Did you Have a job or a Career?
When you look back over your career, can you honestly describe it in just a few words? When I read this line to my wife she said, “So have you? How would you describe your career in just a few words?” She sort of stunned me, because while I had stewed over my career – how I treated others, how I had been treated, I had thought long and hard about the places I worked and the colleagues I had worked with and yet I hadn’t simply done what I was asking you to do. So, I did. I decided to write my own short career story and it goes like this.
I became an educator because I wanted to re-create and build the joyful place that I loved for years, for others. The place that made all my dreams come true. From learning to read and write, to really think and explore, the place that instilled my love of art and athletics and ultimately lead me to find my wife of now over thirty-three years, while teaching science at West Intermediate School in Waterloo, Iowa. I became an assistant principal, principal and district office administrator because I wanted to expand the reach of my dreams and provide those same joyful spaces to larger and larger groups of kids, and the adults privileged to serve them. I became a superintendent of four great school districts for those same reasons – creating great schools and places for kids and adults and some other compelling reasons that began to shape my service and commitment to others – to address a growing literacy problem and racial and address social justice through equitable services to students and their families. I also was privileged to serve as the vice president and later as senior vice president of corporate and government relations with the nation’s most important children’s publishing house because I had come to view literacy as a fundamental way to break down the walls that divide us. During my career I worked with countless great teachers, support personnel and administrators and we improved educational outcomes for kids every day, literally hundreds of thousands of kids who are now better able to lead productive lives, we passed bond issues, we built buildings and improved millions of square feet of school space, we won countless awards, and we supported the dreams and aspirations of so many children, young people and adults through programs, services and personal financial contributions. And perhaps most significantly I helped to raise two beautiful children with Julie, the same women I met at West Intermediate School in Waterloo, Iowa, thirty-vice years ago. And I’m okay with all of that. My career in 300 words.
If you haven’t tried up to this point, stop right now and try it. It is not easy, but it is easier than it seems when you leave out millions of important details … smile. Try to speak to where you have been, the steps you took, and why you chose the path that you did followed by a few key accomplishments.
As you evaluate where you have been, what you did along the way, and why you did what you did – a funny thing begins to happen. You begin to see with great clarity what was and is important to you. Your vision for the future may begin to crystalize allowing you to decide what is next for you in terms of your career. You may decide to continue the same path as before, just in a different place, or you may choose a new path altogether.
Remember this, my friends: your current situation does not determine your future. Your next steps are just that, next steps. I am encouraging you to step boldly into a new sense of possibility and achievement. I believe each of us is destined for greatness – greatness not in the sense of social standing, holding material possessions, or great worth but greatness in the sense that we have lived a life well. We have become the best version of ourselves that we could possibly be, and in the course of that journey, we have made others better through their association with us.
