This is my story and in many ways may become the story of your work, career, and job. So, pay heed. Understand the conventional rules and challenge/hack the rules of work. Your story arc will be different.
I started out of high school doing manual work. My first job was as an ordinary seaman in the merchant marine. I worked on rust buckets on and off for 5 years. This manual work was very hard and frankly not suited to my style, abilities, temperament, and life direction.
Life Lesson Earned: This was my first big work lesson: Do what you love and develop an aptitude to do it well
I then got a liberal arts degree in political science. Great! But, what was I going to do with a degree that pointed me to politics. Me – a libertarian. Go figure!
Life Lesson Earned: Have a vocation and an avocation. Your vocation is your portable meal ticket and your avocation is something you love to do but doesn’t necessarily pay the rent. And, if you can blend your avocation with your vocation, you’ve been blessed.
Since I needed a vocation I migrated into engineering in my mid twenties. I became a licensed mechanical engineer. Great decision! Had loads of fun as an engineer building things: oil terminals, high-pressure pipelines, and process facilities. Until the oil bust. Then, I couldn’t get a job for my life. This was my third big lesson.
Life Lesson Earned: Things change so be prepared.
I stayed in engineering but reengineered my career horizontally. I became proficient in mechanical, manufacturing, quality, software, cyber security, and industrial engineering. I even started writing books on these subjects. These geeky tomes were full of multisyllabic words that were the identifying trademarks of engineering professionals. I learned I had the ability to glue words together.
Life Lesson Earned: Messages about inherent abilities come from unexpected quarters. So, listen carefully.
During this period of my portable career, I worked for a number of ‘my way or the highway’ bosses. This management style clanged with me. So I left big business to become an entrepreneur for which I was totally unprepared. I had been trained, nurtured, promoted, and reinforced for geek abilities. I mostly had had a safe corporate home.
Life Lesson Earned: Degeek. Well, what do I mean? Entrepreneurship requires new skills. Technical abilities whether accounting, law, or engineering get a job done, but don’t necessarily support entrepreneurship in terms of running a business, making payroll, or making a profit. I had to learn how to sell and schmooze – in others words I had to grow horizontally again and become a people-person.
So, now I’ve written about twenty books. Some bombed. Some floated. And, one or two actually earned out. I’ve also founded a number of businesses including Greg’s Outrageous Cookie Company, a publishing business, and loads of others that did OK.
Life Lesson Earned: Do, do, and do again. Learn from your mistakes then do things differently until you discover your magic.
Note: Here is a resource for a web accessible version of an article on substance abuse.
Bio:
Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com) is the founder of:
CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com
He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®. He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.
He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security. His current books available on all platform are shown below:
