Best Advice: Say Yes

I was reading an article in the Atlantic this weekend that basically stated that the advice about "finding your passion" is really awful advice, and laughed out loud when I read the opening:

"Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, remembers asking an undergraduate seminar recently, “How many of you are waiting to find your passion?”

“Almost all of them raised their hand and got dreamy looks in their eyes,” she told me. They talked about it “like a tidal wave would sweep over them,” he said. Sploosh. Huzzah! It’s accounting!"

I speak to at least one entry-level person at IBM per week in a career or networking conversation - often, 5-6 - and I could wax poetic about this concept. It seems like many of the people that I talk to are waiting to stumble into their passion area and expect that they will go to a consulting project and *poof!* it will appear to them that testing (or requirements gathering, or scrum-mastering, or doing change management) will be their passion -- or that they will fall in love with one of our industry (sports and entertainment) or solution offerings (mobile, salesforce). Many, then, are disillusioned with the reality of working - which is that there are exciting and less exciting things about every project and that you have to trudge through the grunt work to see the light of the exciting things. 

Likewise, I get often get emails stating that people would love to help me with "give back" - a kind of buzz word for the working world, akin to extracurricular activities in school; but then they realize that these "give back" activities are often nights, weekends, and/or quick turn arounds that really aren't quite as exciting as they originally thought (often formatting, proof reading, or research).

This all brings me to my best advice -- that is in line with what the authors of this article suggest -- say yes. to everything. even - especially - when it may not seem like something that excites you.

Very few people enter consulting with any real understanding of our business, what we do, what our client's business challenges are, or the nitty gritty of how you get work done. Accordingly, what may seem like the coolest, sexiest work ever is hard to get assigned to because the business puts the best, most trusted people on these projects - and so you have to prove yourself as the best or most trusted to do it. 

The best way to become that best or most trusted person? Practice. Doing the work. Proving yourself to the leaders who do that work. Showing that you can be trusted with small things. Over. and Over. and Over. and Over. and Over again.

Likewise, the best way to learn about our business, what we do, our client's business challenges? Practice. Doing the work. etc. etc. etc.

For me, I've been really amazed at how the things that I've worked on that I thought would never have relevance to me in the future but that I was just "helping" on or "being a good sport" have come full circle and been hugely beneficial to me later in my career. For example, I spent 1 year on a project converting accounts out of a legacy application widely used in utilities called MV-90, that I thought would largely be useless because of the age of the system and how most utilities are really looking to move out of it. However, through that work I gained a very solid understanding of the B2B relationship in utilities as well as metering data structures and data flows that has been hugely beneficial to me on a number of other projects since. Likewise, on that project, I was able to have my first role as a team lead because of my knowledge of the client and the type of work we were doing.

The article posits: "Passions aren’t “found,” they argue. They’re developed."

I couldn't agree more. I have always felt that it's not about finding your dream job - it's about creating a dream job for yourself through iterating through different challenges and continuing to focus on working on topics you enjoy with people whom you enjoy.

... And, the best advice I can give to someone in order to do that is the same advice that I received: Say Yes.