The Agile Career Path - Day 27

Agile is a big word these days. It's used alot in marketing circles. One must be agile to keep up with the pace of things. Be able to course correct in real time. Take advantage of breaking news and use it newsjack our way to earned media. Reappropriate a budget on a moment's notice.

In other words - just because we had a plan for the next year or two or three - if we want to stay relevant we need to be able to react to changing circumstances on a dime.

Same holds true for our careers. 

It used to be we picked a major in college, got a degree and thought our life path would be linear until retirement. But nothing is linear anymore. Not the consumer cycle or our career. 

I went from teaching seventh graders to selling radio ads to television to entrepreneurship, writing books, blogging, consulting and teaching - again. 

I'm not sure where my circuitous path will take me next. 

But what I am sure is that as long as I stay agile and open and remember that every step and misstep is serving me - I'll know where it is when I get there. 


note: This is Day #27 of the 30 Day Experiment.   Here are the details on how it all started.

Wasting Time - Day 10

I hate wasting time. The older I get the more I hate it. I’m far too aware that I just don’t have as much of it left as I used to. So to waste it - to not to make the most of each and every moment - to me that’s worse than wasting money on that very expensive hand painted tuxedo shirt I bought in Aspen one winter twenty odd years ago and wore only once. Money you can always figure out a way to make more of. But time. You can’t get that back.

As the author of a book on the subject, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life, you might think I never commit this crime. But I do. And when I think over the past five years I admit readily that I have most definitely wasted a bunch of time.

Like when I was waiting for The Book Deal. The one every writer dreams of - or at least used to dream of - back when you didn’t have to commit some obscenely outrageous act or become a reality star, to be deemed worthy of a coveted deal from a Big Six - I mean Big 5 Publisher.

I waited and waited. I was that sure it would happen. I just didn’t know where or when.

But as we know, it didn’t happen. When I knew I couldn’t waste one more minute waiting to get picked, I picked myself and self-published, The Secrets They Kept.

I think sometimes of how much further along I would have been if I had made that decision earlier. If I hadn’t been wasting time waiting for outside validation that I was a good enough writer to be read. 

But of course that is the biggest waste of time of all! 

The truth is alot of really great things happened because of that waiting. 

I would never have started to blog and learn about things like Twitter and Facebook. I wouldn't have self-published which really forced me to take a very deep dive into all things digital. I wouldn't have taken all those courses and attended conferences and discovered people like Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott who reminded me how much I love marketing and left me qualified to teach a class in digital marketing at NYU. I wouldn't be consulting and demystifying digital for individuals and organizations.

So I suppose I was never really wasting time at all. I was just getting prepared for what was next. I just didn't yet know what that was going to look like.


note: This is Day #10 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

The Experiment

I am about to celebrate the five year anniversary of my divorce from nine to five corporate life. Yes, you read that right. Five years!

It’s causing me to reflect. On many things. Including this blog which has not been getting the attention it needs and deserves.

While I aspire to be as prolific as Seth Godin and share something here every day - I don’t.  It seems as though while my life has expanded exponentially to include teaching and coaching and consulting, my energies have been dispersed. For a reason I cannot yet explain, it’s taken me away from what my initial intention was when creating this blog. To write. About what I see, what I think and what I feel. And to share it.

So I have decided in honor of this upcoming landmark event to launch an experiment. Beginning today for thirty days, I am going to post every day. It’s something I’ve never done but have always wanted to.

Thirty was a number I chose, for no other reason than it felt right. I’ve since been informed that thirty days is the amount of time needed to commit to something in order for a shift to occur.

A shift. That’s what I’m after.

You should know I’m doing this for very selfish reasons. The most important being a desire for clarity. You see everything feels like it’s falling into place - but I’m still not sure. And for me writing is about more than the joy I feel from the possibility I might entertain my readers, offer some insight or inspire them to try something new. It’s about me being able to breathe. I write because I have to. Because I need to. Because it is my passion at the core of all my other passions.

Like the very first post I wrote here on November 18, 2008 - I have no idea exactly what I will be writing for the next month. It might stay on target with what I have been writing - but there are no promises. I may lose readers. I may gain some. But again - the person I am doing this for the most is me. Which as a marketer might sound contrary to what I “should” do. But like I said - this is merely an experiment.

p.s I’ll be looking for inspiration. So if you have a question for me that you’d like answered, leave it in the comments section and I’ll do my best to serve something up.

pps. If you don’t already subscribe to my blog and would like all thirty days of blogging to be delivered by email, you can sign up here. 

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