By Lisa Hochgraf
An email I got from LinkedIn awhile back caught my attention because it was about the "best career mistake Deepak Chopra and others have made." I like Chopra, author of such best-selling books as "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success," so I read on.
According to his LinkedIn article, Chopra made his best career "mistake" when he was a young doctor. He quit a top medical team in a not-fully-polite way. However, by "ruining" his career in endocrinology, he opened himself up for a different and very successful alternative future. Here's what he says in his LinkedIn article about all this:
"I soon started 'moonlighting' in an emergency room, where I started to observe not only the physical trauma of my patients, but their mental anguish. I started to write about their experiences and that started my career in integrative medicine and also as a writer."
My personal best career mistake was totally, totally, totally biffing the phone screen for a first job in my chosen field of journalism. I hung up and hung my head.
My husband said, "Call back! What do you have to lose?" I rang back, apologized, and landed the interview--and later my first job in my field (as the editorial assistant at Dane County, Wisconsin's In Business magazine). I later become the de facto editor of that magazine, a successful free-lance writer and then a long-time editor for CUES' Credit Union Management magazine.
That experience has stuck with me, and many times in my work as an editor, I have given something a second shot, just to see what good might come of it.
What was the best career mistake you've made? What came of it?
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
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