Advice
At every stop in my military and business career, someone up my chain of command gave me at some particular time that very much appreciated and very timely career advice. Typically, that advice was a clear path and plan. Always, it was the traditional requirements to achieve the oh so normal but highly sought after career progression.
If I had followed their advice, lots of things would never have happened:
- I wouldn’t have married my wife because I wouldn’t have gone back home for training at the base where I grew up
- I wouldn’t have traveled the world doing technical evaluations of communications systems because I wouldn’t have gone to the base I chose for my first assignment
- I wouldn’t have been the youngest officer in communications at the Pentagon because I would have gotten a degree instead that I never would have enjoyed getting
- I wouldn’t have served in the space launch business and had more fun than anyone ever should be allowed to have because instead I would have been doing the traditional communications job at a next-stop-on-the-career-ladder base
- I wouldn’t have gone to school at just the right time for just the right mental recovery before doing that next challenging thing
- I wouldn’t have served at the White House and experienced three years of the highest pucker factor anyone could ever want to experience
- I wouldn’t have left the active Air Force and entered business to follow my entrepreneurial instincts
- I wouldn’t have started my own company and led teams around the world during the intense and incredibly exciting build out of the internet
- I wouldn’t have sold out and jumped to a Silicon Valley start up and then shared the struggle of a post 9/11 startup
- I wouldn’t have leaped at the chance to be a CEO of an “on the verge of something big” small company and challenged a team to make it bigger, faster than anyone could ever expect
Advice is certainly important, but advice should never be construed as direction. If that advice perfectly fits your passion, then jump on it. If instead that advice causes you great pause rather than instant excitement, thank the advisor profusely and follow your heart.
I did.
And I still smile at who I met and what I did on that road that all my advisors said not to take!