The Road Not Taken: When the Wrong Job Sets You on the Right Course

In this series of posts, Influencers explain how their career paths might have changed. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #RoadNotTaken in the body of your post).

My first career wasn’t right for me, but it helped me find what was true to my heart.

When I was in college, I had a strong mental image of what my future should look like. I called it "the movie in my mind," and it was set in a career that was both rewarding and valued in society. At the time, I felt that career would be accounting.

It was a good job, filled with good people who were looking out for their clients. But as I grew as a Certified Public Accountant, the job itself grew less satisfying to me. Much of what I was doing was essentially reporting on history. Whether I was performing a corporate audit or doing someone’s tax return, I spent a lot of time looking back rather than planning on a better future. It wasn’t the same script I had written for myself when I imagined my career in college.

It wasn’t long before I looked for another job — one that allowed me to be more "forward thinking" with my clients. A friend who was in the insurance business asked me to join him. I respected his work, and I appreciated the fact that he was helping people prepare for life’s unexpected moments and the impact these could have on their families. I took the job.

At first, I was terrified at the prospect of having to persuade people to buy something — no matter how good it may be for them down the road. At the advice of my boss, I took a Dale Carnegie training seminar to learn how to be more effective with potential clients. As it turned out, however, what I appreciated most wasn’t the sales tips, but rather the better understanding I gathered on human behavior — how to better connect and influence people in a more authentic way. I loved the process so much that I came back, first as a group leader and then as a part-time instructor.

While that training helped my career in insurance thrive, I found myself yearning for more. The insurance business was rewarding, but there were many limits back then in the 1980s to what you could actually do to help clients plan for the future. Then, another friend introduced me to Merrill Lynch, and I finally began to see how I could bring that movie in my mind to life: With my experience in accounting, tax and insurance, along with what seemed to me like an unlimited set of solutions to really help people grow their wealth, I realized I could make an even bigger difference in others’ lives. I joined the company as an advisor in 1989.

But that side road I took as a Dale Carnegie instructor wound up influencing the direction of my career at Merrill Lynch even further. Being a better-than-average presenter, I was asked to travel the country and talk about financial planning, which was something I was doing and believed in. For me, influence and example mattered much more than dangling carrots or swinging sticks. When I was eventually approached to consider leading an office of other advisors, I thought I could have a real impact helping those advisors do their best for their clients and the business.

So here I am. And it’s been so incredibly rewarding and liberating to lead as who I am. Key to that has been the accumulation of all those previous experiences — not just the skills I learned, but also the limitations and frustrations I felt. I may not have started in the right career, but I can honestly say that I’ve realized that vision I had of myself — of that movie in my mind.

John Thiel is the head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and is responsible for the strategic management of 14,000-plus financial advisors and 6,000 client associates, as well as more than 200 private wealth advisors.

Merrill Lynch makes available products and services offered by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S”) and other subsidiaries of Bank of America Corporation.

Photo: Getty Images