Reinventing Yourself: Lessons from a Career Path

A story I’ve heard (I don’t know how true it is) involves Albert Einstein.

When someone would praise him for the work he did in physics. Or point out the contributions he made to science, he’d just shake his head.

He’d tell that person, “You have me all wrong. I’m not a great scientist. I’m a great violinist.”

He’d then produce an old newspaper clipping that told how he gave a performance that wowed the audience.

Asking about career plans is a little like what Einstein said. I think he’d have agreed with my Grandpa. Grandpa always said, “Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” There’s a profound difference between doing what you’re meant to do vs what you’re doing.

So, looking back, I’ve changed career paths several times. I was born a cowboy. I did a very brief stint as a professional astronomer (I drew a paycheck for being a telescope jockey). Then I spent years in Law Enforcement. I was a soldier. And now I work IT.

But to me, those aren’t careers. Those are what I was doing at the time. And life has taught me one thing. Life doesn’t have a road map.

You can plan and take a step down a path, only to have the rug pulled out from under you. There’s twists, turns, bumps and potholes. There’s plenty of dead ends. You just have to keep moving. And if you find yourself back at the starting line, that’s cool.

It’s happened to me a dozen times.

What’s important is to have the ability to reinvent yourself. And that’s where education comes in. It’s nice to be able to get a degree in something, but is that all you are? My degree is in Astronomy and Physics, but that doesn’t define everything I can do.

It gave me an education to ask questions and figure out the answers. That’s an ability that has served me well for years.

Now, I’m reinventing myself again. I’m trying to become a full-time professional author. As a self-published writer, that means I’m learning a couple of things:

• Learn grammar. Yes, I took English in high school (4 years of it) and a year in college. After all that, I walked away and figured if I don’t know what an adverb is yet, I never will. There’s times I wished I hadn’t had that attitude. I’m still addicted to commas and “ly” words. I end sentences with prepositions. So, I read books. I study sentence structure. It’s a battle between telling a story and telling a great story. I want to tell “Great Stories.”
• Marketing. As a self-published author, I get to do this myself. Oddly, even “Paid” writers complain about this. Unless you’re a very well-known author, very little is spent in selling you. You still get to do that. Marketing invariably costs at least some money. When that’s limited, you have to get creative. Being creative sometimes only takes you so far. I read about what a lot of other authors have done. I’ve found that what works well for one author, might not work at all for another. Just keep trying.
• Writing as a Business. This seems to be the piece I have the least problems with. But for a lot of writers, it’s a problem. They want to write, to create. They have no time for the nickels, dimes, and pennies of running a business. But God forbid you ever start making money. It’s as simple as this. Unless you’ve got people who will run you as a business, then it’s up to you to do so. And you will need to pay taxes on your nickels, dimes, and pennies. And that’s when it becomes important to run it like a business. If you don’t treat yourself as a business, neither will the IRS. So learn it. I do that every day.
• Stay in the Saddle. I think this is what makes or breaks an author. You have to remember why you’re doing this. Are you doing it to get rich? Probably won’t happen. Are you doing it get attention. Probably will happen, but it might be the negative kind. Are you doing this because you have a story to tell? If you like telling stories and are willing to improve your craft, you might make it. But you have to keep trying. I remind myself of that every day.

One other thing I look at career wise. The clock is ticking. I’m writing a series of blogs on my experiences in the Gulf War. I look at the hundreds of pictures I took during that war. I see faces. Young faces. They were all kids back then.

But I know life has moved on for them. Many are in their fifties, some even in their sixties.

I look at the pictures and wonder what happened. Time is what happened. We each have a finite amount of that. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. There is no reclaiming it.

One fine day we’ll each face a common day. We’ll see a final sunrise, a final sunset. And on that day, what will we say? That we made it or at least tried.

Or will our final words be “What if . . .”

Make it or crash and burn, I’d rather have my final words be “It was fun!”