Flipping Careers 2

According to the writing and wisdom of William Shakespeare who knew a thing or two about career development, assuming of course that he was a real person and not a collection of Martians, greatness can be achieved in three ways; we can be born to greatness, we can achieve greatness or we can have greatness thrust upon us.

I subscribe to that particular simplification and it is at the root of my FLIP theory. 

Born to greatness suggests the influence of Family.

Greatness by thrust suggests the power of Luck.

Achieving greatness suggests, Intelligence, and Personality.

Thus we arrive at FLIP.

I confess that I believe that Luck is the most important factor but I place it a close second in my model because why say LFIP when you can say FLIP and still be pretty damned close.

The question about the significance of luck versus family revolves around the most basic of questions.....wasn't it luck that put us into our families in the first place? Look at the odds....our fathers meeting our mothers....the two of them falling in love or something resembling it....one of thousands if not of sperms connecting with one of a hundred eggs...well you get the picture.

Not to mention our grandfathers meeting our grandmothers efc.

Lots of luck involved in the concept of family so Yeah, I guess career development begins way, way back pre-natal  but for the sake of argument let's start it with our actual birth to actual parents and lets call that family. Our parents had parents and brothers and sisters and they're in our family as well. When we arrived, the whole family changed. In my case for one example, my grandmothers became grandmothers for the first time and my aunts and uncles became aunts and uncles for the first time which officially tied my mother to my father's father and my father's brother to my mothers sister.

In other words, everybody is born into a different family. I was an only child for six years. I have no idea what it's like to have a big brother or sister. My brother had to deal with having an older brother. My sister had two pain in the ass older brothers that she had to deal with. We all three had the same parents but our family structure continually changed.  Fortunately for all of us, our parents survived it all and provided us with a happy, middle class childhood. They were loving, supportive and were always able to push through obstacles with hope and bravery.

Middle class yup.

All of us are still middle class.

Upward mobility in America is uncommon as only about 16% of the folks raised in the middle class break through into the upper third.

84% stay where they were or drop to the lower level.

That's cool with most of us.

Or is it?

Maybe it's how we've been conditioned throughout our lives we are, after all, terminal products of our environment and our conditioning both of which are influenced by FLIP.

On the other hand, an even smaller percentage of folks move from the bottom third to the middle third and a miniscule percentage from the bottom to the top.

Some people call it a caste system disguised as a democracy but this isn't about politics even though politics is an undeniable element in career development and must be soberly considered.

Unless the hell with it, let's get drunk and forget all this shit for awhile cuz there's nothing we can do about it anyway our die is cast and has been from the first twinkle to the latest wrinkle. Almost everything that I'm saying or about to say has been cried into countless beers....the unfairness of it all God Damn it.

Ya wanna be a ballplayer? Guess what the highest percentage of players in the major leagues are the children of professional ball players...a whopping 16%.

The odds of a normal middle class guy are about one out of 500,00 which is only slightly worse than my odds of winning the lottery. 

26 percent of the children of lawyers become lawyers.

22 percent of the children of MDs become MDs.

Children of college graduates are more likely to graduate from college than children of parents who didn't attend college.

Children of an incarcerated parent have are much more likely to be incarcerated than if their parent hadn't been locked up.

Children of rich parents are more likely to have less money worries and more opportunities than children of less rich parents and a universe away from the financially disabled.

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm Captain Obvious.

It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it.

Stay tuned for more if I feel like it and if it's not too much effort.

We've got a long, long way to go.