Great jobs sometimes come after a lot of hard work.
By Lisa Hochgraf
Last week my 11-year-old was worried about what job he would have in the future. In addition to telling him that he had some time to figure things out, I suggested that typical career paths are a bit more windy than just deciding on a career and then making it happen. Over the holidays, I read Yes, Please! by comedienne Amy Poehler, famous from her time on "Saturday Night Live" and "Parks and Recreation." In the book, Poehler underscores the idea that careers aren't made in a moment, but rather from hard work and experiences along the way.
"Good or bad, the reality is most people become 'famous' or get 'great jobs' after a very, very long tenure shoveling sh** and not because they handed their script to someone on the street [who's famous and could help them]," she writes. "People still think they will be discovered in the malt shop, even though no one can tell you what a malt is anymore.
"Everyone wants to believe they will be the regular guy from Sioux City who becomes a reluctant movie star despite his best attempts to remain a sensitive tattoo artist," she continues. "People don't want to hear about the fifteen years of waiting tables and doing small shows with your friends until one of them gets a little more famous and they convince people to hire you and then you get paid and you work hard and spend time getting better and making more connections and friends.
"Booooring," she adds. "It's much more interesting to believe that every person who makes it in show business just wrote a check to their mother when they were eighteen for a million dollars with an instruction to 'cash in a year.'"
All joking aside, think about the people whose careers you aspire to. How did they get there? I told my son that before I became a long-time credit union editor, I spent a year as an exchange student in Spain, worked for the student newspaper on my college campus, helped deliver some of the first issues of The Onion and edited a business magazine in Dane County, Wisconsin. What are the stepping stones you've had in your career path? Did you just hand your script to someone famous and ask for help? Or did you have to work hard and learn along the way? Please tell your story in the comments.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES senior editor. CUES Elite Access: Leadership Brand and Shadow starts in May. It is offered virtually and in partnership with Cornell University. CUES strategic provider DDJ Myers offers executive coaching.
