By David Peel
For reasons that have never been clear to me I have had so many young people either be sent to me or reach out to me themselves to talk about their careers. Given the idea that I’ve been doing the same thing for three decades or so, I would not think that I would be a resource.
Maybe it’s because my advice, whether they’re good or bad I cannot truly judge, is at least vastly different than what they’ll hear from most other sources.
The common advice is to pick a field that you’re passionate about and pursue it. I would argue that if you’re 17 to 21 you can’t probably know enough about most fields to rule them in or rule them out.
So I always ask him the same question: what do you want your day to look like?
So let’s say for instance, that you don’t want a boss and your ideal day is to get into your truck and head out to take care of whatever it is you’re going to do. So you might inspect pipelines, you might fly a drone, you might be a game warden, a park ranger, you might drive a service truck for a diesel repair company —again hugely different fields with different paths and qualifications—but day-to-day you’re out in a truck with no one breathing down your neck.
Or, let’s say that you thrive on meeting people and being around folks. Just about any type of sales will get you there, but so will running a hotel, being a wedding planner, economic development, running a venue, being a tour guide, or working for the local Chamber.
Let’s take the opposite route. Let’s say that you don’t really like dealing with people you prefer just fixing problems. That can put you in a cyber security role, accounting, any number of repairs from jewelry to technology to a mechanic, or someone who works in a utility monitoring station.
What about Law?
People are surprised at the variety of careers connected with the law. And the difference in the different kind of lawyers is vast. For instance, there are lawyers who review leases and land acquisitions for big companies, like FedEx or AutoZone, and have never had a reason to appear in court.
Conversely, there are criminal defense lawyers that are at 201 Poplar pretty well every day it’s open, constantly in and out of every court room down there.
In my practice, focused on serious injuries and wrongful death cases, I am in the office far more than I’m in a courtroom. Certainly there are depositions, mediations, motions, and trials. But the vast majority of my day is spent in the office working with my clients and out in the community, trying to be generally helpful (while carting CrashtheLawDog, our law office therapy dog, around).
So in those capacities, where I’m in the office meeting with clients both existing and new, talking on the phone, doing research and making hard things simple for people, my day and the day of a local State Farm or Farm Bureau agent is pretty similar.
Those insurance agents, while they’ve taken a very different path than I have from an educational or licensing standpoint, have a book of business that they’ve got to keep happy, they have to take hard things and make them simple, manage an office, obtain new clients and be a positive force in their community.
Day and day out about 60% of my time and 80% of their time is very similar. Granted they’re not doing mediation or depositions or attending motion hearings, but I’m also not going out and taking pictures of new houses or having to attend in-service training at some home office. But day in and day out our days are very similar.
And I guess that’s the big difference in the advice that I give. If you look at what you want your day to look like it opens you up to a bunch of different fields.
Knowing what you want your Monday through Friday to look like is knowable and the fields may not even exist yet that might put you there.
Back when the pyramids were being finished, when I was in school—there was no talk about things like cyber security, prompt engineering, etc. I believe there will be fields 10 years from now that don’t even have a name currently.
But I believe if you pick your days, the rest becomes clearer.
Peel seeks justice for those injured in tractor-trailer and car accidents, medical malpractice, and disability. He often addresses churches, clubs, and groups without charge. Peel may be reached through PeelLawFirm.com wherein other articles may be accessed.
