In her recent podcast interview with Dr. Brené Brown, Dr. Amy Cuddy describes the turmoil she felt about whether to continue her career path.
I was sort of saying, “Do I want to go for tenure or not?” It’s stressful, to go up for tenure – you know, you’ve got, like, twenty people outside evaluating you and it brings more attention to you. And you finally said something like, “I don’t think the question is, are you gonna get tenure or not? That’s not the question you should be asking. You should be asking whether you want it.” The way you said it is, “It’s not whether or not you’ll get to the top of the ladder. It’s whether your ladder is up against the right building.”
This is the perfect encapsulation of what I wish for my students – and my own kids.
School is great at giving you ladders to climb. Where are the leaning?
Parents are great at telling you to climb ladders. What’s at the top?
Society wants us to achieve – to climb ladders. But society needs us to choose better buildings. To make society better.
I know that I chose the right building when I stepped off my future-physicist ladder and pursued a life of music.
A building is not “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A building is, what do you want to know? What change do you want to make? What kind of people do you want to be near? Where do you want the next ladder you climb to be resting?
Don’t worry about the ladder. Worry about the building.