Free Agency as a Career

Career For All Seasons

When I decided to study nursing as a career choice, many people said to skip that and ‘just become a doctor.’ However, from a young age I knew that I had a short attention span. I’d fidget and quickly want to move onto some new activity, especially once I’d figured it out. And I realized at an early age that I was interested in a diverse set of things—many of which had nothing to do with a career, like long-distance running, drawing, painting, backpacking, crafting, traveling and hanging around with friends. ?

I didn’t want the type of career that meant I’d have to forgo these other interests---I truly thought there’d be a way to have it all. So, without even realizing it, I structured my career to fit my interests by developing two career pathways that have worked for me over 35 years.

Two Pathways for Career Happiness

The first pathway I created for myself included working on project-based roles that were squarely focused in my professional wheelhouse. To help facilitate this pathway, twenty years ago I founded my company, The Altos Group, LLC to give me a platform to conduct business in a manner that fit my skills and values…I took other roles too inside other people’s company along the way since I never worried too much about ?‘whose flag I flew under’ as long as the projects were meaningful, healthcare related and within my area of expertise. (However, my own company gave me the greatest latitude to select projects that were perfectly aligned to my values and expertise.)

The second pathway I developed for myself was to marry my profession with my interests. Thus was borne my years of practicing ‘mountain / wilderness’ medicine: For 5 summers earlier in career, I worked at a summer camp where I was the sole healthcare professional for 300 kids and adults; for 10 years, I volunteered my summers to be the medic on Sierra Club backpacking trips; I worked as a nurse at Club Med in the Caribbean; I was a wilderness medicine educator in other countries.

Dividing Up Career-Time

To my great surprise, this approach of ‘dividing up’ my time to accommodate all my interests has worked: I’ve had meaningful career opportunities, which I attribute to believing in the work I do, and to the importance of healthcare in our daily lives.

But There Are Tradeoffs

And to no one’s surprise, I haven’t advanced as far in my career as my contemporaries, many of whom are CXOs and VPs of health systems or hospitals. And honestly, I’m a bit saddened about not having a robust career at this point in my life. Yet, even with this pang of sadness, I feel content knowing I expressed myself fully and engaged in all sides of my life.

Tradeoffs come in all forms, and I recognize I traded professional advancement for my love of being outdoors, and hanging out with friends.

Do Your Own Career ‘Math’

This is to say that we all have our own ‘math’ to do when it comes to solving our ‘equation for career happiness.’ ?There is no shame in going far in one’s career at the expense of other interests just as there is no shame in deciding not to have one’s career be the defining engine that powers our lives forward to take us places. ?We are all going places, it’s a matter of what stops you want to see along the way…

Ms. Kliger is an independent consultant whose firm, The Altos Group, LLC specializes in health-technology growth, real-world implementation, and ROI measures, metrics and clinical outcomes. She can be reached at [email protected].