INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS: I still haven't “made it”

This morning I dropped my furry best friend off for surgery. Thirteen years together, and suddenly the career stuff doesn't matter the way I thought it did.

For over twenty years I've been chasing it, the bigger role, the successful business, the financial breakthrough. I’ve worked with a lot of companies, started several of my own, and failed a lot. There's always this constant whisper that I should be further along. It can be frustrating not seeing the progress stack up equal to the work you’re putting in.

Sitting in that parking lot, I realized I've been afraid of the wrong things.

Nothing worth having comes easy. This fuzzy little monster took forever to train, work through the rough patches, to the point where now we read each other like a book.

And now 13 years later, with the real possibility of losing him, every frustrated career moment, every time I thought I hadn't made it, fades into the background.

I don't have the formula for success. Can't tell you when you've made it, or how to get there.

What I can say for sure is, make sure you're pushing toward the things that actually break you if you lose them. Everything else is just noise.

I haven't made it…yet.

But at least I'm clear on what I'm fighting for. And I’ll never stop trying.