I put up a poll on LI about sharing career experiences, specifically where I erred, to help folks with avoiding some of the pitfalls. Plan is to share both there and here, so might have level of redundancy- but I'll start here: What missed in my first 10 years (yes, 10 YEARS) of my career is not knowing what I wanted to do with myself. I treated this industry as a job only, not thinking about who I worked for, what I did, etc. I was not deliberate in anything I did, and this cost me time, promotions, and 10s of thousands of dollars. I finally sat down and started to track "what do I actually want to DO"? Not a title, not even an org, but what is it I want to spend my time on? Determining that, allowed me to start tracking towards the goal of being fulfilled in my work. Here were a few of the bullets: I wanted to lead I wanted to speak publicly on the industry I wanted to drive strategic initiatives I wanted a public presence I wanted a huge network, so that wherever I went, I had friends Still working on a few of these, but I've been able to and continue to accomplish these. For those who haven't- start to map out the things you want to do. Remove title, compensation, orgs from it, and simply focus on how your time will be spent. Chart your destiny #strongestmaninlogistics