How to Build a Job-Resilient Career While Pursuing Your Passion
By Walter Rodriguez, M.Arch., Ph.D., C.G.C., P.E.
Why did I become interested in career development? As you will quickly find out, I have failed many (many, many, many) times along my career path—before eventually fulfilling my passion for writing, teaching, designing & building things (i.e., minimalistic homes*, engaging courses, research papers, apps UI/UX, etc.)
So I thought what if there is a better, faster path to reach our career goals? There is. And I hope this blog will help you learn from the collective wisdom of career professionals. And also wish these notes will assist you to chart a better career path—faster.
*Sustainable, Minimalistic home-office in Naples. Florida
Yes, we believe you can map out a better career (Kalish, A. 2020) path by learning from experience and research in the career development field (Simmons U. 2020). And along the way, you can also learn by modeling productive behaviors while avoiding unproductive habits (Covey, S.R. 1994).
Further, you don’t have to limit yourself to one particular work activity since you already have multiple interests, abilities, and strengths. It’s a matter of discovery.
“The phrase all roads lead to Rome means that there are various ways to reach a conclusion, many ways to achieve a goal, and many routes to arrive at a decision. The idea is that there are many methods to accomplish something, all leading to the same result.” (Grammarist 2020)
Like the phrase “all roads lead to Rome” there are indeed many ways to succeed in your desired career path. But I believe there is a way to get there a bit faster, as I indicated earlier.
Besides you “can expect to change jobs and professions multiple times” and your “career path will no longer follow a simple ‘learn-to-work’’ trajectory, as Heather E. McGowan, co-author of ‘The Adaptation Advantage,’ likes to say, but rather a path of ‘work-learn-work-learn-work-learn.” (Friedman, T.L. 2020).
First, let’s quickly discuss the modeling of very (very, very, very) successful individuals like Steve Jobs.
As you probably know, Apple’s Founder Steve Jobs (2011-11-04) was able to successfully pursue his passion for the arts, humanities, calligraphy (Chokshi., N. 2016), minimalism, and aesthetics by applying some of its design principles (Reid, M. 2019) to user-interface/user-experience (UI/UX), proportionally spaced fonts, typography, software application development, and computer hardware innovation (Isaacson, W. 2011, Zell J. 2020.) What was Jobs’ mindset? He wanted to think differently or out-of-the-box, as shown in the quote below.
“... technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.””
I am fairly sure that if you ask a friend, teacher, advisor, or mentor: "What type of career should I pursue?" they might respond, "follow your passion," or "find what makes you happy," or "follow your calling." And they may even recommend asking yourself: "Is it even possible to make a living from the thing that I am most passionate about?" (O'Brian, S., 2019).
In my career experience, we should instead ask ourselves: "What are my strengths** as a verb?" Or, you may try to identify the kinds of things you are good at or what you may become good at with reasonable effort? For instance, you might be very good at creating, designing, memorizing, observing, solving, making, writing, reading, quantifying, cooking, gaming, playing, drawing, teaching, socializing, meditating, or caring, managing, coordinating, policing, leading, joking, engaging, farming, planting, etc. Answering “What are my strengths** as a verb” will help us become aware of our strengths without having to name a specific career or profession (i.e., architect, engineer, designer, writer, teacher, contractor, nurse, physician, social worker, manager, technologist, programmer, accountant, carpenter, chef, etc. )
[**Note: “Strengths’ Awareness” is part of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis technique (Schooley, S. 2019), as we will see later, in our free “AI/Managerial Strategy” course. To log in, send a request to walter@coursewell.com]
Then, based on identifying your strengths as a verb, you may ask: Can I develop a passion for an in-demand career (or a unique entrepreneurial opportunity) to maximize my opportunities for success?
If you don't yet have the skillsets or, better yet, the mindset for a specific field you want to pursue, you may ask: Do I have the perseverance and motivation to learn and eventually master an in-demand field (or an entrepreneurial niche opportunity)? Ultimately, that might be the best question to ask! Do you agree? If not, please post a rebuttal in the comment section of this blog.
As a Forbes author indicated:
“Instead of looking towards the things you are passionate about, think instead about the things you are good at. What skills do you have? What kind of work do you enjoy doing? What type of job do you think you’d be good at? What motivates you? Think about the people you admire professionally, whether you know them personally or not. Then ask yourself what it is about them that you admire and is that something that you could emulate?
If you focus on your strengths and what you know you can do well, rather than what you are passionate about, you’ll end up with a much more realistic and achievable goal or plan for success.”
— Forbes, accessed January 31, 2019.
Of course, we know that Apple’s founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, successfully pursued his passion for the arts, design, and later on: technological innovation. Do you think he is the exception or the norm? To participate, please post your answer on this forum.
Can you research how some well-known individuals (like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) attained success in their business careers? Please post your findings in the blog comments.
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Here is another anecdote from my personal experience: I have been asking the above career questions to my students for many years. I don’t know why—perhaps, I was still trying to find my own path before I learned it’s a process.
In my career development research, I found a “methodology” that you may use to build a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion—regardless of your background, credentials, or work experience. Of course, I will continue proving some of my own experience. The advantage of listening to my story is that I was an average student from high-school until I graduated with my first bachelor’s degree. And I found that it took a unique opportunity, a bit of curiosity, and lots of persistence to succeed in my desired career.
But as I admitted earlier: I failed many times before eventually fulfilling my passion for writing, teaching, designing & building things (i.e., homes, webpages, applications, mousetraps***). [If you are curious about the better mousetrap*** thing, you can Google Scholar "Rodriguez, W. The Modeling of Design Ideas” (1992).]
Humbly, I am afraid to say: “I believe I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, but there are more mountains to climb.” And again, I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career experience, failures, and successes.
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As a young child, I had an inkling for drawing houses. I would walk to a residential construction site in my neighborhood and visualize what the house would look like when completed. So I thought I had a natural aptitude for drawing and even designing homes.
I decided that I would be an architect, and an engineer, and a home builder in my teen years—yes, all of them! But I had no idea how to get started in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction field. One of my uncles was a civil engineer that was designing houses (rather than designing building structures or roads) since there were no architects or residential designers in my hometown.
Interestingly, he drew the residential plans for the first house I remember living in for many of my preteen years. When I was ready to go to college, I went to him to ask for advice, but he had gone to serve in the USA military, and later on, I sadly found out that he had died as a consequence of a head injury.
I felt sad for many months, not knowing how to react or what to do. I had lost both my uncle and my potential mentor. I should have kept looking for an advisor or mentor but unfortunately, I didn’t.
Eventually, I was encouraged by my parents and friends to move on. And I decided to honor my uncle’s memory and continue pursuing my desired career with more determination than ever! Unfortunately, there were no architecture programs on the tropical USA island where I was growing up. So, I decided to become a civil engineer since there was an engineering school about 20 miles from my home. I registered in the program and moved to the campus facilities. But my first semester was an academic disaster. Simply put, I didn't possess the STEM or mathematical background needed to succeed in a highly technical field. That year I joined the military (the Air National Guard — training during weekends) since it allowed me a small stipend to continue my engineering studies.
The next year, after my first-year academic failure, I decided to stay home and travel to the courses I had not had to drop. I considered changing fields, but I would lose my financial assistance and disappoint my parents, who had to make some financial sacrifices to pay tuition and board.
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In this “Build a Job-Resilient Career” blog series, I will be drawing on a wealth of data, information, knowledge, business intelligence, and the wisdom of successful working professionals. As we move forward, I will refer to peer-reviewed research and articles on the “career development” subject.
As earlier, I will be sharing a bit of my personal journey on the path of career self-discovery and eventual mastery. Like many job-seekers, admittedly, my career starting knowing virtually nothing about what “building a successful career” would entail—particularly for someone from very humble origins in a poverty-stricken US territory—in terms of goal-setting, self-assessment, SWOT analysis, responsibility, motivation, education, training, branding, quality-standards, connections, networking, resumes, internships, apprenticeships, and mentors.
Yes, like in business, I think that there is critically important to position yourself for building a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion. At this point, I recommend joining my free “AI Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy” course at Coursewell.com to get started on your journey. Of course, please read on and continue seeking advice from career professionals or join one of the many online in-demand programs in the country.
“Steve Jobs did it. So can you, and here is how!”
— Walter Rodriguez, Ph.D., P.E., CLO, Adaptiva Corp
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Like present times, I grew up in a couple of uncertain and challenging decades. And, honestly, it was a bit chaotic. But, fortunately, a caring environment. My loving parents had no formal education beyond basic public-schooling (what was called at the time “normal” or “basic” schooling—something resembling a bit less than a current high-school diploma.) To wit, my father had to take a “high-school” equivalency exam to qualify as a public servant (i.e., police detective). He had to take several times to pass. But he was motivated and resilient. Not knowing better, each time he took the exam, he would try to memorize the questions that he had wrong until he eventually passed the exam. [Later on, he became a successful insurance salesman.] At the time, my mother had self-study to take and pass the “normal teaching” certificate to work in elementary rural schools.
Like perhaps many of you, I didn’t have an advisor or mentor to guide me throughout my “career development process.” Therefore, I ended up making lots of wrong decisions and career mistakes along the way. But intuitively, I knew that I was on the wrong path and needed to take action.
After a one-year dead-end, a low-paying job as a civil servant (building permits official), I discovered that seeking my career objective at the time (i.e., architectural design) didn’t necessarily lead to a life of deprivation and sacrifices for my family and me.
I decided that I could do better for my family and me by actually following my passion. I applied the principles of observation and curiosity. Simply put, I took the liberty of asking seemingly-wealthy individuals visiting the local building-permits’ office. “What do you do?” Eventually, I discovered a pattern: They were not following the “Path of the Calf.” (Sam Walter Foss, 1895). Like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they didn’t follow many of the traditional career paths at the time (i.e., engineer, lawyer, teacher) but rather developed their own way!
“One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migration of that calf,
And through this winding woody-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before we were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.”
— The Calf Path – Sam Walter Foss – 1895
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
— Steve Jobs
Although at the time I didn’t have my desired academic degree or architectural design credentials, I decided nevertheless to pursue a job in a newly developed Architecture & Planning firm by starting as a “professional delivery person” (now I might have been called an Amazon or UPS partner or Uber driver) between government permit approval offices, contractors and subcontractors. I ask one of the well-to-do folks who was bringing construction plans for reviewal and approval by the agency: Can I help link you link their A/E/C office’s clerical tasks (i.e., delivering plans for review). He invited me to lunch. And when I see him hesitate a bit I also offered to pre-review their construction plans and permits for free. And that he was going to be my Frank Louis Wright. That was the key to getting started in architecture and later complete my second, third, and fourth academic degrees and career certifications.
You got it: My career has been an on-the-job training while I was pursuing my credentials and certifications. And, as a consequence, that is the learning model we have developed at Coursewell.com: work-based courses.
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Lesson: Following your passion is doable if you can find the right role models and seek practical advice from people that have gone through the career path you envision. And, of course, you must be persistent, observant, and curious!
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Recap: I grew up in a fishing town on a USA Caribbean island, where none of the universities offered the academic program I wanted to pursue: architecture. So, I choose to study civil engineering rather than architecture—which didn’t make me very happy earl on. At the time, without resources, I couldn’t afford to move to the continental USA to pursue my dream career.
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Admittedly, for the last few decades, I have been studying self-help books --- as a way to improve both myself and my teaching and entrepreneurship career. In reading those books, I have learned "critical success factors (CSF) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI)" as well as the career skills necessary to succeed in both life and business.
From teaching and interacting with students at a 2-year public community college early in my teaching career; to teaching and research at Ivy graduate schools for several decades, I have learned seven (7) key career skills we need to succeed in the information age. Better yet, I also learned how to develop and teach those critical skills to my students. Below are the 7 key career skill that is essential to our success:
1. Confidence - According to Dr. Ivan Joseph, confidence (or rather, self-confidence) is "the ability to believe in yourself to accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulties, no matter the adversity." Fortunately, self-confidence is a "learn-able" skill. You may develop confidence through consistent participation in sports or hobbies or anything you can become good at or passionate about to persist despite challenges. Reason: Building confidence takes "repetition, repetition, repetition." For instance, if you like to learn how to shoot a 3-pointer, you practice consistently using the 3-point technique. [This is related to what Malcolm Gladwell calls the "10,000-hour" rule --- which we will discuss in Skill # 7 below).]
2. Collaboration is the ability to "work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit." Anya Kamenetz's "How to Raise a Brilliant Child, According to Science" states that "collaboration is everything from getting along with others to controlling your impulses so you can get along and not kick someone else off the swing." Yes, she refers to kids, but haven't you observed and became frustrated by adults or coworkers or friends behaving similarly? I have experienced this at all levels during my long career (but I better stop there before I get in trouble.)
3. Communication includes exchanging data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in both verbal and visual form. In the information age, learning how to use productivity office software (spreadsheet and presentation tools) is almost as relevant as speaking, writing, reading, and, more importantly, listening. In fact, listening is an essential ability to build long-lasting relationships, as further discussed in Skill # 6 below.
4. Systems Thinking (and critical thinking) involves using framework and models. This requires a full blog article. But, the video below is a great start!
5. Creative Innovation is essential to our career growth and development. It is not "the left-brain/right-brain binary that we've come to believe."Fortunately, creative innovation can be learned since it's essentially a process. It's about being willing to explore tens or hundreds or thousands of ideas that may ultimately fail. It involves being willing to seek solutions after failing and failing until you find a working idea.
6. Reading people's emotions is key to enduring relationships and successful negotiations, according to Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro ["Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate"]. For instance, "expressing appreciation," that is, finding and showing value in what others say, "think, feel, or do," is a powerful tool. If you meet a seemingly stressed-out colleague, ask: What do you think your colleague is thinking? Is it better to leave him alone or ask him/her if everything is okay? or try to identify what worries him or her, based on what you know about this person and his/her family? How do you think they feel, and will it be better to wait and come back later?
7. Specialty Content Knowledge - The last (but essential) career skill is the specialty content knowledge; that is, being an expert in your selected career. According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes "10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field." Surprisingly, "natural talent" is not as important--and that's good news for the rest of us—content knowledge building on the other six skills. Initially, when you start learning a difficult or tedious subject, you/we may feel inclined to abandon. But, ask yourself: How come many other folks in this field really like it. The answer is that they persisted until they became comfortable with the subject and finally love it. A career is like marriage or long-term friendships; you have to be patient and work at it every day, persistently.
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You can stay competitive by gaining a new in-demand skill every month. A recent article in the New York Times titled "Job Training Works. So Why Not Do More?" applauds the success of in-demand career certification training programs, such as Information Technology certification in computers and networking (i.e., CompTIA A+ and Network+), among several others.
The article focuses on the merits of a "Women in Technology" job-training program sponsored by a non-profit organization in New York. The success of job-training programs has been further replicated and validated by WorkAdvance --where a variety of organizations created experimental in-demand training programs spanning from IT to healthcare. This real-life "experiment" demonstrated that job-training participants were able to increase earnings. Further, many participants felt very hopeful about their career path and future earning potential.
So, Job Training Works. But, as the article asks: Why not do more?
Job or career training has also been used very effectively to retain employees in their current jobs or promote employees. Employees value these types of on-the-job-training as much as their salary & benefits. And employers value the industry-based certification training credentials that participants obtain. So, everyone wins.
But, now, can career training programs also help retain and persistently engage students? In my experience leading and offering in-demand career training, sponsored by the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and private foundations, I have witnessed how these types of job-related, practical training can improve student retention---even when these extracurricular programs are not generally being regarded as a genuine academic pursuit for faculty.
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Although admittedly, I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, I still have a long way to go. And I believe that’s part of the fun of the career-process! For instance, I never became a University President as I had planned while on my third and fourth academic degrees. Nevertheless, that unfulfilled accomplishment didn’t turn out bad. [If you are curious and have a few seconds, I am going to tell really quickly: After being an endowed chair and director of a research institute for a couple of decades, I found that being in that position is one of those nightmarish jobs—unless you have a passion for wasting time in 8-to-5 meetings and hearing complains.
Seriously now. I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career failures and successes. And that you will be able to accomplish your goals faster than me. By the way, that should not be such a great challenge.
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On Motivation: During the last twenty years, I have been incorporating practical work-based exercises in my online managerial and technical courses at Coursewell.com (from CompTIA A+ and Excel training to e-commerce and webpage development exercises) with great success. Essentially, close to 100% of the participants and students have passed our courses with at least a C+ average, and the general class average has been around B+.
I believe it's time to try this work-based approach with the general student population, particularly with at-risk students (or courses where there is a high dropout rate.) In general, I have found that we can retain students by using the following strategies:
Use engaging activities and exercises that mimic real-life (and involve their peers)
Focus on in-demand courses and programs related to what (at-risk) students do well.
Provide pre-tests for the content or knowledge area to be discussed as well as tests and post-tests after students have reviewed the materials and obtained feedback, respectively
Monitor students' progress using technology (such as Learning Management Systems' analytics)
As the system analyzes and uncovers a problem (i.e., missing tests or low performance), seek early intervention (i.e., what's up?; why did you miss the pre-test?)
Provide in-demand practical skills that at-risk students feel they can use to find a future job and improve their financial situation. Relevance is key!
Implement individualized, self-paced career training experiences and programs in the student's area of interest.
If a student is going to drop (or it's being forced to withdraw for a semester or year due to low grades), provide an alternative short career path, for instance, a one-semester career certification training program. It's an efficient and inexpensive way to keep at-risk students engaged and hopeful about their futures!
Develop a strong support group by networking (i.e., invite at least three significant members to your career network every day.)
Build strong career relationships (i.e., schedule at least one personal Zoom meeting per day with someone in your network to listen and share your daily activities and work experiences.)
Study and earn relevant industry certifications in your field and, of course, add to your resume and career website. Yes, in the information age, you need to promote your accomplishments.
Exercise, meditate, eat healthily, have fun, and be compassionate with yourself and others.
Create a personal mission statement—including attainable goals and actionable tasks.
Define your value proposition (i.e., what you are doing to contribute to your family, friends, society, community, and work environment.)
For additional information about career development, please join our free AI/Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy course by contacting me at walter@coursewell.com.
This blog is dedicated to “Mamita” and “La Familia.”