Let's Go To Oviedo

If you're not familiar with the 2008 Woody Allen movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," let me share a quote to set the tone for this article today.

In one scene, the artist Juan Antonio played by Javier Bardem approaches the beautiful Vicky and Cristina at a dinner table and makes a proposition.

The full dialogue of that interaction is here:

Juan Antonio: Well, I'd like to invite you both to come with me to Oviedo.

Vicky: To come where?

Juan Antonio: To Oviedo. For the weekend. We leave in one hour.

Cristina: What- Where is Oviedo?

Juan Antonio: A very short flight.

Vicky: By plane?

Juan Antonio: Mmm-hmm.

Cristina: What's in Oviedo?

Juan Antonio: I go to see a sculpture, that is very inspiring to me. A very beautiful sculpture. You will love it.

Vicky: Oh, right. You're asking us to fly to Oviedo and back.

Juan Antonio: Mmmm. No, we'll spend the weekend. I mean, I'll show you around the city, and we'll eat well. We'll drink good wine. We'll make love.

Vicky: Yeah, who exactly is going to make love?

Juan Antonio: Hopefully, the three of us.

While Vicky says no, Cristina is somewhat intrigued. But when they turn him down to start, he replies:

Reckless is jumping without understanding what is below you. Risk is understanding that there is uncertainty and deciding the possibility on the other side is worth exploring anyway.

"Life is short. Life is dull. Life is full of pain. And this is a chance for something special."

I don't know why but this whole interaction and quote really hit me a certain way.

We're generally so uptight, we're so guarded, and we're so calculated in so much of our decision making. When approached to do something spontaneous and new, we almost always say no because it feels scary.

Ok, so maybe we don't always say yes if we're approached to get on a plane with a stranger, stay at their house, and hook up. But the point of the article remains.

Careers are full of moments that feel a little bit like that invitation to Oviedo. A recruiter calls you about a role you were not looking for. Someone asks if you would consider moving across the country. A company you have never heard of offers you a job that feels riskier than the one you have. A leader asks you to take on something you are not sure you are ready for. Your instinct is often to immediately start building the case for why you should stay exactly where you are.

We call it being responsible, but sometimes it is just fear wearing a suit.

There is nothing wrong with being thoughtful about your career decisions. You should understand the downside. You should know what you are giving up. You should ask the hard questions. But at some point, if every decision you make is designed to eliminate uncertainty, you are also going to eliminate a lot of the opportunities that could change your life.

Some of the best career moves I have made did not look obvious when they were sitting in front of me. They required me to leave something comfortable, walk into an environment I did not completely understand, trust myself before I had all the answers, and accept the possibility that it might not work. That is the part people usually leave out when they tell the story later. Once something works, everyone wants to pretend the decision was obvious. It rarely was.

You do not need to be reckless to take a risk. Those are two very different things. Reckless is jumping without understanding what is below you. Risk is understanding that there is uncertainty and deciding the possibility on the other side is worth exploring anyway. There will never be a spreadsheet that can completely tell you whether the new role, new company, new city, or new path is going to work. Eventually, you have to make a bet on yourself.

Life is short. Careers are surprisingly short too. You get a limited number of opportunities to do something different, something uncomfortable, something that makes you nervous in a good way. So when your version of Oviedo shows up, maybe you do not automatically say no. Maybe you ask a few questions, look at the downside, trust yourself a little more, and get on the fucking plane.