Are You Cut Out for an Adventure Career?
by Peter Vogt
You're startled awake by the sound of your alarm clock going off at 5:15 a.m. You crawl out of bed, eat, shower, put on your best suit, grab your briefcase and hop in your car for the 40-minute commute to your office. Once there, you head for your cubicle and work until noon, eat lunch from noon to 1 p.m., and then work until 5 p.m. before driving home.
What a nightmare!
If you can't stand the thought of donning corporate gray and sitting at a desk for eight hours every day, then maybe you're someone who should pursue an adventurous career.
But how do you know if you're cut out for a heady, off-the-beaten-path type of job like stock car racing, mountain climbing or alligator wrestling? Take a look at this five-point checklist to determine your adventure job quotient.
Do You Love What You Want to Pursue?
You'd better, because in many cases it's the only way you're going to earn high pay as an adventurer. Sure, you'll make some money as well -- we all have to pay the bills -- but it may not be as much as you'd like, especially when you're just starting out. You can compensate for low financial benefits by choosing to pursue something that has high psychological benefits.
Are You Good at What You Want to Pursue?
Most adventure jobs are so specialized that if you're going to go after one of them, you need to have exceptional abilities -- abilities that may make the difference between life and death. As world-renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager put it in a Fast Company magazine article: "I concentrated on what I had to do. If you panic, you die." So no matter which particular adventure job you decide to set your sights on, be sure you can honestly say you have the talent to do it well, perhaps better than most or even all other people.
Can You Deal with Risk?
Adventure careers often involve considerable risk. You could get hurt physically, of course, but you might also suffer in terms of finding an adventure job in the first place, keeping that job once you've got it, and making enough money to take care of yourself and perhaps others as well. If you can't handle the ambiguity that often goes hand in hand with an adventure career, you may want to rethink your plans.
Can You Cope with the Skeptics in Your Life?
"I suppose it would be easier for all of us to be the people we truly are if we didn't inherit so many prejudices about the kind of person we think we should be," says Carol Eikleberry, author of The Career Guide for Creative and Unconventional People. "These internal 'shoulds' may be the fiercest lions and tigers and bears you ever encounter."
Often, though, these "internal shoulds" are really "external shoulds" coming from the people around you -- family, friends and acquaintances who can't understand why you don't want a regular job. If you tell some of these people about your adventure career dreams, they're bound to actively discourage you. Can you tolerate their continuous skepticism, especially if they don't know what they're talking about?
Are You Persistent and Patient?
Practically everyone who ends up being an adventurer has experienced failure, often on a large scale and frequently more than once. If you decide to go the adventurer route as well, you'll almost certainly have setbacks -- opportunities that go to other people and decisions that turn out disastrous. How do you usually respond to adversity? What do you typically do when you fail at something? If you normally shake it off and press on, you've probably got the temperament to survive an adventurer's rocky career path.
"Adventures don't begin until you get into the forest," notes musician Mickey Hart. "That first step is an act of faith." But even before you take the first step toward an adventure career, ask yourself the questions that will help you determine whether the journey is one that's worth the risks.