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The worst career advice I’ve ever received
Many years ago, when I was a new college graduate, an employment agency “counselor” presented a job that was clearly an underpaid dead-end. “Perfect for you!” she smiled happily.
I was clueless about careers in those days. Career counselors gave preference tests, people went to agencies instead of networking events, and coaches hovered on the sidelines of the basketball court. But even I could see how bad that job was.
The agency woman shrugged. “Well, you have to start somewhere,” she said.
“In other words,” she was advising me, “operate with a scarcity mindset.”
Taking The Easier Path To Go Nowhere
Many years passed. I forgot that brief encounter with an employment agency. I’d gotten graduate degrees, left the corporate world, and became a college professor: one of those people who decided to teach rather than do. And then I left academia to start an online business.
But one day I ran into someone I’ll call Eileen. We’d met in a networking event and hadn’t seen her for months. Now, she told me, she had a new goal. She had just heard a powerful motivational speaker.
