Yesterday, I quit my dream job!
Done, I quit!
About ten years ago wrapping up my Ph.D. studies as a foreign student in the United States, I had a dream. That dream was to pursue my journey in the USA that started some 6 years before and work in a big American company with a great job and great responsibilities.
That dream represented for me the accomplishment of all the hard work put into teaching labs, spending numerous hours researching and hard studies of endless obscure seven hundred level math classes and of course… sacrifices far away from family.
After sending tons of resume and countless hours surfing the internet job hunting I ran into a blocker: despite not having the American citizenship required for most the jobs that I could apply for with a doctorate degree in electrical engineering, I was going broke!
If you were wondering, yes I did have a side job as the time. I was general manager of a French fine dining restaurant that I force myself to quit to focus on my job hunt. Believe me, even though I loved that job and the people I worked with, my goals were very clear: I did not struggle to wrap up a doctorate degree to end up working in a restaurant (no offence), I had a dream.
Now my pockets were empty, I took the only option that seemed wright: going back home far away from my dreams not reaching my goals.
So I took the first job that seemed interesting (which was very poorly paid!) as a consultant in aeronautics. It eventually turned out to be a great experience and I managed to climb the ladder of management. This experience led to another which led to another, you know how it goes… and then I started to work for a growing French startup in the medical field as a program manager. The company grew bigger, changed owner, change C level and kept growing…
I became one the of the R&D director, working closely with the VP of R&D and the CEO. We did really good and six months ago, the company got acquired for the second time. But this time it was different: a very profitable, big, American company that is turning millions of profit was acquiring and we successfully fulfill the due diligence.
I was now seeing the dream job I had coming to me and I was going to be able to reach my goals by all odds: great opportunities lying ahead in the US within a big American corporation with great responsibilities!
Guess what: in the meantime my dream had changed! I realized that my entrepreneur mindset had taken over my original dreams… I quit my dream job lying ahead to start my own company, my new dream, my new goals.
The good things about dreams, goals or objectives it that they evolve with time. It does not mean that you don’t have to do all which is in your power to actually reach your goals, but sometime when you don’t have all the key of success in your hands it is okay to just let your dream go… it will soon be replaced by a all new set of ideas and objectives that you could reach that will be at least as fulfilling.
Keep dreaming…
Dr.D
