Analysis: What's the secret to serial success? There are three important traits that career chameleons share
With both the security and desirability of a single job-for-life in continuous decline, what does it take to excel across different careers and life-stages? Achieving excellence and recognition in one career is already exceptional, but some people go on and achieve those same measures of success in a different field.
We can look to the well-chronicled lives of some of 'the greats' for insight but also to contemporary chameleons who have achieved great things across careers and life stages.
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl first excelled as an RAF fighter pilot in World War 2 earning the respected status of a ‘fighter ace’. A crash landing invalided Dahl into a counter intelligence role out of the British Embassy in Washington D.C. and it was around this time that he began to write.
It is lesser known that Dahl made an indelible mark as a medical inventor. Completely out of his comfort zone, Dahl spent two years in collaboration with his infant son’s brain surgeon, Kenneth Till, and a fellow model-plane enthusiast and engineer, Stanley Wade to design a new device that would more successfully drain excess fluid from his child’s brain. The three men donated their patented device to the NHS which treated almost 3,000 children before technology further progressed.
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From RTÉ Archives, writer Roald Dahl met a group of his greatest fans in the children's section of the Central Library in the Ilac Centre, Dublin in 1988
His greatest and lifelong contribution was of course, to children’s literature. His first book, ‘The Gremlins’ drew on his experience as an RAF pilot and so began the cross-fertilisation of ideas. His stories championed children and drew on his mothers’ encyclopaedic knowledge of Norwegian folklore, featuring trolls and mythical creatures as well as from his life experiences and the world around him.
Dr Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall over-shot her childhood dream to travel to Africa, learn more about animals, and write books about them. She had an extraordinary career as a scientist, making radical contributions to both the fields of primatology and ethnography.
The same self-belief that carried her as a young English woman without training or qualifications into the African jungle, drove her out of it. She and a handful of other scientists in the mid-seventies began raising the alarm on the grave threats of habitat destruction.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Wildlife advocate Jane Goodall dies at age of 91
Overnight, she left the comfort of her successful career as a scientist and began an altogether more daunting career as a conservation activist. Stepping into the public eye, facing powerful conservation sceptics, and building a global organisation was a big departure from a career characterised by isolation in the jungle. The career shift required the adaptability of the primates she studied and the enduring patience learned in the jungle.
The Jane Goodall Institute is active in over 25 countries and her youth conservation programme, Roots & Shoots is active in over 100 countries. In recognition of her advocacy and ability to inspire global action, she has been honoured for her service to humanity.
Lucy Kellaway
After a 31-year career as a renowned reporter and columnist at the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway left a career that she loved; that gave her autonomy and status, but that in later years didn’t challenge her in the way it once did.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Brendan O'Connor show, Author Lucy Kellaway spoke about her book 'Re-Educated' and how she changed her life for the better
At 58, she retrained as a secondary school teacher and now teaches business and economics. Her award-winning communication skills and talent for making complex ideas accessible have been put to good use. Lucy is of a generation where a job-for-life is still possible, but reflecting on the madness of that idea she set up an educational charity called Now Teach, to encourage others like her to find a second career as a teacher. The charity has recruited over 1,000 older professionals, including an ex-monk, a hostage negotiator and a Nasa scientist into UK classrooms.
Bringing the profile and perspective of a diverse journalist who spent three decades provoking thought through words, Lucy is now opening minds to new ideas in the classroom and in the public domain, opening minds to the idea of second career teachers.
Ronan Tynan
Determination underpins Ronan Tynan’s success as a Paralympian, a physician and a world-renowned singer. At age 20, Tynan having had both legs amputated he took up athletics and within a year was winning gold medals and breaking world records as a Paralympian. He amassed eighteen gold medals and fourteen world records across track and field events.
From RTÉ News, Tenor Ronan Tynan's words of wisdom for Irish Paralympic team
After initially studying sports science and then working for a prosthetics firm, he returned to education to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin and practiced as a physician specializing in orthopaedic sports injuries.
Ronan decided to pursue his singing dream at age 33. His success with the Irish Tenors was instantaneous and his first solo album at age 45 reached number 2 on the Billboard and World Album Charts. With his unique voice, known to simultaneously console and inspire, he has sung for popes and presidents and has sold out venues from Madison square garden and Carnegie Hall to Sydney opera house.
So, what’s the secret to serial success? To achieve across careers and life-stages, there are three important traits that these exceptional people share. These are:
Strong Self-belief
It takes courage and autonomy to stray from the warm comfort of confidence, success and recognition in a particular field. Behind the brave decisions is a remarkable self-belief – a foundational trust in themselves - that oils the wheels of change. Serially successful people are less likely to feel defined (or confined) by their first success. Their strong belief in their own potential to achieve whatever they put their minds to liberates decision-making.
An eternal fixation
Serially successful people are mostly motivated by internal factors – like desire to be challenged, to make a more meaningful impact, commitment to a cause or mission and less by the external trappings of success – more money, status, a bigger boat.
They are more likely to have a central preoccupation that acts as a common thread weaving through their careers. Roald’s commitment to empowering children, Jane’s to the natural world, Lucy’s to opening minds and Ronan’s to pursuing his dreams is clear, potent and distinctive. They know and understand their ‘why’ and pursue it as an eternal fixation throughout their long working lives in different ways.
Creative thinking
There are transferable skills that can be relied upon in a second career - things like communication, problem solving, leadership, teamwork, time management and so forth. However, for those who make their mark in more than one career, it is not the transfer of skills but the cross fertilisation of ideas (associative thinking) that sets them apart. This creative ability enables them to merge their life experience and unique insights in unrelated domains which in turn facilitates the breaking of new ground.
Serially successful people explore at the various corners of their minds (flexible thinkers) and bring their bag-full of ideas and experience to their next destination. Their superpower is not the possession of deep knowledge and insight in unconnected areas, but their ability to make extraordinary new connections between the areas.
There is a reinforcing feedback loop between self-belief, an eternal fixation and creative thinking skills that is sustaining and instrumental to the enduring or serial nature of their success. That’s the secret.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
