I’ve been working as an account rep for Nokia for almost three years now.
It was a job I manifested, almost by mistake, but it’s been mostly a lot of fun.
See, when the job came along, I had wanted to speak in front of audiences; teach people something I knew; have flexible work where I wasn’t punching a clock; be able to travel; and make a certain dollar figure that I had in mind as the ultimate amount to make.
I thought it was going to be a job on TV, radio, or as a professional speaker. That’s not unreasonable, since I was doing all those things at the time, all on a part-time and/or freelance and/or volunteer basis…
Instead I ended up with a job that fit all the criteria I had put out to the Universe… but it was in the corporate world, and representing a product I knew nothing about (I had just bought my first cellphone about a month earlier, and a Motorola to boot).
Nonetheless, the job was a lot of fun for the first year. Then they shuffled up the team; everybody knew GSM technology was cooler than CDMA, but when they split the team in two I got the CDMA side. With very little product to teach about, and no cool trendy features on the phones we did have out, I started to get bored (that’s when I started my journey that led me to create Success Unwrapped, followed by my other successive projects).
So during the next year I dealt with a lot of frustrations, including a teammate who decided she didn’t like me even though I thought we were getting along great (reminds me of my sister-in-law, but that’s another story — funny how that happens, though, isn’t it?)
But we did get a trip to the Barbados as a reward for selling our quota; that was really cool except that my husband decided at the last minute that he wasn’t going to come with us, and I ended up stag among a bunch of couples. Still, swimming in the clear, warm, blue ocean alongside sea turtles is something I’ll always treasure.
Then the CDMA team got a phone that was cooler than anything on the GSM lineup, against all odds. We went on a cross-Canada tour promoting it, one city per night, and felt like rock stars and roadies all rolled up into one.
Fast forward to now, and we all got pulled into meetings where the boss asks you standard boss-type questions like, “Where do you see yourself five years from now?”
Umm… how do you answer that? See, I’ve been doing more and more with my online marketing ventures lately, and ideally I see myself doing that full-time. I’m not at the point yet where I can walk away from my J.O.B. and feel comfortable about it; but that is the end goal.
As I sat there at the table with my boss, all I could think of was the Fleetwood Mac song…
Tell me lies,
Tell me sweet little lies,
Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies…Oh, no, no, you can’t disguise…
Although I’m not making plans,
I hope that you understand there’s a reason why…
Close your, close your, close your eye…
But… well… I’m not a very good liar. That’s why I decided to be a journalist when I had thought I wanted to be an actor.
So I admitted that, although I saw myself doing many of the same things that I was doing with Nokia, it wasn’t necessarily going to be in the wireless industry.
It was the closest I could get to telling them what they wanted to hear, but I knew it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Nonetheless, it’s what my heart told me to say.
Sometimes you have to let your heart lead over your head. I don’t honestly know what that decision will bring me… but I’m ready, willing and able to find out!
Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life… and Success on Your Own Terms!
