Last week was an amazing week for us as far as being parents is concerned. This post may come across as boastful but my intention is to provide some insight into the ability each of us to do what we’re passionate about and show the power of long-term strategic planning on achieving one’s potential.

While we have three children, this post primarily focuses on the first two, Zack and Kaitlin; last week they crossed the major milestone between childhood and adulthood and between education and career.  I’m sure Jared, still in university at the time of this posting, will also follow his passion but that chapter is not written yet so we will have to return to that in the not so distant future.

Two family career events occurred last week within the space of a day that made me reflect upon the educational and career choices that Kaitlin and Zack have made for themselves. With Kaitlin, it was closing the circle on vision that started over 5 years ago, and with Zack, it was getting his first chance to manage an event on his own, in Calgary, for Warner Brothers Games; also the culmination of a long term plan on his part. Let’s start with Zack since his story goes back the farthest.

Virtually all of us have faced the high school to post secondary decision point and wondered “What do I want to do with my life?”.  We were recently having a discussion at home and considering that this major decision comes way too early in life, when you’re only 16 or 17 years old. How can anyone at that age have an appreciation for all that is out there that a person can do for a living? Sure we’re aware of many career choices through family, TV, movies, school, guidance counseling et cetera. However, this is a very young age to have enough awareness to determine where you would be happy and where your passion can flourish, as opposed to just earning a pay cheque.  With Zack, it was no different than most, his early influence came from his parents. In grade 8 and 9, he had thoughts of becoming an engineer, probably because that’s what I am. As a very young kid, he was fascinated by roller coasters, and he would watch them from his stroller, amazed by their sight and by the excitement of the people on them. Later, as a teen, he was equally excited by riding them and we challenged ourselves to ride the fastest and the tallest in the parks we visited. We thought that as a mechanical engineer, it would be an interesting career choice to work for a company that designed and built these amazing excitement machines.

However, when Zack was in grade 10 and 11, his passion changed; he became much more interested in media. Sure every kid likes watching TV shows and movies but Zack was fanatical about it. He knew the viewership numbers of his favorite TV shows and whether they were likely to make the cut for a 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th season.  He knew the box office totals for the premiere movies he had seen on the weekend and which new movie projects were in development. He knew when (and what;-) the “up-fronts” were and which pilots were being considered for the upcoming TV season.  As his parents, it was all a little mind-boggling as to how and why a young kid would be this involved in media – such a waste of time, “Why not do something productive?” (like build a roller coaster ;-).

Anyway, it was around that time, when Zack was in Grade 11 and considering what his post-secondary choices would be, that we discussed, “Why not follow what you’re interested in?”.  You can make money in any business and media was HUGE business then, and even more so now. So Zack started looking around for arts and entertainment courses and settled on Radio and TV Broadcasting at Ryerson University. After completing that, he applied to an internship position with Warner Brothers Canada and he was fortunate enough to land a spot in WB’s marketing and public relations department. He’s been there now for over 3 years, now in a full-time capacity.

Last week, after a manager was taken out of commission by a small injury, Zack got the opportunity to manage the promotion of WB’s Lego Movie and WB Games video game of the same name at a Lego Show in Calgary. Okay, it’s not the red carpet at the Academy Awards, but, for us, it was a great achievement milestone; from a young kid who thought he could do something in entertainment, to taking off to manage a small event for Warner Brothers on his own. Congratulations to Zack for following his dream and making his parents very proud.

Not to be outdone by her younger brother, Kaitlin had a fantastic week as well. Her career story started long ago too. Because of our family’s native heritage on my Dad’s side, Kaitlin became interested in native studies even while in high school. She pursued an Honors BA at University of Toronto in Political Science and took as many native studies courses as she could find. After that, she became focused on a career in law but decided to get her Masters in Poli-Sci at York first; again she again focused as much as she could on native studies. 

Around that time, even before she entered law school, the Chapleau Cree native Band was holding periodic meetings in Toronto, Ottawa and other cities for off-reserve Band members to inform them of the progress of the Band’s Treaty Land Entitlement claim with the Canadian and Ontario governments.  I had attended one earlier and suggested that Kaitlin should come to the next one with me. It was at that meeting, when the Band’s retained lawyer, Bryce Edwards, from Olthuis-Kleer-Townshend (OKT), was presenting the status of the claim that Kaitlin locked in her goal. She leaned over to me and said, “That’s what I want to do; I want to work for a firm like that and represent First Nations”. After the presentation, I introduced Kaitlin to Keeter Corston, our Chief, and to Bryce whom I had met at the previous meeting. On the walk back to the subway, we discussed how this could come about; maybe she should offer to help out with the Band, maybe she could get into OKT after her first year of law school as a summer student.

Fast forward about 5 years, which were pretty grueling for Kaitlin, but they went by like a wink of an eye for me, and last Tuesday, I was sitting in the audience at another Chapleau Cree community update meeting in downtown Toronto, but this time, it was Kaitlin who was presenting the status update for OKT. Bryce followed Kaitlin’s progress report with what the Band and membership could expect as the claim is nears completion.

Kaitlin finished her articling with OKT this week and will take some time off to travel before re-joining the firm as an associate in late July. It was a surreal experience for me to consider these two events, almost side-by-side in my mind, and feeling so proud as a parent that our little girl had come full circle in her plan. She has achieved her dream job just as her brother Zack has achieved his.

Here’s a shot of Kaitlin at her graduation with her best friend Kate and Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond who gave the graduation address at their ceremony.

Of course last week was an amazing time for us as parents but as I mentioned in the intro, it is my point to also let young adults know that they should really look inside themselves for what really interests them. Every man-made that we can think of has a whole industry behind it with dozens of career choices inside each of those industries. I also want to reflect on a key point on strategy; strategy is a powerful tool that provides us with a way to think about clever to achieve our goals in any area of our lives. I would argue that strategy is not hard. However, key point though is that it almost always requires the benefit of time; strategy is a long term tool. For Kaitlin and Zack, it might look from the outside view that they were lucky to end up in their dream jobs and of course a little luck goes a long way, but it was their ability to set goals, backed by their passion, and work on a multi-year, multi-step plan to put the pieces in place so that they would eventually end up at their goal.

And now it is time to set our sights and support on Jared. He too is a long-term thinker, in fact, he has had the longest plan – he set his sights on being a game developer at age 4 and began programming at age 7. He’s how half way through his game development program at UoIT and we are sure that he too will achieve his dream job.