Tag Archives: create your future

“The future is not something we enter.  The future is something we create.”  (Leonard Sweet)

I have worked for more than 30 companies.  Each one could have been a new career.  Okay, so I was 12 when I got my first newspaper delivery job, but I could have kept at it. I could have become a delivery supervisor or a reporter.  My job as a movie theater usher could have led to a lifetime working as a theater manager. I could have gone back and gotten my MS or PhD in Geology.  I could have worked my way back onto the remaining oil rigs after 3/4 of them were shut down in one month, and continued there.  Instead, I got into computers.

The job world really does reward you for your experience and what you persist in.

Shrinking and growing happens in all industries.  After each war, as the military shrinks, generals become colonels and majors.  Most officers just leave the military. Patton and Eisenhower took demotions after the first world war. They stayed with their beloved career.  They rose again.

Dot.com turned into dot.bomb in 2001. 2002 saw thousands of computer pro’s unemployed. That changed. In February 2006 more US workers were into computers than there were working with computers at the peak of the dot.com boom.  Persistence during the bad times has created a lot of opportunities.

One friend of mine sold a computer company for millions.  Then he lost all that money in Enron and other bad investments.  So he retrained in VB.Net and took a job for $24,000 per year.  A year and a half later he was earning $70,000 per year.  He has another company doing amazing things for the iPhone now.

If you are in a field you love and are willing to roll with the good times and endure the bad, you will be able to stay in that field.  Your pay may vary from great to poor, but in the end you create your future.

Industry hopping and career changes aren’t bad if you are still looking for your love.  If you have found your love, embed yourself within that industry.  You may have to switch companies and jobs, but let your experience build until people look at you and say, “We have to hire him, he’s worth two of anyone else.”

Something to do today

Learn more and do more if you want to stay in your industry. Be a ball of enthusiasm and a tower of dedication.

If you don’t want to stay in your industry, get into a new one NOW.

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