Navigating Intersections
The Field Review: TFR-056
If we’re being honest, I feel like I’ve been going through the motions with the last few issues of The Field Review since the one year anniversary issue.
To be fair, we’re in the doldrums of spring. Turkey season is over. Still a little too early to put up my whitetail cameras. Football season seems lightyears away. I’ve been filling the gaps between work and sleep with golf, nursery building and YouTube.
Like many of my fellow Gen Z and Millennial males, YouTube is by FAR my most used app. I use it for everything from learning paintless dent repair to watching old AC/DC concerts from before I was born. Despite my seemingly endless battle with my own consumption, I often learn a lot from my YouTube rabbit holes which makes me feel less bad about returning to see my digital content dealer daily.
One of my recent gold nuggets came from a conversation between two entities I never thought would cross paths. A conversation between former NFL players Taylor Lewan and Will Compton of Bussin’ With The Boys, and Steven Rinella of MeatEater. They’ve done a few media collabs together, but a few months ago Steve took the boys out on a coyote hunt before sitting down for a podcast episode to discuss everything from trapping to entrepreneurship.
Regardless of whether you like sports, the outdoors, or professional development, I recommend listening. I’ve never seen a cleaner transition from discussing the demeanor of black bears and grizzly bears to the current state of media than in this episode.
Imaginary “T” Intersections
In the midst of this conversation about Steve’s career journey, he summarizes the steps that led him from trapping to writing to developing the MeatEater media network.
“I’ve never been in a situation where it felt like I arrived at a T in the road, like a clean T, where you have to decide you’re going to turn 90 degrees right, or 90 degrees left. I’ve never hit that professionally. Every junction I’ve ever come to has been at an angle that’s the obvious angle. Or there’s a little shitty dirt road off to the side, and I’ve always been just like ‘well, I’m going to take the one that’s beaten down’. I’ve never had some moment where I’m like ‘do I do this, or do this’, because they’re equally tantalizing. It’s always been like, well right now for me the clear option is to go that way”.
If you’ve been around to remember one of my favorite issues, Following Forgotten Footsteps, you might remember that I fully credit Steve for opening my eyes to the world of hunting and fishing during the pandemic.
Like then, he provided a fresh and easily relatable perspective on career progression that had a different ring to it than what I usually hear from other career development wizards, gurus and shamans.
As a late twenty-something, career advice has traditionally fallen into one of two categories separated by an Everest-sized chasm. You either ‘climb the ladder’ or ‘take the road less traveled’. I think this is why so many people my age feel like our only options are to either burn yourself out starting your own business from scratch or waste your life in a dead-end corporate job. No in between.
If you’re doing one, you’ll always wish you had done the other.
Take the Obvious Road
In my career (and honestly my life in general) I have not come across many T intersections either. In most cases, like Steve, there’s been an obvious decision to be made. When the road stops, there’s a diving board with no line clearly waiting to be jumped off into the next pool.
Only once in my career has there been a tough choice. Officially leaving that job was difficult because it was in the field I love and I developed lifelong friendships there, but the decision to jump off the burning Titanic was obvious, so I jumped.
A similar series of decisions and choices has led me to where I am today both at work and in life. I asked the girl who laughed at my jokes to homecoming. I chose THE Ohio State University over the others. I applied for the job at the newspaper. I took an internship that I had no business taking but got my foot in the door. I married that homecoming date. I chose THE Ohio State University again. We bought a house and now we’re close to meeting our first child.
There weren’t very many intersections, just good decisions made along the way.
“Robert Frost was right, taking the road less traveled can make all the difference. But that road isn’t necessarily the road with the least traffic. It may be the road that we, personally, have traveled less”.
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY
GREENLIGHTS
You should know by now that I don’t like giving unsolicited advice.
But I think of this less as giving advice, and more of passing what I heard from someone else to you, especially if you currently find yourself in that chasm between climbing the ladder and scratching out a viable business.
Keep walking. And keep your eyes open.
The only bad decision is to stop walking or to close your eyes. Stagnation kills.
It doesn’t matter what road, highway or shitty dirt trail you’re currently on. At some point, an opportunity will present itself. It could be a promotion at your current job. It could just as easily be a demotion that tells you it’s time to look for something else. It could be a lifeline. It could be a diving board in the middle of the woods. It could be a chance to throw someone else a lifeline. It might be an opportunity to be mentored, or to BE a mentor to someone walking the path behind you.
You’ll know it when you see it, and when you see it, take it.
From My Desk:
What I’m Thinking/ Doing: We took a visit to our local PGA Tour event yesterday, the Memorial Tournament hosted at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio. When I grow up, I want to be Scottie Scheffler.
On a related note, I’ve been working closely with my cousin to develop a new brand, IVORY CLUB. We’re building some great content around the overlooked details of living a life well lived. That content includes our new newsletter here on Substack, The Grain. This paid-first newsletter will be published primarily for current club members, but our first publicly available issue will be published this week.
On Deck for Monday: Standard week ahead. Stability was one of the reasons I jumped off the Titanic. Thankfully for my divergent mind, stability does not equal regularity or repetitiveness. Most days are different, and different is good. It’s hard to get stagnant when clients ask different questions daily. Some days I feel like I’m putting my brain in a pencil sharpener, but I’d rather it be sharp than dull.
From The Field Review Archives:
The Field Review is a space for exploring the intersection of work, life, and the great outdoors. It’s about figuring ‘it’ out—whatever your ‘it’ might be.
Every Sunday at 10AM EST, I share ideas, insights, and conversations that help break through the noise, offering a real look at how we can all keep moving forward.
If you have any thoughts, questions, or topics you'd like me to explore in future newsletters, feel free to reach out!
Venture Onward,
Jack
I say put the game cameras up now 😊. Never too early