Turning What You Love Into What You Do
By Patrick O’Connor
Everything is connected, resulting in a career continuum which in many ways, is the Road Less Traveled (RLT).
Each of the 16 RLT subjects I have profiled has a career continuum. This is evident when you read each one and see how all their education and experience are connected. We learn from everyone and everything that happens to us along our RLT. Two subjects — Rachel Brown (volume 18) and Marty Mordarski (volume 5) — will be featured as excellent examples of how “everything is connected.”
Usually, the career continuum begins as a teenager, often with hobbies and interests. Add a few part-time jobs in high school and/or college and the continuum starts to take shape. For example, if you learned and love to play a musical instrument in grade school, you might join the middle school and/or high school band. Maybe you get a part-time job in a music store or start giving music lessons. By this time, you might also be in a band with some friends who have similar interests. Perhaps in college, you elect to major in music or music education to become a music teacher. All these experiences and education define your career continuum because everything is connected. In this case, music will probably be a part of your entire life. The same goes for interests in dance, business, art, outdoors, sports and so on.
The above description mirrors the RLT of Rachel Brown. She is a songwriter, performer, singer, choir director and music teacher. She has toured professionally and been in numerous performing groups. She currently leads the popular group, Rachel and The Beatnik Playboys. Her day job is working as a middle school music and choir teacher.
All her professional/personal experiences and education (two degrees in music) are connected and define her career continuum. Even her community service is related to her RLT/career continuum. She is part of the Drew Project. This program pairs wounded war veterans with songwriters to write songs about their military experience. The chorus of a song she and a veteran wrote is in her RLT. Her continuum began as a young girl, singing and playing at a music venue her parents set up in their back yard. Rachel, her parents and her children still perform there for their friends to enjoy music.
Another good example that everything is connected is the RLT of Marty Mordarski. Marty loved music and sports all the way through school and college. He even had Major League Baseball tryouts while still in high school! He also loved keeping track of data and information. He had an extensive baseball card collection and went to great lengths to keep it organized. Together, these interests and experiences set him on a career continuum that still reflects those interests. Each major step along his RLT involves the skill set of collecting and analyzing data.
The main theme in Marty’s career continuum is using data to improve personal and group performance. This began in grade school when he was the statistician for his 8th-grade football team. He (and the coaches) was pleasantly surprised at what data could tell them about the team’s performance. Also, the data could guide preparation and performance during a game. Marty was way ahead of the game, as what he was doing then is now called “analytics” in sports – keeping track of data to improve individual and group performance. He added a bachelor’s degree in business management/marketing to dig deeper into his interests. He has had three full-time professional positions since those days. In each position, he has relied on his data analysis skillset.
At the Employer’s Resource Council, he led the NorthCoast99 program, which identifies the top 99 employers/organizations in Northeast Ohio (www.northcoast99.org/). Analyzing the performance data of these organizations is essential in identifying them. From ERC, Marty took over leadership of the Cleveland chapter of the Positive Coaching Alliance. The primary goal of this group is to improve the sports experiences of players and coaches in youth sports. Marty currently is the Cleveland campus director of Tech Elevator. This school fast-tracks people into high-tech IT coding positions in the region. Once again, he is using his extensive background and interest in data analysis to lead an organization.
A review of the RLT for both Rachel and Marty indicates that their education and work histories include a definite pattern or theme of interconnected experiences. This enables them to leverage all their talent and experience into a seamless career continuum where everything is connected. The other RLT subjects have done the same.
The previous theme from the RLT advised that it’s “okay not to know. Even so, with all the twists and turns in a career continuum, most people will have a theme that connects all those experiences. The next installment of Turning What You Love into What You Do will give readers an exercise they can follow to assist them in seeing how their experiences are connected.
Image courtesy Pexels.com
