I always look forward to reading Entrepreneur magazine’s, Jason Feifer’s Editor’s Note. His message always reminds me of how exciting being an editor can be, but he also has interesting takes on what happens to him and how he decides what he is going to write about in that week’s note. In the November 2017 issue which features 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs of 2017, he writes about taking risks which landed him his present role.
Jason was a small town newspaper reporter in Massachusetts writing about minor crimes and he says it was really depressing. He saw no future there.
What he really wanted was to be a magazine editor in a big city and it was a role in the industry that no one would ever consider him being qualified for so he started pitching freelance stories to magazines hoping to improve himself.
He talks about pitching articles and writing them after work. He found out that an editor of one of the magazines he wrote for was leaving. He took the risk; he got himself an apartment in that city and told the publishers that he wanted the editor’s job. A few months later he got the job.
Reading his story reminded me of when I became the Managing Editor of SHE Caribbean magazine. I remember at a meeting with the publisher to discuss something entirely different, I said that my ideal job would be to be the editor of SHE magazine; at the time I was a feature writer. I think my boldness shocked her. When the editor left, I was offered the job.
Jason stated that every entrepreneur has a story like this. “When we take a risk we separate ourselves from the safe and steady path. We shift more burden onto our shoulders willing to bet that some combination of skill and instinct will lead to greater rewards. In creating a risk to achieve a vision, we can change the rules and create lives of our own making.”
So as I settle down to read Entrepreneur I’d like you to think about taking a calculated, well planned risk to take with you in 2018. There’s no point remaining in a job or a career that you dislike or feel there is no room for growth without effectively doing something about it.
