The value of a non-linear career path.

I’m curious, did any of you have the misfortune of your first job being your dream job?

How many instead have worked in fields you'd never imagined?

As a teenager I dreamed of building bikes to be raced by the best in the world. 

That ultimately happened decades later, but the career path to get there drifted wildly across product development fields I never could have imagined.

Surgical devices.  Infant safety.  Sledgehammers.

I was once flown to Texas to help a high-powered team take a deep dive into the physical design of a tortilla chip.

A tortilla chip.

I’ve vetted soft goods factories throughout Asia, scouting for premium luggage suppliers.

I've spent days animating water droplets out of an articulating showerhead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but every project contained valuable lessons that were preparing me for challenges I was going to face, once I was finally able to create opportunities in the field of my choice.

Every tangent was invaluable.  Had I started in my dream job, I’d surely have made a mess of it.

If you’re not currently in what you’d consider your dream job, know that there’s value to be found in every challenge you take on.  There’s wisdom to be gained with every success and failure, regardless of subject matter.

Have there been any left turns in your career that a younger you could never have anticipated?