Career
Career Success Lessons from a 7 Year Old
- by Holly Burton
Not to brag, but I had an amazing career success secret all figured out at age 7. And today I'm going to teach you the genius strategy I dreamed up as a kiddo.
Career Success, As Taught by A 7 Year Old
WIMDIs, as a kiddo I loved summers hanging out at my local outdoor swimming spot, Kits Beach Pool. Obviously the sun and water were amazing (to say nothing of the water slides!), but there was more to it than the joy of splashing around covered in Coppertone. Every time I went to the pool, I made money.
You're probably picturing me selling lemonade or running a food delivery service from the snack stand direct to peoples' poolside towels, but all that is way too much work. Summer is made for lounging poolside with a bag of Old Dutch Salt & Vinegars. So this was a 5-minute scheme that got me just enough to buy a $1 bag of chips.
My lazy, chip-funding stroke of genius?
Check the Doors
Check What Doors?
The locker doors!
You see, Kits Beach Pool has coin-operated lockers. You put in 25 cents and that lets you lock all your stuff up. Then at the end, when you return the little key, you get your 25 cents back. Easy peasy.
But here's what's amazing about that system: Some people forget to grab their returned coins when they leave. It's only 25 cents, so it's probably not a big deal to them. But for a 7 year old with a potato chip obsession, 25 cents is a big deal. With gazillions of lockers and forgetful swimmers, KBP was basically my own personal potato chip mine.
OK, So You Ate Some Chips as A Kid. Who Cares?
Here's the thing about those lockers, friends: From the outside, you'd ever know they were full of tiny amounts of cash just waiting to be claimed. The doors were all shut, hiding the secret stash of quarters. Nothing to see here.
Everyone in that locker room made the same (honestly, pretty reasonable) assumption: If the door to the locker is shut and the key is in it, it just means it's an empty locker.
But you, and 7-year old me, both know that's only part of the story. And we know because of one simple thing I did as a kid:
Now, I wasn't some special genius.
Children do this all the time. They're always exploring and peering into things to see how they work. Testing assumptions. They have to because they don't know enough about the world yet to have the thousands of assumptions and working models for the world that adults have.
And when we get old and busy, we tend to stop questioning our assumptions and trying stuff. If the locker is closed, we assume it's simply boring and grab our towel and flippers and head out to the pool deck. And we fail to see the bounty of quarters just waiting to be grabbed by our greedy little fingers.
As lovingly as possible, we are fools.
And as a result, we have no yummy bag of chips.
But I Love Chips. Teach Me How to Get Free Chips!
You betcha! Let's get you on the scarfing-down-chips-for-free train ASAP:
Pull on the handle. See if it opens. And see if there's money inside.
So obviously you can use this trick to get food at the pool. That much is clear by now. But you can also use this in your career. Here's an example:
I have a leadership coaching client who's working on getting her P.Eng. certification. As part of the process, you have to take an exam on Law and Ethics. It only happens a few times a year, so if you miss the deadline to apply, you're stuck waiting for months.
At our last coaching session, she confessed to me that she had just missed the deadline to apply. It was literally that day and the online system wouldn't let her fill out the form anymore. Locker closed, nothing to see here.
So what did we do? We checked our assumption that applying now was impossible. She called them and asked -- just to make sure.
They said she could still apply and took her application over the phone. Now she's back on track to meet her development goal.
Mua-ha-ha! As delicious as a free bag of chips!
Call when the online application is closed. See how far persistence, a bit of friendly charm, and a quick double-check can get you.
The Moral of This Story Is...
The worst case scenario is that you're not a professional engineer and you don't have a free bag of chips (both of which are already true, btw).
I can't wait to hear which of your assumptions give way to reveal a hot summer day poolside with a tummy full of chips. Yum!
