Career Choices – Careful Who You Talk to

When I was in high school and considering careers, I seriously considered going into medicine.  I had a really good friend whose father was a doctor so I asked if I could talk to him.  If I recall correctly one of the first things he said to me was that I would have to accept that I would not make money for ten years.  Interestingly I do not recall him talking about the work at all.

Later I discovered he was not happy practicing medicine as a family doctor in a small town.  In hindsight I should have talked to the most respected doctor in town or at least my parent's good friend who I think was happy in his job.

These days we make career changes much more frequently and in choosing our direction we must be careful who we talk to.  

in ontrast to my story, my daughter wanted to be a doctor and was invited by the medical examiner, who was the father of a friend, to watch an autopsy.   I asked how she like it and she said "It was amazing.  We finally found he had a blocked artery."   I asked if the smell bothered her and she said "It wasn't that bad."

She is now a fabulous family doctor that is loved by her patients.   In fact she almost did not get accepted into to med school but she was determined.     

Speaking of changing direction, at one stage I decided I wanted to into strategy work rather than IT work.  I teamed up with a very knowledgable strategy consultant and learned tons.  However he was more academic than a business fellow.   After looking for business in strategy work I realized that I should not turned my back on the IT clients.  I then did IT strategy work and made a very successful transition.  My lessons from that was do not turn your back on your strengths but use them in the transition.

Three stories with diffferent endings but lessons in each one.