As a kid, I had two best friends: Sarah and Josh. We were inseparable in the neighborhood. We did everything together. If one of us weren't at home, we were at the other's house. In the summertime, we spent every minute together outside running from house to house, up and down Anderson street, on our bikes, and doing what kids did in the late 80s and early 90s.
Sarah was the "tomboy" who could hang with the boys, playing every sport we wanted to play. She could ride just as fast as the boys; she would outrun us, and she wasn't afraid to get in the middle of the ruckus. Any Nintendo video game? She could beat us. She had two older brothers herself, so there was never an issue with inviting her along on any excursion we were about to go on, either.
Every once in a while, she made us come in the house and do what we referred to as "girl stuff." Yes, we had to break out the Barbies, and I vividly remember some tea time experiences, but also she would haul out coloring books and a mountain of crayons and markers.
I hated coloring, which makes sense with my personality today, because it felt too slow and boring. There wasn't enough action when it came to that coloring book, and plus, outside of writing, I'm not very creative. It forced my brain to really sit and think for a minute, and I would rather have been outside playing basketball, or shooting a pellet gun, or scamming the boys that lived next door.
Coloring usually led to arguments, though, because I hated the way Sarah would color. She would take a space on the coloring book page where you would typically place one colored marker or crayon drawing inside a square, and instead of one, she would section off that already sectioned square and then use multiple colors. So, imagine a square that you could use the color blue on, she would section off five sections with all five different markers.
It drove my non-creative brain crazy.
"What are you doing, Sarah? You can't do that!" I would shout.
She would reply with something like, "It's my house, my coloring book, and my crayons, and I can do whatever I want," or something along those lines.
I mean, she was right, all those rules applied, but that wasn't how you colored! You were supposed to use one color per section. Right?
Wrong.
To Sarah, you could color yourself however damn pleased, and to me, you were supposed to follow some made-up rules of coloring.
There isn't any right or wrong answer, regardless of what I repeatedly said to her. You can color any way you damn please. Inside the lines, outside the lines, multiple crayons, a marker, a pencil, shaded off, hell, you could draw a line down the middle of the page if you wanted.
And here's the kicker, we see today with people.
Some of you are coloring perfectly inside the lines.
Some of you are coloring outside the lines.
And some of you burned the coloring book, and you're building your own.
And some of you are eating your crayons.
You can do whatever you want with your career. It's yours to shape. The question for you is, are you following the so-called rules, getting inside the metaphorical box that has been created for you, or are you blazing your own path, the way you want?
What fascinates me is if you give ten people coloring books, you'll get six books back that will look completely identical, and you'll get two that are so off the charts wild you never could have imagined them, and the remaining two you'll want to put on display in the Louvre.
There are no rules in our careers other than the rules you decide to make and the paths you choose to follow. You can do anything you want, anytime you want, anywhere you want, with whoever you want, in any flavor and style.
Just because you see a bunch of people going one path doesn't mean you have to follow.
Corporate careers aren't for everyone, and that's why there's entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, and that's why there are service jobs.
Service jobs aren't for everyone, and that's why there are trade jobs.
Trade jobs aren't for everyone, and that's why there are creative paths.
Creative paths aren't for everyone, and that's why there are structured roles.
Structured roles aren't for everyone, and that's why there are people who carve something entirely their own.
And that's the point.
There is no single "right" path. There's only the one you're willing to own. But are you willing to own it? Is the question, and if not, then why are you wanting to be so boring?
You can't convince me that you're happy to go with the crowd. I refuse to believe that you actually want to fit inside of some little box like everyone else.
Most people don't choose the safe path because they love it. They choose it because it's easier to explain. It's easier to justify at dinner tables, to parents, to friends, to LinkedIn, to strangers who don't even give a shit about your life but somehow still influence your decisions. Coloring inside the lines gets applause. It gets nods. It gets, "that makes sense." But that doesn't mean it gets fulfillment.
So maybe the better question isn't what path you should take, but whose approval you're chasing while you're taking it.
Sarah didn't ask for permission when she grabbed five different markers and split that square into something completely different. She just did it. No hesitation. No overthinking. No concern about whether it looked like everyone else's page. And maybe that's the lesson that's been sitting with me all these years. You don't need to color like anyone else. You don't need to justify it. You don't need to make it make sense to anyone but yourself.
You just need to pick up the damn crayon and decide what your page is going to look like.