“If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”
Michael Jordan
CHAPTER 1
Gaps
When I met 24-year-old Sabrina at a fundraising event, she quickly impressed me as being smart, energetic, and confident. As our conversation progressed, she opened up and began sharing her story with me. It started like a classic tale of the American dream. She had been raised by loving Christian parents who were also first-generation immigrants. Her father owned a small business and worked hard to give her everything she needed to succeed in life. Talented and driven, she was a top achiever through high school and inspired her teachers to comment that she would probably end up being the CEO of a company later in life. She studied science in college and graduated with honors. At twenty-two, she landed a summer internship with a leading biotech firm in Boston, and by the fall, she had been hired on to an entry-level position. She was on her way to a successful career in the biotech field.
By the dismissive way that Sabrina narrated these steps of her journey to me, however, I began to suspect that somewhere along the way, her dream job hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. Sure enough, the next part of her story was marked by struggle, frustration, and disappointment. Sabrina explained that her biotech job had required her to put in sixty-plus-hour weeks doing tasks that she felt were repetitive, boring, and lacking in purpose. Her boss was critical, demanding, and totally uninterested in helping her grow and/or feel valued in her role. After making friends with a small group of work colleagues, she soon found their company to be a toxic mix of gossip, complaining, and cutthroat competition. Within a year, the honeymoon was completely over and Sabrina felt disillusioned and lost. The passion she had carried to work in biotech was gone, and she began to believe she was entirely on the wrong career path. Why continue to pour out her life in a job where there was no camaraderie or support, no sense of connection to a noble mission, and no clear path to promotion