At the Crossroads of Failure and Success
We often read of great overcoming adversity stories that people are happy and eager to share as an encouragement to those around us, but we often forget that there are many failure stories out there without the happy we turned things around ending. These stories get less attention because they don’t fit our view of how we WANT the world to be, and our nature is not to share our personally humiliating, humbling and failure moments. But I am going to share with you mine.
It started about a year and a half ago when I was frustrated with my current job, not feeling like I was receiving the professional considerations I deserve, coupled with a lack of opportunity for growth, like any of us would, I went out and started searching for a new career.
At this point in my life I had left a very successful career in the Army that I was recognized for being a rare level of program manager and leader, and gone into government contracting in an organization dedicated to helping service members and vets. While in this role I earned an MBA and discovered I had a natural talent for marketing and PR. So naturally I looked at combining these two skills and started looking for something like a marketing program manager.
Then one day it …show more content…
Their efforts just were not enough to overcome the major challenge I was facing. What I realized is that in the Seattle area I was up against tons marketing professionals that had worked with the big names in the area. And here was the little outsider, me. Additionally there is virtually no precedent for vets bringing value to marketing teams. Realizing that I was in the worst possible spot because I was too qualified for entry level foot in the door type positions, but I did not have the right kind of experience for the more senior roles, things seemed to be going from bad to
We often read of great overcoming adversity stories that people are happy and eager to share as an encouragement to those around us, but we often forget that there are many failure stories out there without the happy we turned things around ending. These stories get less attention because they don’t fit our view of how we WANT the world to be, and our nature is not to share our personally humiliating, humbling and failure moments. But I am going to share with you mine.
It started about a year and a half ago when I was frustrated with my current job, not feeling like I was receiving the professional considerations I deserve, coupled with a lack of opportunity for growth, like any of us would, I went out and started searching for a new career.
At this point in my life I had left a very successful career in the Army that I was recognized for being a rare level of program manager and leader, and gone into government contracting in an organization dedicated to helping service members and vets. While in this role I earned an MBA and discovered I had a natural talent for marketing and PR. So naturally I looked at combining these two skills and started looking for something like a marketing program manager.
Then one day it …show more content…
Their efforts just were not enough to overcome the major challenge I was facing. What I realized is that in the Seattle area I was up against tons marketing professionals that had worked with the big names in the area. And here was the little outsider, me. Additionally there is virtually no precedent for vets bringing value to marketing teams. Realizing that I was in the worst possible spot because I was too qualified for entry level foot in the door type positions, but I did not have the right kind of experience for the more senior roles, things seemed to be going from bad to