Last year I was fortunate enough to make a drastic change and reset my work life after almost 6 months of seeking out a passionate and meaningful calling. I love to write and share, an have been fascinated by the creation and uncovering of latent value achieved by entrepreneurs.

While I work part time at my old position (they want my effort full time for the next few weeks and I'm torn between getting paid now or pushing a project further faster). I really could use the extra capital short term to help wedding costs next year and the nascent startup. As long as I am strict with the duration of my full time return I see it as a viable option.

Poignant post to where I'm at now. Best of luck to us all in finding a path that is powered forward by our inspiration, interest and passion.

Seventh popular post down, 8/10

Last year I was fortunate enough to make a drastic change and reset my work life after almost 6 months of seeking out a passionate and meaningful calling. I love to write and share, an have been fascinated by the creation and uncovering of latent value achieved by entrepreneurs.

While I work part time at my old position (they want my effort full time for the next few weeks and I'm torn between getting paid now or pushing a project further faster). I really could use the extra capital short term to help wedding costs next year and the nascent startup. As long as I am strict with the duration of my full time return I see it as a viable option.

Poignant post to where I'm at now. Best of luck to us all in finding a path that is powered forward by our inspiration, interest and passion.

Seventh popular post down, 8/10

As always, an elegant idea. I had a thought motivated by this idea of “climbing up the wrong hill,” as I've been involved in some startups (and a big one right now), one of my advisers said something that struck me: He said, “Hey, make sure you're seen as the glue, not a lego.” He was implying that b/c I'm around a lot of scientists, and technologists, etc. that people with more general skills and backgrounds need to make sure they are seen as vital to the connective tissue of the enterprise–and not as an interchangeable part.

Let's say the person you're dating isn't your soulmate – you're not going to spend forever together and get married. So why stay together? It's the local maxima thing again — it beats being single! But like staying at a bad fitting job, it harms you because you're wasting your time climbing the wrong hill.

Jonathan

P.S. Have you read Steve Pavlina's “why you should never get a job?” http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-rea… — makes some really good points about how trading your time for money doesn't scale and will rarely make you rich. You need to take risks and get ownership.

Secondly, implicit in this decision making is that grabbing the short term carrot of getting higher now increases the stick – the “hill-switching costs” longer term. So what is one already on a wrong hill to do? Interestingly, an INSEAD professor published a paper a while back “how to stay stuck in the wrong career” http://www.insead.edu/alumni/newsletter/january… exploring this very issue. To steal her thunder and to save you reading time – not surprisingly she found the probability of hill jumping decreases the further up the wrong hill people get. For those who do jump abruptly the chances of recovery, assuming a multi-hill environment, are rather slim. It is the ones who undertake experiments, to continue the analogy – parachuting on various hills for a week-end hike – who are most successful in hill-switching.

I still recruit from universities and I'll be sure to point to your post when I ask students “What do you want to do?” so we can have a genuine, thoughtful discussion about it.

The finance industry seems like a very big deal right now, but before the industry blow-up last September, I had no idea how much the investment bankers were making, (and I don't think the other people that graduated with me did either).

I would have also said that what you might find behind the closed doors of the finance world was a complete mystery. Also the few investment bankers I met while I was going to school seemed utterly miserable. Tech seemed way more real. The idea of putting together a circuit or an electro-mechanical assembly felt more tangible.

In retrospect I wish I had known a little more about finance, and investment is definitely interesting in its own right, but I am glad that I chose to continue with robotics. Our own biases probably clouded the information that was available to us on alternate career choices for a reason I suppose.

This doesn't solve the inherent problem. How do I, nice student girl, who has 3 months left of classes in a non technical major, and suddenly realized this is where my life is going, get there. There are a number comments here about being sidetracked. Beyond these posts (which are really helpful), what steps do you take? That's hard. I don't know. What would that powerpoint look like?

Your made a great point of adding randomness to one's career. I think in today's world, career paths are becoming less and less linear. Focus on what you like to do, give 100% in your current job, and it'll take care of the rest. No need to worry too much about your next career move. It'll come if you're enjoying your current job and doing a great job.

The conversation on this blog is better everyday!
Cheers,
Ryan