Incognito mentorship

If you are here, then you’ve likely made it past the breakwaters of your career. Those early years can be profoundly exhilarating. Every day is a challenge, and every challenge is novel. Learning dogs your every step. How could it not? When you know next to nothing, it’s either grow or fail.

But here you are, past the treacherous, rocky beginnings. Your comfortable, routine competence gets you through each humdrum challenge. You face vast stretches of career that can be met with little more than what you already have.

And therein lies the threat. The valuable skills that you lack are at the vital margins of your career, but your comfort zone is large enough now that you are no longer pressed toward those margins.

And so, Katrina Owen argues, you must design your own crucible.