I was having dinner with some friends recently and we started talking about ‘Parkour’, although none of us could remember what it was called and I knew it was or sounded like ‘Parkay’ ….I was close right? Anyway, resolved to save face and not be completely off base, I did a little digging and found a lot more than I was looking for, and if I had cable I would have seen this a lot sooner, as it is I’m going with the ‘better late than never’ motto. At this point you may be wondering how this conversation has anything to do with careers, well my friends it does. One thing can lead to another and you never know what you may find on Google AND lessons about careers can be found every where you look. Now, I’m going to take this moment to illustrate but first I’d like to thank Emma from the University of Washington for having a great sense of humor and great insight, which I will now share with you…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVPyOL5EK-4
So what can we learn from Andy, Dwight and Michael’s potentially-misguided foray into the world of Parkour?
1. Guys and gals who really pursue parkour are passionate and dedicated about their craft, and also happen to be awesome. Case in point? Tyson Cecka, profiled as part of our MyStory campaign, who not only pursued a Computer Science degree, but pursued hopping, scaling and flying across various parts of campus as an active parkour aficionado.
2. It is important to remain adventurous. This is true in life, love, fun AND career. So maybe I wouldn’t advocate spending work hours jumping into refrigerator boxes from the top of a freight truck. But what I WOULD advocate is exploring new projects, new client relationships, new marketing strategies – keeping the work you do exciting, and pushing yourself and your company/organization/career forward.
3. Get outside. If you were a kid who played a lot of video games and loved every second of it, you might have resented being told this. But here’s the deal – a lot of us are working harder, longer and with fewer benefits these days. That combination makes it all the more important that we get out of the office and pursue things we love (or at least enjoy)
The original post appeared on the Husky Career Blog on September 25, 2009 by Emma; you can find the full, original posting here