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Who are you? Who am I? | Week 38

September | Family and Career | Week 38 | 9/24/2023
What are your career goals?

It's been a very poignant time recently, as I contemplate the next stage of my career journey and of my life. Where do I want to live, what kind of work do I want to do, how much of it do I want to do, and for whom? For all the unanswered questions, one thing is obvious; the time of a vast landscape of potential is over. I'm not choosing my college major anymore, not choosing between a grad degree or an internship, not even choosing the field where I'll work, I'm choosing from a much smaller set of possibilities, constrained by my own choices and decisions up to this point. But at the same time, paradoxically, I've never felt so much agency and freedom in my future. I have good experience, good degrees, good compensation, good references and good options. 

I could contemplate how I arrived here, dwell on or praise my decisions, decry or celebrate my options, and simply live in the past. Or I could assess my opportunities, introspect on my values, develop goals, and play the best move on the chess board for my future. An older version of me, over-indexed on feelings of regret, afraid of passing time, might have chosen the former. But the version of me now, disciplined by the Stoics, empowered by the Christians, enlightened by the Buddhists, aware and influenced by wise men who's journeys of abundance elucidate the need for decisiveness, chooses the latter. 

I want a life and a career, both in service to each other and simultaneously in service to the highest principles I serve: temperance, prudence, justice, fortitude, family, faith, friendship. The location I choose to raise my family, the level of income I can attain, the company I work for, the industry it exists in, the hours I work, its all intertwined. The career informs the life and the life informs the career. 

So as far as career goals go, here are some. 
[1] Progress - I want the continuous presence of progression; in skillset, in income, in responsibility. 
[2] Expertise - I want to know that I'm developing an expertise which can be monetized exponentially. 
[3] Compensation - I want to outpace myself each year, attain the 90th percentile of my market's value, and ultimately be able to afford the lifestyle I desire.
[4] Intellectual - I want the industry, company and role to be intellectually stimulating. It doesn't have to be as stimulating as a philosophy book but it must have a sustainable hold on my interest. 
[5] Meritocracy - I want to be able to modulate my level of effort and see the fruits of my labor. My life will have seasons, whereby I'll be more or less motivated to work hard, and I want to know that if I decide to put in more effort, I will reap more reward. 

Much of the above speaks to the journey, not the destination, which is a good frame of mind to exist in for me and probably for others. But if I were to humbly and seriously plot a destination which was favorable to me based on these goals and these values, it would be the following. 20 years from now, at age 48, I'd like to have a family, be on track to make a half million per year, be physically healthy, have garnered a significant level of expertise in my field, be surrounded by coworkers I enjoy, with as much responsibility and opportunity as possible to impact the trajectory of a given (likely midsize) company  as SVP or CFO. 



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