design; Bob did and it is his advice, like Susan’s and Lon’s, that I will never forget and always be grateful for.
Christa Avampato 