Sometimes I reflect on all the career risks I took and I am always left wondering where I got the courage to take them.
While it is very clear how the risks worked out in my favour in the end, I am still proud of my past self for keeping on going even when it was not clear that the risks were going to be worth it in the end.
And even as I continue as a career coach, I often wonder just how much I can challenge my clients to take career risks. Just because it worked out for me, doesn’t necessarily mean it will for them.
- Pausing school to do a short-term stretch work assignment at Google. Before I graduated from Trinity Business School with a Masters in Digital Marketing Strategy (which btw is ranked 1st in Europe), I had actually paused school to prioritise a stretch work assignment at Google. To make matters worse, I only had 3 units remaining to graduate, and I still went ahead to make the bold decision to pause school. At the time, it was unclear if I would get a chance to complete my studies, but I took the risk to pause my studies because I wanted to pivot my career into Program Management through this work assignment. I can tell you this with 100% accuracy, if I did not take that risk in 2019, I probably wouldn’t be telling you that I am entering my 7th year in Global Program Management roles. On the bright side, I did finish school eventually and even went ahead to get a Second Master’s degree at HEC Paris, one of the world’s top 10 business schools.
- Prioritising learning on the job over adhering to corporate politics. There were moments in my career when I chose to actively focus on learning on the job over obsessing to master the corporate political landscape. I have to say that this was quite the risk as it is often paired with resistance, opposition and discomfort. That being said, taking this risk enabled me to learn a lot about what makes large tech companies successful. At the same time, anytime I failed at the corporate game, I challenged myself to learn how to reduce the resistance that often comes when you are not playing by the unspoken rules. The reality is, there is no success without failure, and I am glad I was willing to fail so that I could win in the future.
- Shutting down my award-winning blog to prioritise gaining financial independence. I used to be famous, although some people would argue that I still am. Jokes aside, my blog would have been much bigger than it was 10 years ago if I continued at the pace I was running it. But it got to a point where I realised that I need to ruthlessly prioritize gaining financial freedom, so I made the heartbreaking decision to shut down my blog. 7 years later, I have gained the financial freedom I wanted at this stage of My Life, which is why you are now reading a blog post from Me. I don’t know if I will go back to having the same popularity as I used to back then, but hey, I am still writing my story, so let’s see what the future holds.