Member-only story
“Find Your Snail” The Best Career Advice I Ever Received
“Find your snail,” he told us, and he was right because that was the way to career success in science and elsewhere.
When I was in college, the world was a simpler place, and careers could safely be selected based on known statistics and one book, The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Government. Flipping through its pages at the local library would reveal what was currently in favor, salary, education needed, and how many people would be needed to fill these jobs in the future. You could plan a career path before selecting a major in college.
At that time, I sat in a class on oceanography, my intended major. I listened to an eminent oceanographer at a new oceanographic institute who told us about coccoliths, his area of specialization. Why had he chosen a microscopic specimen as his career choice? Simple.
He knew that if he specialized in something where no one claimed expertise, he would stand out and his career would be made. That day he told us to “find your snail.”
Today, as business emerges from one of the worst health crises it has experienced in the modern…
