- Image by Vedia via Flickr
When you’re in school, and you like playing basketball (or any sport for that matter), you constantly get told to focus on school because you won’t make it as a professional basketball player. It’s very unlikely that you’ll make it to the big leagues.
I think a similar thing happens to people that are into art. You better focus on real school work. You aren’t going to make a living as an artist.
But, if I were to say, “I want to be an engineering Professor,” I don’t think many people would say, “you should probably shoot for something else, not many people make it to being a Professor, and it’s very hard to get there.”
Why is it this way? Well, first of all, becoming a Professor entails a lot of schooling, and school is always a good thing, right? The second reason is that most people don’t realize how hard it is to become a Professor, particularly now that there are so many PHDs out there looking for a position in academia.
The truth is, it’s very unlikely/difficult to “go pro” and be really successful in any given field. It’s very hard for an entrepreneur to build a moderately successful company. It’s very hard for a salesman to continually close deals. It’s very hard to become a DI college football coach, and so on.
So what to do? I think the main thing is to be really fucking good at whatever it is you do. Success transfers. And eventually you’ll find yourself going pro at something that fits.
-Kevin
7.14.2010
