Live Your One Wild Life
/“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - from The Summer Day poem by Mary Oliver
Decades ago, I met a man who volunteered with a non-profit organization that provided seminars to help Korean American youth with their career choices. He told me that the organization had held a career summit for medicine. The event was standing room-only as students and their parents crowded into the seminar room. Later, the organization held a summit on journalism careers, and only three people showed up. As a writer and a creative, I was saddened to hear about the turnout at the journalism event because it reminded me of my own struggles to find a career path in a creative field.
Too often, we choose careers based on someone else’s wishes, not our own. I can attest to the difficulty in forging one’s own career path. As a child, I faced a lot of pressure from my physician father to become a doctor and follow in his footsteps. He repeatedly told me that being a doctor was the world’s greatest job. I got good grades, and I had a strong work ethic. If I truly desired, I knew that I could work hard to become a doctor. The only thing was that I had no interest in medicine.
I pursued a career in marketing instead and went to business school to study marketing and strategy. I spend many years in marketing roles at companies, before landing a job at an innovation agency. Then, in my late thirties, I had a major midlife crisis. I was burnt out and overwhelmed. I felt underappreciated and unfulfilled. Over the prior decade, I had been climbing the ladders of these marketing companies, but I didn’t know to what end. I had no idea what I wanted my working life to look like. All I knew was that my job did not align with my values.
In 2012, I left the innovation agency and took a sabbatical. I informed everyone that I was on a quest to discover my bliss. I took writing classes, read many books and began a meditation practice. A year into the sabbatical, I started my firm, consulting with companies on how to innovate and grow their brands. After fifteen years, I added training and coaching to my list of services. While working, I’ve continued to write creatively, and from time to time, I’ve gotten my stories published and my plays produced. My work life looks nothing like it did before I reevaluated my work life.
In many ways, following the path that someone else laid is easy; it requires little thinking or analysis. But eventually, it will lead to dissatisfaction. It is more difficult to follow a ‘non-traditional’ or ‘atypical’ career path, whatever that may mean to you. This is especially true if you pursue a career your parents or partners disapprove of. We love our families. We want an open invitation to holiday dinners and romantic getaways.
But if you dare to live your One Wild Life, your loved ones may surprise you with their reaction. I remember how scared I was to tell my father that I was leaving my six-figure agency job to forge a new path. He was surprisingly supportive. He had confidence that I would find work that made me happy. I had to trust in myself to live my One Wild Life. I truly believed that doing so would bring more meaning into my work life.
Like me, Amy Tan faced pressure to become a doctor. But instead of heeding her mother’s advice, she started a business writing company. Her published short stories eventually landed her a literary agent, which led to the writing of mega hit, The Joy Luck Club. Tan continues to write today, inspiring generations of people to follow their dreams and become writers.
Oprah Winfrey’s father wanted his daughter to focus on traditional career paths like teaching. But Oprah wanted to be a reporter, and she followed her heart, despite her father’s wishes. Oprah went from being a daytime host of a wildly popular daytime show to a media mogul - producing television and film projects, launching a magazine and a cable network, and creating her Angel Network to support charitable initiatives.
Many entrepreneurs faced opposition from friends, family, and many others when they first started their companies. Howard Schultz was advised to drop the idea of a high-end coffee shop by his father-in-law when his wife was pregnant with their first child. He persisted and Starbucks was born. Many women entrepreneurs faced adversity in launching their businesses. Estee Lauder faced great obstacles when she started her cosmetics business in 1946, at a time when women were expected to be good housewives. Her persistence and innovative marketing tactics made her a force in the luxury cosmetics industry. Many people questioned Sara Blakely on her ability to market and sell her footless control top pantyhose called Spanx. In 2021, her company was valued at $1.2 billion.
Whatever you decide to pursue, whether it be as an entrepreneur, a scuba instructor, a wilderness expert, a psychologist, a fashion designer or a pre-school teacher, pursue that One Wild Life. Make your unique blueprint for what that looks like. Be bold, be brave. Make a commitment to paving your own way in the world.
If you are at the beginning of your career or in the middle, think about these questions:
Are you doing what you really want to do?
Do you find meaning from your work? Do you know your ‘why’ of work?
Are you living your One Wild Life?
If not, fast forward to the end of your career. Can you say that where you are now led you to your One Wild Life?
As a coach, I work with clients to get clearer about what kind of work they want to do in the world. I have them imagine what their One Wild Life would be like. We visit that place through visualization. I ask them to look around this place and experience what happens when they lovingly give their gifts to the world. Living their wild dream is energizing, scintillating, even intoxicating. Try this visualization and feel it for yourself.
Think about what the world would be missing without your voice, your talents and your point of view. Dare to dream what the world would be like when you follow your heart. Imagine that One Wild Life - then go out and live it!