What do you want to be when you grow up?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always hated this question. In theory, it’s meant to help a bunch of tiny weirdos dream big as they imagine their future selves but oftentimes, it instead teaches us the first crushing lesson about being an adult: you are your job. You will spend at least a third of your life doing it, society will use it to calculate your value, and everyone you meet will inevitably judge you based on it.
If I could go back in time and talk to my 10-year-old self when he was trying to answer this very question, two things would happen:
1) He would be confused as to how I grew a beard, and;
2) He would probably slap the shit out of me after hearing what I do for work.
He would likely think What the hell happened to you, man? You were supposed to grow up and be a famous comic book artist! What does a “corporate consultant” even do?!
You know what? I wouldn’t blame him one bit. After all, he (we?) had big dreams of turning his (our?) obsession with comic books into a sexy, lifelong career and now, it’s simply a hobby.
You see, growing up I never really stuck with any one thing in particular. Like many bumbling kids my age, I was privileged enough to fumble through baseball, soccer, tennis, taekwondo, trumpet, piano, choir, drama, art, and countless other failed interests, only to abandon each and every single one for something a little more shiny and new.
Fast-forward to college and I found myself smack dab in the middle of other teenagers fumbling through classes, tests, and a few too many late nights.
Once I graduated, I was stubborn enough to start freelancing full-time. As I fumbled through my first year in the wild, I learned more than my entire four and a half years of college combined.1
During this year, I somehow managed to find real clients who paid me real money to design logos, business cards, and websites while I learned how to steal proposal templates, piece together my own branding process, and shamelessly promote my work online.
After a few years working with smaller businesses, I fumbled into the tech industry, designing brands, apps, and pitch decks for startups and entrepreneurs. This might sound sexy, but I quickly realized design isn’t always a priority for people when they’re bootstrapping the entire operation with their own money.
Naturally, I caught the entrepreneurial bug and I fumbled next into the world of scratching my own itch. Me being the thick-headed person I am, I thought, “If these people can build something from scratch, why can’t it? I mean, it can’t be that hard!”
Saying I was wrong is like saying 2020 wasn’t “that bad.”2
After a few failed attempts on my own, I fumbled into partnering with others. I worked with old friends, new friends, strangers, and eventually found someone who wanted the same things as me.
For a few years, everything ran smoothly. That is, until I needed to find a little more stability.
This is when I finally fumbled into the most recent chapter of my career: joining corporate America as a full-time consultant for an international firm where I’ve been for over five and a half years.
Throughout all of this, I still have no idea how to answer that damned question.
And you know what? I’m OK with that. In fact, there’s a good chance I may never have an answer and I have a feeling there are others out there who feel the same way.
Hell, this might even be you. If so, then I’m writing my book Fumbling Forward: Short Stories & Life Lessons From a Rather Unusual Career for you and everyone else who still doesn’t have an answer.
Here’s to everyone else fumbling forward through their careers 🥂
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Billy is a principal experience designer, writer, and leader who’s fumbling forward through a creative career while helping others do the same. Subscribe for updates on his first book!
Don’t judge - I stuck around an extra semester for a business minor.
In other words, a HUGE understatement.