There was never a map. So I drew one.
For a long time, I believed my career had only two roads, becoming a professor or working as an engineer in industry. Those were the only paths I could see.
I had a PhD from Oxford and was finishing a postdoc at MIT when I hit a kind of midlife crisis. I am a multi passionate person, and I stood at a junction with too many roads ahead of me and no idea which one to take.
That confusion is what pushed me into a three year career break, and I used it to explore every passion I had. I experimented with a tech startup. I traveled to thirteen countries. I started a podcast. I wrote a book. After that career break, I decided to go deeper into business, and that road led me into management consulting.
My career hasn't been a straight line, and I have come to appreciate that more and more, especially the mini-retirements I now build into it on purpose. I recommend the same to every career professional I talk to. Bake in a detour or a mini-retirement every few years, on purpose, because you learn more in those in-between seasons than you ever will if you never take the chance.
Outside my work, I am just as passionate about writing, podcasting and career coaching, among other things. I have been the first in my family to walk into almost every room I've entered, undergrad, a PhD, corporate America, and I learned that the lack of a map can make you more daring. You aren't reenacting someone else's route. You are drawing your own.
Everything I do now comes back to one promise, share the map so the next person doesn't have to stumble through the dark the way I did.
