Defining the Moments That Steer Your Career

There are no magic blueprints to finding your way in life. Every success story is a unique journey unto itself. However, there are some motifs that I frequently see in self-actualized and successful people. I want to talk to you about one of these motifs: defining moments.

People who are enthusiastic about their careers often reflect on the defining moments that helped steer them in the right direction. In the thick of life, these moments can be difficult to identify. Later, they often take on a radiant glow. As you become more experienced in your travels, your ability to anticipate these moments becomes almost instinctual. In fact, some people become skilled at anticipating them with considerable accuracy.

In the career development business, we are constantly brainstorming ways to help young people become acutely aware of these moments. One method is to study them in the careers of others.

As you become more experienced, your ability to anticipate the defining moments in your career will become almost instinctual.

To provide an example, I decided to draw upon the unique experiences of one of our alumni, Beata Moon, a pianist, composer, media personality, arts advocate, and entrepreneur who earned a bachelor's degree in piano in 1990. The story begins when I turned on the television a few years ago and saw her hosting a music program on WNYE. It's always a pleasant surprise to see a familiar face from Juilliard, either in print or on a broadcast.

Watching Beata, I was struck by her confidence and poise. I recalled that she had been an introspective and quiet student at Juilliard; the person I was confronted with on the TV was somehow different. Her engaging manner invited people to listen to what she was saying. Here was someone making a difference in the arts—and she was doing it through communicative talents other than piano performance.

A few months later, I received a copy of her first CD. That she was still actively engaged in performing was a pleasant surprise—but imagine my amazement when I realized that the CD was of her original compositions! Here she was, fully engaged in three career roles: composer, performer, and media personality. Now I was intrigued, and decided to contact her.

This past summer, we exchanged e-mails about her life and work. Beata agreed to allow me to post some of her "moments" in the context of this article, in order to illuminate how life has a way of revealing our true paths, if we are sensitive enough to pay attention to the road signs.

Three themes proved to be major career-shapers in Beata's life: the value of openness; becoming assertive in meeting people; and overcoming fears of failure or rejection. The value of both openness and assertiveness became apparent only later in life, when she joined the Asian Women in Business and attended one of their networking functions on Asians in the media. At a cocktail hour, she approached some strangers and introduced herself. "One of them happened to be the general manager of WNYE at that time," she noted. "I told him, if he ever needed a music person, to please keep me in mind. He gave me his card and said to call him. I followed up, and he had me come for an interview and a test taping. I had no idea that this opportunity would come about from that meeting. I wasn't even looking into being a TV host!"

Being open to new experiences and asserting oneself aren't easy for many people. Some of the difficulty is attributed to cultural values that frown upon overly assertive people. But it is an essential skill in career development. Beata credits the Liberal Arts Department at Juilliard with fostering this trait. "I definitely felt that my mind and thinking opened a lot, as a result of the liberal arts classes I took at Juilliard," she said "Dr. [Peter] Rojcewicz always had his door open, and he would listen to my concerns and uncertainties. He validated my feelings, and I give him credit for steering me in the right direction—meaning that he encouraged me to find myself and my voice."

It was this encouragement that enabled Beata to think more openly about job opportunities. In her last year at Juilliard, she spotted a notice on the Career Development bulletin board for an opening for a pianist-improviser for dance classes. "Believe it or not, I had never improvised a note in my entire life until I went down to Mary Anthony Studios to inquire about the position. She accepted me, and I learned to improvise by watching the movements of the modern dancers."

She was also inspired to take dance lessons—another moment of openness—which led to a deeper understanding of and interest in the relationship between dance and music. It wasn't long before this led to a collaboration (again, through her assertiveness in meeting people) with another Juilliard graduate: Henning Rubsam, director of Sensedance, who asked her to write a piece for him. "The experience was so gratifying that we continued to collaborate with one another over the years."

Fear of failure often surfaces when talking about openness to new experiences. In fact, it is the largest inhibitor. I asked Beata how she managed to deal with the occasional but inevitable failure, and she shared a personal experience of losing a major competition at Juilliard that later proved to be a catalyst in her quest to overcome this fear. With so much of her self-esteem predicated on how she played the piano, this loss delivered a devastating blow—but she resolved not to let this moment rule her life.

Today, Beata sees her desire to overcome fear of failure or rejection as an essential skill. When she needed to raise money for her first recording project, she was afraid no one would respond to her letters of inquiry. "I started with one letter to one person asking for help to cover costs of the mailing," she recalled. "When that person responded favorably, it made me more confident to proceed. I was amazed and grateful at the responses I got for my CD—I felt like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, when all his old friends gave him money!"

If you think carefully about your own defining moments, what are the essential skills you took away from them, and how are they helping you today?

Derek Mithaug, director of career development, is a Juilliard faculty member and alumnus.