On Taking Your Own Advice

My friend Noel Rozny wrote about getting out of your comfort zone on this blog in September, and I have taken her advice.

A couple of months ago I took a job, which is why you haven’t heard from me in some time. I wasn’t looking for a job—I have a fulfilling practice advising young adults on finding their careers, so working for a company was not something that was on my radar.

But a few years back, when I was interviewing Gen Y’s for my as yet to be published career book, I interviewed someone who became very instrumental in my work life.

She’s 20 years my junior, and we are very different but also share similar ways of working. We both enjoy being in a fast-paced environment where the rewards can be measured. And we like closing the deal. Since she knew that we shared those work values, when she took a job at an amazing education technology startup, she invited me to join her team. And so here I am, a couple of months later, enjoying the work and the group of young colleagues on the team. And the job makes a great counterpoint to my career work while also keeping me limber and fresh.

The first few weeks of this job were quite tough. I was unaccustomed to having my performance measured in target leads, and I had to get up to speed on a bunch of new processes. At first I felt like a bit of a dinosaur, since I am significantly older than most people at the company.

But now I’ve hit my stride and I’m really enjoying the work and the camaraderie. And since I’ve been working with this age group now for quite awhile, and it is my chosen client age group, I find I can fit in pretty well, even when, from time to time, they get me to join in karaoke until 2 am!