Well, it was indeed beneficial plowing through the mountain of magazines I whined and moaned about last week in this space.
To the untrained eye, it was a mere stack of periodicals. But to me, I knew that it was an overflowing cornucopia of wisdom waiting to be discovered...and imparted. With titles like Fortune, Fast Company, Time, Maclean's, Bloomberg Businessweek, US News and World Report and The Economist amongst others in the pile of pulp, I knew that somewhere within it, I would learn this week's lesson.
Well, I most definitely did...but from the most unlikely of sources, namely Entertainment Weekly. (Note to self: either change the parameters of your expectations or give those heady titles a more thorough read.)
Go figure.
But there, on page 43, buried within the cover story called "My Hollywood Survival Guide," written by Neil Patrick Harris (that's him below backstage with my wife and I at Just For Laughs two summers ago), was perhaps the greatest, most astute career advice I've seen in at least a decade. Whether you're in showbiz, a restaurateur, in high-tech or manufacturing, these are wise words to heed.
Let's set the stage--Harris was a kid actor with limited experience and had just been anointed with the title role in Steven Bochco's groundbreaking medical dramedy "Doogie Howser, M.D." To set the expectations of his star, and his star's commonfolk New Mexico parents, the sage Bochco--producer of such legedary TV hits as "Hill Street Blues" and "L.A. Law"--took them out to a restaurant and told them the following:
"A career is like surfing.
"You paddle out and paddle out and get wet and get hit by these waves.
"When you finally get out where you're supposed to go, you have to sit on a surfboard for a long time, just waiting.
"If you're really lucky, you'll catch a wave, and it'll be the most amazing feeling.
"But the key is that wave will inevitably crash to the sand.
"Then what you have to do is paddle back out again and get hit by a bunch of waves again.
"But trust that in the long term, there will always be waves to catch."
Poetic, profound, picturesque. A shelf's-worth of biz book advice in about 100 words.
Hmmm, perhaps I should pick up Businessweek again. Maybe there's a good movie or TV show review in it...