Re-invention

Years ago I remember hearing a factoid that suggested the average person changed careers 3 to 4 times in a lifetime.

Not jobs, but careers.

I have absolutely no interest in trying to track the source of that tidbit down, nor do I care whether it's really true or not. I've always believed that it was and for the longest time marvelled at how that could ever be possible.

The problem, with me, that is, was that I was looking at it with my own perspective. After all why kind of career change does a Dentist make? Sure some go on to specialize, as if that's really a change.

In the past, I'd thought of pursuing a Law degree on an MBA, but the likelihood would be that armed with either of those, I'd probably still be involved in some aspect of healthcare, so it wouldn't be much of a change.

In my own sort of smug way I could envision a guy pumping gas in New Jersey switching careers and perhaps instead loading shipments with funny sounding names in an IKEA dock,

Now that's a career change.

The other day, as I do just about everyday after first checking the futures, the New York Times Obituary pages and Dilbert, I read James Altucher's blog.

I've mentioned and referred to him a number of imes before, so I won't do it all over again, except to say that his recent blog "My Lawyer is Dead" struck me with a single line:

"....this is what I do. It's too late for me to do anything else."

I don't know how old the professionally unhappy attorney was at the time of that comment, but Altucher readers know that by age 49 he was gone.

As in "dead."

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