As LinkedIn recently reminded everyone, it is my anniversary of working for myself. So how is it that I’ve been a well-paid consultant for 9 (UPDATE: make that 10!) years now, but have no formal training in technology or education?
It all started innocently enough 15 years ago when I bluffed my way into a temp job re-typing training manuals for a mortgage company. It was the Summer of 2001, I had just burnt out on my first job after college where I worked 50-80 hours/week in the music industry.
Mindlessly typing from 9-5 seemed appropriate.
Truthfully, I couldn’t even type fast, but I figured I’d learn how before anyone discovered this. So I did. Inside of a month, I had finished a job that was supposed to take six weeks. Plus, I had shown I was not so “mindless” after all by pointing out content inconsistencies across documents and creating a new standard document template that made updates easier for everyone.
Though I had finished the job and was preparing to leave, instead I was told to go ask around and see if anybody else needed help with anything. Okay.
So I stuck my head next door and said:
“Excuse me, um, I’m the Temp down the hall and, uh, I’m running low on stuff to keep me busy so I was wondering if you might need help with anything around here that I could maybe, uh, y’know…do.”
Someone asked: “Hey, do you know HTML?”
I answered: “Oh, no I don’t, sorry. But, if it’s alright, I’ll give it a shot…?”
The guy they gave a shot.
Then within five years I was in charge of a dozen different systems dishing out and tracking training for 120,000 people, building interactive content templates for our CDS, creating customizations and integrations for our LMSs, hand-coding our internal CMS, and supporting all the tech needs of a diverse group of 25 trainers across the country.
A year later, I was able to strike out on my own.
(Unexpectedly, within the last couple years the industry has brought me full circle. I now use more and more of the audio and video production skills that I was originally avoiding in order to get here. Funny how life works.)
I’m deeply grateful and very lucky to have had excellent on-the-job mentors, some amazing teams, and a few noteworthy projects. But like my entry into the L&D field, I also didn’t do things the way people tell you to.
Here are some counter-intuitive approaches that I believe helped me get where I am today:
Postponing learning: I don’t bother learning something until after I have successfully done it once or twice. Until then, I’m simply experimenting. No instructions needed.
Avoiding credit: I have no problem taking the blame for other people’s mistakes or letting them take the credit for my work. That’s a big reason why I succeed as a consultant. I don’t worry about things like “getting ahead” or “looking good” — therefore I can spend my efforts moving projects forward and helping other people look good. My clients all seem to appreciate this, and usually end up giving me way more credit than I’m typically comfortable with anyway.
Asking stupid questions: I am always asking questions that my fears tell me will make me look dumb. However, experience has shown that people end up thinking I’m smart instead. I now believe it is my fears that are dumb here, and they just like to point fingers away from themselves so that nobody suspects this.