Why I’m Qualified
As an aspiring writer, it’s easy to get caught up in the impressive resume that I don’t have. The jobs and experiences that I don’t have.
It creates this tendency to hold something back or to not allow your true self to be revealed. Afterall, you aren’t qualified to write. What experience do you have, writing? What qualifies you to talk about this or that?
But you don’t need an elaborate resume to start doing something. Sure, I would love to be able to say that I had an awesome job working for some publisher and that I grew up in the book business — learning marketing, how a book is published, and how to get noticed.
But I didn’t.
Phil Knight, founder of Nike, went to school to be a CPA. He didn’t know a thing about how to manufacture shoes, design shoes, distribute shoes, etc. He didn’t grow up in the business or have a connection. He just had an idea and a dream.
And so isn’t that what most of us face — who want to accomplish something so audacious. Isn’t it just a dream — without a qualified resume?
We all have a resume, experience, and background. We have all assembled some toolbox of skills through this experience. Most likely more unique than we even realize. It may not sound great on paper, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t enough to work with.
Just like Phil Knight never worked for an athletic apparel company, I’ve never written anything in my life other than papers for High School and College. Nothing published, nothing I’ve been paid for, and nothing noteworthy enough to mention on my “About” page.
It’s easy to do that with all that we do in life. Any new challenge we take on, we don’t always have experience from the past that we can lean on. At least we don’t think we do or it doesn’t sound elaborate.
So while I’ve never been the Marketing Director at a fortune 500 company, earlier investor in any well known start-ups, or worked closely with any household names. I also didn’t go to Stanford, Yale, or Harvard.
And that’s ok.
It doesn’t mean that I haven’t read books that affected me, worked in jobs that I hated, gone through struggles that I wouldn’t wish on my enemy, failed so many times I lost track, been broke, been depressed, and all the while wondered what was next.
Through it all I’ve had to learn, endure, make adjustments, change my mindset, grow as a person, learn new habits, break the bad ones, and keep going. It’s taught me how to handle difficult people and difficult situations, how to find internal drive, what really motivates me, what’s really important to me, what really matters in the end, and how to go about creating the life I really want.
And I’m not even close to being done. I’m not a finished product. I never will be. It’s a journey and it’s in this journey that qualifies me plenty to go ahead and start writing.
I will create my resume. Because I do have the one I need, and that’s all I need to start.
Maybe 5 years from now my “About” page will have a list of articles, accomplishments, and books that I’ve written and published. That’s the goal, that’s the dream. But today, I’m just writing about what I know. Which might not be much, but I’m qualified to talk about it.
