Stop comparing yourself to the one on the side, and look back. Without forgetting where we come from. My experience

Today is perspective analysis day. By the beginning of 2023. By proximity to the 50s (those new 40s). Not from my perspective, but from someone else's.

You went to public kindergarten, public high school, public university. Before going to university, you had already worked in a supermarket selling fruit (13 years old), in the sammer, on the beach, selling Pepsi (14), you had worked in the warehouse of a hospital (2 summers in a row, with 15 and 16 year old).

Since you were convinced that education was the way. You studied a BBA, you continued studying an MBA (in which you spent all your savings and borrowed money) at the top 3 Business School in LatAm . Based on your performance in the MBA you won a scholarship to be part, for 6 months, of the GCP at Wharton School (top 1 worldwide MBA in finance). You had no luck in the jobs you were offered abroad and you returned to your home country. There were many things to do that you had on your mind.

But that was not enough, you wanted to understand how economic history was, to be able to understand the economic, political and social present and future. So, you did a PhD in Cliometrics, a new branch of the study of (economic) history. This helped you a lot to work as an international consultant for multilateral credit organizations. It was your second professional reconstruction (from management to microeconomics).

But you've always liked analyzing data, understanding the why of things, drawing patterns, using those patterns to conclude and test hypotheses. They told you in 2008 that there was something called Big Data. And well, the third professional reconstruction started. MSc in Data Management at the UB, then another MSc in (bio)statistics at the same university (top 1 in Spain), which consolidated you to be able to understand, comprehend, and raise awareness about the good of the (data economy). This leveraged, at that point, with 10 years giving classes and talks throughout LatAm (all for free, just to help those who were like you in the past). It was easy for you to explain to the "non-technical" at the C-level roles the benefits of the value of Data.

But you can't explain something you don't know how to do, so in addition to university courses you took +15 courses of programming languages (something totally new for you until 2015). Today you program in R, in Python3, in SQL, and have an average above that of the programmers of the main Tech companies in the world (as showed at the top of your LinkedIn profile). This was your third professional rebuild. From the CPA, BBA and MBA you keep your understanding of how companies work, finances, balance sheets, ratios, the optimal debt / own funds, working capital, etc.

But this programming, data analysis, drawing patterns, studying you do, you do as a hobby. Because your therapist prescribed it to you (yes, he told you "you have to have a hobby that helps you channel the desire to do things that you want to do, and help you manage your anxiety", thanks Dr.). For those hobbies, you analyzed the covid in Uruguay and shared it via twitter, calculated the dynamic price of a head of cattle (for all of Uruguay, where there are more cows than people), among other things.

And thanks to all that kind of stuff the US government gave you the EB1A Green Card (Einstein Visa) without ever having lived in the US for more than 3 month, Spain gave you the PAC (Highly Trained Professionals) visa, you have been recognized as: "Global Top 100 Data Visionaries 2020", "Global One Equifax Award 2018", Full member CDO Latam (since 2020), Member of the Council of the Academy of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, UTEC (Peru , since 2020), among other international and national recognitions.

You don't live in one of the leading technology centers like Silicon Valley, NYC, Boston, Austin, Seattle, London, Paris or Stockholm. You come from a city of 40,000 people in the inland of Uruguay (3.3 million people) and you live in a municipality of Madrid of 116,000 people, conceptually very far from Tech centers.

But life presented you, 2 years ago, with a new opportunity for professional reconstruction, the fourth . Being able to go to work in Europe, having the opportunity to see how business is done with Data all over the world. Understand the business of Data Discovery. How do companies search, identify and select new Alternative Data. Combine what you knew about the information economy, statistical models, customer needs, history of a financial industry (which is 5,000 years old), data management, info economics, being a teacher to explain and sensitize potential customers in a simple way, among other tools in your personal toolkit. And challenge yourself again.

In the photo you see where the magic happens. Where you work and after the workday, yo do your hobby, analyze data, program and write posts, ideas, etc. in social networks. Waiting for perhaps your fifth professional rebuild, you never know. After so many years, you never know, you can only connect the dots when you look back. And here you are, hungry and foolish. (Thanks Steve).