Firestarter

About 3 weeks ago a friend texted me while I was at the gym post-work, saying very vaguely that there was something going on with work that I would want to know about right away. Caught off guard, I headed back to the office to see if anyone was there but it was deserted. A few minutes later I bailed on the office and met my friend on the streets below to find out what was going on.

The horse you rode in on

I've posted on risk-taking and probability a couple of times. There was actually a pretty heavy dose of chance in ending up with the job that I have right now (fits in well with Nassim Taleb's Black Swan theory). When I first noticed on my college's job search engine that the firm was recruiting with on-campus interviews, the schedule for interviews was already booked and after reading the description I promptly forgot about it. I happened to log back into the job search engine the day before the interviews were supposed to occur to check on something else totally unrelated and noticed that the very first interview slot at the overachieving rooster call crack of dawn had opened up, probably from someone having accepted another offer. I took the spot, got the job, and the rest is a pretty lengthy but for the most part awesome work in progress. Some journeys begin with a single small accident.

And that's where you come in

After talking with my friend, things moved quickly. A promotion, a massive resume builder for someone under 30 with only a couple of years of experience. The headline numbers were a major career booster.

It's easy to gamble when you've got nothing to lose. But the other time to gamble is when things are going your way. Grab the dice, throw them against the back wall, and hope you hit your number. It's when things are going your way that it's easiest to get stuck in the comfort zone. Bad things happen, like falling in love with your paycheck. Or your career takes over and defines your overall identity. And maybe you even stop growing.

You're fooling yourself if you think you can control or even understand everything, but overall it's pretty hard to underestimate your own ability to make something happen. The easiest way to pillage a comfort zone is to set yourself up for failure. I'm not just talking about your career, I'm talking about everything - relationships, your fitness, your happiness. And you should expect to fail, and often. Even more strongly, you should expect to overcome those failures. Learn everything you can, try everything you can, and don't apologize to yourself for mistakes. When it comes to people, paradigm shifts are gradual. In the end you'll be able to look back and see it as leveraging success into newer and better things.

Make yourself

You should make amends with you
If only for better health
But if you really want to live, Why not try, and Make yourself?